“ ‘If your brother has grown poor among you, and sells himself to you, you shall not make him to serve as a slave. As a hired servant, and as a temporary resident, he shall be with you; he shall serve with you until the Year of Jubilee. Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and shall return to his own family, and to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him with harshness, but shall fear your God.
“ ‘As for your male and your female slaves, whom you may have from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves. Moreover, of the children of the aliens who live among you, of them you may buy, and of their families who are with you, which they have conceived in your land; and they will be your property. You may make them an inheritance for your children after you, to hold for a possession. Of them you may take your slaves forever, but over your brothers the children of Israel you shall not rule, one over another, with harshness.
“ ‘If an alien or temporary resident with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him has grown poor, and sells himself to the stranger or foreigner living among you, or to a member of the stranger’s family, after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him; or his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any who is a close relative to him of his family may redeem him; or if he has grown rich, he may redeem himself. He shall reckon with him who bought him from the year that he sold himself to him to the Year of Jubilee. The price of his sale shall be according to the number of years; he shall be with him according to the time of a hired servant. If there are yet many years, according to them he shall give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for. If there remain but a few years to the year of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him; according to his years of service he shall give back the price of his redemption. As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him. He shall not rule with harshness over him in your sight. If he isn’t redeemed by these means, then he shall be released in the Year of Jubilee: he and his children with him. For to me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv42, 45, 47, 49, 50, 53 Unto perpetual servitude.
Unto perpetual servitude.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv39, 41, 43, 44, 46 Lev 25:39 And if thy brother [that dwelleth] by…
Lev 25:39 And if thy brother [that dwelleth] by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant:
Ver. 39. Thou shalt not compel him.] To serve for ever, nor use him basely and hardly meanwhiles.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv39, 41, 42, 43, 47, 50, 53 Neither for the time, for ever, nor for the…
Neither for the time, for ever, nor for the manner, with the hardest and vilest kinds of service, rigorously and severely exacted from him.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v39 We have here the laws concerning servitude, designed to…
We have here the laws concerning servitude, designed to preserve the honour of the Jewish nation as a free people, and rescued by a divine power out of the house of bondage, into the glorious liberty of God's sons, his first-born. Now the law is,
I. That a native Israelite should never be made a bondman for perpetuity. If he was sold for debt, or for a crime, by the house of judgment, he was to serve but six years, and to go out the seventh; this was appointed, Exo 21:2. But if he sold himself through extreme poverty, having nothing at all left him to preserve his life, and if it was to one of his own nation that he sold himself, in such a case it is here provided, 1. That he should not serve as a bond-servant (Lev 25:39), nor be sold with the sale of a bondman (Lev 25:42); that is, "it must not be looked upon that his master that bought him had as absolute a property in him as in a captive taken in war, that might be used, sold, and bequeathed, at pleasure, as much as a man's cattle; no, he shall serve thee as a hired servant, whom the master has the use of only, but not a despotic power over." And the reason is, They are my servants, Lev 25:42. God does not make his servants slaves, and therefore their brethren must not. God had redeemed them out of Egypt, and therefore they must never be exposed to sale as bondmen. The apostle applies this spiritually (Co1 7:23), You are bought with a price, be not the servants of men, that is, "of the lusts of men, no, nor of your own lusts;" for, having become the servants of God, we must not let sin reign in our mortal bodies, Rom 6:12, Rom 6:22. 2. That while he did serve he should not be ruled with rigour, as the Israelites were in Egypt, Lev 25:43. Both his work and his usage must be such as were fitting for a son of Abraham. Masters are still required to give to their servants that which is just and equal, Col 4:1. They may be used, but must not be abused. Those masters that are always hectoring and domineering over their servants, taunting them and trampling upon them, that are unreasonable in exacting work and giving rebukes, and that rule them with a high hand, forget that their Master is in heaven; and what will they do when he rises up? as holy Job reasons with himself, Job 31:13, Job 31:14. 3. That at the year of jubilee he should go out free, he and his children, and should return to his own family, Lev 25:41. This typified our redemption from the service of sin and Satan by the grace of God in Christ, whose truth makes us free, Joh 7:32. The Jewish writers say that, for ten days before the jubilee-trumpet sounded, the servants that were to be discharged by it did express their great joy by feasting, and wearing garlands on their heads: it is therefore called the joyful sound, Psa 89:15. And we are thus to rejoice in the liberty we have by Christ.
