He had his ears bored

I’m reading The Underground Railroad by Coleson Whitehead. Early in the first chapter he writes:

“Her last husband had his ears bored for stealing honey. The wounds gave up pus until he wasted away.”

What does it mean that he had his ears bored?

Per OED ('bore', verb sense 1a, "pierce, perforate") the obsolete sense 1c(a) of "to bore (any one's) ears (in allusion to Exodus xxi. 6)" means "to consign to perpetual slavery". The use is attested in OED from 1641 and 1665.

An earlier use (1602) in this sense (1c), with direct reference to Exodus, is this from Syn theōi en christōi the anvvere to the preface of the Rhemish Testament, by Thomas Cartwright:

So that if as Dauid by Christ, so Christ for Dauid, muste bring not a legall sacrifice, but his ears bored through, that is, a bodie obedient vnto the death…