Subjugating and exploiting the second-class population of the ancient Israelite state : the case of forced labour (מַס) in light of the population economy of ancient Israel

Abstract

The so-called “forced labour” or “corvée labour” (מַס ) is a common and widespread institution of the ancient Near East. The Old Testament narratives of the early kingdom extensively refer to the same institution and describe it as a conventional tool of the king to maintain large-scale building projects by imposing forced labour on the subjects, both citizens and strangers alike. However, the biblical accounts related to forced labour witness that the nature and the amount of forced labour extremely hardens when it is imposed on the second-class population of the early Israelite monarchy: 1) second-class citizens (northern Israelites); 2) semi-assimilated residents (גֵּרִים ); or 3) non-assimilated strangers (native Canaanites, i.e. נָכְרִים , זָרִים ). Although there are detailed studies which treat the topic of forced labour in its ancient Near Eastern and ancient Israelite contexts, yet a study of מַס in the Old Testament concerning the above-mentioned population economy is a somewhat neglected angle of the field.