Read full note →
II. That they might purchase bondmen of the heathen nations that were round about them, or of those strangers that sojourned among them (except of those seven nations that were to be destroyed); and might claim a dominion over them, and entail them upon their families as an inheritance, for the year of jubilee should give no discharge to them, Lev 25:44, Lev 25:46. Thus in our English plantations the negroes only are used as slaves; how much to the credit of Christianity I shall not say. Now, 1. This authority which they had over the bondmen whom they purchased from the neighbouring nations was in pursuance of the blessing of Jacob, Gen 27:29, Let people serve thee. 2. It prefigured the bringing in of the Gentiles to the service of Christ and his church. Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thy inheritance, Psa 2:8. And it is promised (Isa 61:5), Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your vine-dressers; see Rev 2:26, Rev 2:27. The upright shall have the dominion in the morning, Psa 49:14. 3. It intimates that none shall have the benefit of the gospel jubilee but those only that are Israelites indeed, and the children of Abraham by faith: as for those that continue heathenish, they continue bondmen. See this turned upon the unbelieving Jews themselves, Gal 4:25, where Jerusalem, when she had rejected Christ, is said to be in bondage with her children. Let me only add here that, though they are not forbidden to rule their bondmen with rigour, yet the Jewish doctors say, "It is the property of mercy, and way of wisdom, that a man should be compassionate, and not make his yoke heavy upon any servant that he has."
III. That if an Israelite sold himself for a servant to a wealthy proselyte that sojourned among them care should be taken that he should have the same advantages as if he had sold himself to an Israelite, and in some respects greater. 1. That he should not serve as a bondman, but as a hired servant, and not to be ruled with rigour (Lev 25:53), in thy sight, which intimated that the Jewish magistrates should particularly have an eye to him, and, if he were abused, should take cognizance of it, and redress his grievances, though the injured servant did not himself complain. Also he was to go free at the year of jubilee, Lev 25:54. Though the sons of strangers might serve them for ever, yet the sons of Israel might not serve strangers for ever; yet the servant here, having made himself a slave by his own act and deed, should not go out in the seventh year of release, but in the jubilee only. 2. That he should have this further advantage that he might be redeemed again before the year of jubilee, Lev 25:48, Lev 25:49. He that had sold himself to an Israelite might, if ever he was able, redeem himself, but his relations had no right to redeem him. "But if a man sold himself to a stranger," the Jews say, "his relations were urged to redeem him; if they did not, it was fit that he should be redeemed at the public charge," which we find done, Neh 5:8. The price of his ransom was to be computed according to the prospect of the year of jubilee (Lev 25:50-52), as in the redemption of land, Lev 25:15, Lev 25:16. The learned bishop Patrick quotes one of the Jewish rabbin for an evangelical exposition of that appointment (Lev 25:48), One of his brethren shall redeem him. "This Redeemer," says the rabbi, "is the Messiah, the Son of David." They expected this Messiah to be their Redeemer out of their captivity, and to restore them to their own land again; but we welcome him as the Redeemer who shall come to Zion, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, for he shall save his people from their sins; and under this notion there were those that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv39–55 And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be…
And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor,.... The above laws and instructions seem designed to prevent such extreme poverty as obliged to what follows, namely, a brother being sold either to an Israelite or to a stranger, by relieving his wants or lending him money; but when these were insufficient to support him, and keep him from sinking into the lowest state of distress and misery, then he was obliged to be sold, as follows:
and be sold unto thee; either by himself, being ready to starve and perish, or by the sanhedrim, having stolen something, as Aben Ezra observes; in such a case the civil magistrate had a power of selling a man, Exo 22:3,
Read full note →
thou shall not compel him to serve as a bondservant; such as were Heathens, and bought of them, or taken in war and made slaves of; but an Israelite sold was not to serve as they, either with respect to matter or manner, or time of service; such as were bondmen were put to the hardest service, the greatest drudgery, as well as what was mean and reproachful, and were used in the most rigorous and despotic manner, and were obliged to serve for ever, and were never released; but a brother, an Israelite, sold to another through extreme poverty, was not to be put to any low, mean, base, and disgraceful service, by which it would be known that he was a servant, as Jarchi notes; such as to carry his master's vessels or instruments after him to the bath, or to unloose his shoes; but, as the same writer observes, he was to be employed in the business of the farm, or in some handicraft work, and was to be kindly and gently used, rather as a brother than a servant, and to be freed in the year of jubilee.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv39, 41, 42, 43, 47, 50, 53 As a bond-man - Neither for the time, forever,…
