When a father or mother became poor, their creditor could take their children for servants.

Thus you read: 'Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha saying, Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord; and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen.' This was according to the law of Moses, in the twenty-fifth of Leviticus; 'bondmen,' however, meaning here a servant for a term of years.

See also the New Testament parable of the unforgiving servant.
"This was hard, it will seem to you and to all of us, that if one became poor in Israel, his children could be attached.

Thus the idea of involuntary servitude, where no crime was, prevailed in the Theocracy.
"But we come now to something which draws harder upon our faith.
"We find the Most High prescribing, Exodus xxi.

20, 21, that a master who kills his servant under chastisement shall be punished (but not put to death); and if the servant survives a day or two, the master shall not even be 'punished' for the death of his slave! "The reason which the Most High gives is this: '_For he is his money_'! "A human being, 'money'! An immortal soul, 'money'! God's image, 'money'! And this the reasoning, these the very words of my Maker! Is it not astonishing, if your principles are correct, that there has been no controversy for ages against this?
and that the Bible, with such passages in it should have retained its hold on the human mind?
'He is his money'! It would have been no different had it read: 'He is his cotton.' You see that the Most High recognized 'ownership,' 'property in man.' Why is it said, 'He is his money'?
Poole (Synopsis) says,--'that is, his possession bought with money; and therefore 1.