As a bond-man - Neither for the time, forever, nor for the manner, with the hardest and vilest kinds of service, rigorously and severely exacted.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv42, 43, 50, 55 Verse 42. For they are my servants] As God…
Verse 42. For they are my servants] As God redeemed every Israelite out of Egyptian bondage, they were therefore to consider themselves as his property, and that consequently they should not alienate themselves from him. It was in being his servants, and devoted to his work, that both their religious and political service consisted. And although their political liberty might be lost, they knew that their spiritual liberty never could be forfeited except by an utter alienation from God. God therefore claims the same right to their persons which he does to their lands; See Clarke on Le 25:23.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv39, 41, 47, 50, 53 Lev 25:39. To serve as a bond-servant — Neither…
Lev 25:39. To serve as a bond-servant — Neither for the time, for ever, nor for the manner, with the hardest and vilest kinds of service, rigorously and severely exacted.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv39, 43, 44, 47 The law here appears harmoniously to supplement the earlier…
The law here appears harmoniously to supplement the earlier one in Exo 21:1-6. It was another check applied periodically to the tyranny of the rich. Compare Jer 34:8-17.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv40, 43, 45, 47, 49, 53 Hireling, who has engaged to work for a term…
Hireling, who has engaged to work for a term of years, either of six, or at most 49. After the year of the jubilee, he might enter into fresh engagements with his late master. (Haydock) --- The Hebrews have always hated slavery. We have never been slaves to any, John viii. 33. They were not allowed to part with their liberty, except from absolute distress; (Maimonides) and then they do not submit to what they call intrinsical slavery. --- [Ver. 41.] Children. His wife and children were not made slaves of him. But if his master gave him a second wife, her children belonged to their common master. (Selden, Jur. vi. 1.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On v39 if thy brother . . . be waxen poor,…
if thy brother . . . be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant--An Israelite might be compelled, through misfortune, not only to mortgage his inheritance, but himself. In the event of his being reduced to this distress, he was to be treated not as a slave, but a hired servant whose engagement was temporary, and who might, through the friendly aid of a relative, be redeemed at any time before the Jubilee. The ransom money was determined on a most equitable principle. Taking account of the number of years from the proposal to redeem and the Jubilee, of the current wages of labor for that time, and multiplying the remaining years by that sum, the amount was to be paid to the master for his redemption. But if no such friendly interposition was made for a Hebrew slave, he continued in servitude till the year of Jubilee, when, as a matter of course, he regained his liberty, as well as his inheritance. Viewed in the various aspects in which it is presented in this chapter, the Jubilee was an admirable institution, and subservient in an eminent degree to uphold the interests of religion, social order, and freedom among the Israelites.
Next: Leviticus Chapter 26
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53, 54, 55 39. Be sold — This is more correctly rendered…
39. Be sold — This is more correctly rendered reflexively, SELL HIMSELF. Ewald maintains that the reflexive and not the passive was the primary force of the niphal form of the Hebrew. See Gesen. Thes., p. 787. There is granted here no authority for the creditor to seize the debtor and sell him into slavery. He may enter into voluntary servitude under the pressure of poverty, but not of debt. The instances in 2Ki_4:1 and Neh_5:5 were outrages of the Mosaic law, and the case in Mat_18:25 is a parable founded on Roman usages. Isa_50:1, applies to one already a slave. The only cases of the legal involuntary sale of a Hebrew are for theft, (Exo_22:1; Exo_22:3,) and of a daughter for the matrimonial estate. Exo_21:7-11. According to Jewish writers, it was not lawful for a Hebrew to sell himself except in extreme poverty.
Says Maimonides: “A man might not sell himself to lay up the money which was given for him; nor to buy goods, nor to pay his debts, but merely that he might get bread to eat. Neither was it lawful for him to sell himself as long as he had so much as a garment left.”
Read full note →
Bondservant — The Hebrew is, thou shalt not impose upon him the service of a servant. This language has no word to signify distinctively what we mean by slave, bondman, or bondservant. Many glaring misstatements have proceeded from the false assumption that all the servitude in the Old Testament was slavery, and that the word עבד, servant, wherever it occurs, means slave. It is to be regretted that our English translators did not use the term apprenticed servant of all work as distinctive from the servant, like a mechanic hired to do specific work by the day or year. The Israelites were oppressed servants in Egypt, but never bondmen or slaves, the property of the Egyptians. The Septuagint frequently and more accurately uses παις where the English Version uses bondman. The poor Hebrew who contracted to serve until the jubilee must be exempted from the rough work of the apprenticed non-Hebrew servant of all work. In Exo_21:2; Deu_15:12, the Hebrew servant is to go out free after serving six years, while in Leviticus he is to serve till the year of jubilee. These apparent discrepancies harmonize in this way, “His servitude would cease at the end of the six years or at the end of the jubilee period, whichever was nearest. For example, a man sold under ordinary circumstances must serve six full years; but a man sold in the forty-sixth, would go out in the fiftieth year of the jubilee period, thus serving less than six years’ time.” — Haley. This is the rabbinic view. We cannot agree with Ewald and others that we have here legal provisions of different dates; that after emancipation in the seventh year had fallen out of use through the avarice of the masters, the later legislation in the interest of the oppressor extended the service to the fiftieth year; “which would indeed,” says Oehler, “have been a very sorry surrogate, since numberless servants did not survive to the year of jubilee.” The first legislation in Exodus harmonizes with the last in Deuteronomy, both limiting the service to six years. Saalschutz, who thinks “this is getting over the difficulty in a superficial way,” harmonizes the discrepancy in these two classes of laws by “the pretty clear intimations contained in them that they treat of entirely different classes of persons.” 1.) Hebrew servants born in a state of servitude. 2.) Impoverished Israelites, free landholders, who are never called servants, but brethren. See Lev_25:39; Lev_25:47. These, having sold their lands till the jubilee, are allowed, as a favour to them, to borrow money on the pledge of a long term of service, extending to the jubilee. But in the case of the purchase of a servant already in bondage, on the contrary, his master set his price in view of the requirement to release him at the end of six years. See Bib. Sac., Jan., 1862.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv39, 47, 48, 53, 55 39–46. Prohibition of permanent servitude of one Israelite to…
39–46. Prohibition of permanent servitude of one Israelite to another (H and P mixed, the former probably preponderating)
This case was to be subject to the operation of the law of Jubile, Moreover, the Israelite so bought shall not be compelled to work as a slave, but only under such conditions as befit a sojourner or hired servant. Lev_25:42 adds the reason (cp. Lev_25:13; Lev_25:55). On the other hand slaves bought from persons of other nations, or from foreigners sojourning in the land, were to be bondservants in the strictest sense of the word. For the differences between the law on these subjects and that in Exo_21:2 ff.; Deu_15:12-18, see ICC Deut.; p. 185, and Intr. to pent. p. 123.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53, 54, 55 (39) And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee…
(39) And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor.—Better, And if thy brother be waxen poor by thee, that is, after supporting his tottering hand, as prescribed in Lev_25:35-38, and making all the charitable efforts to help him, they fail, and he still finds himself in extreme poverty, and unable to obtain a livelihood.
And be sold unto thee.—The voluntary disposal of his own liberty for a money consideration the Israelite could only effect by stress of poverty.
Read full note →
Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant.—Under these circumstances he is not to be treated like heathen slaves who are either purchased or captured, and made to do the menial service which these Gentile slaves have to perform. The authorities during the second Temple adduce the following as degrading work which the Israelite bondman is not to be put to: He must not attend his master at his bath, nor tie up or undo the latchets of his sandals, &c., &c.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv39, 42, 43, 44, 47 Vers. 39-42. We see the way in which a…
Vers. 39-42. We see the way in which a poor Israelite might become a slave in the case of the sons of the widow whose oil was multiplied by Elisha. "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". (2Ki_4:1) And in the time of Nehemiah, "Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth.... And, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards". (Neh_5:3-5) But the fact that an Israelite could not be kept in slavery for more than six years, (Exo_21:2) and that the period of his service had to be still shorter if the jubilee fell before the seventh year, and the further fact that at the time of the jubilee he would not only he free, but recover any ancestral property that he had forfeited, so that he might become once more on an equality with his master, would have made his position totally different from the hopeless, helpless state of the Greek or Roman slave, even without the positive command that he was to be treated, not as a bondservant: but as an hired servant, and as a sojourner. All alike, master and bondsman, were the slaves of God, and therefore not only were they, so far, on an equality one with another, but the master would be encroaching on the right of God if he claimed God"s slaves for his own inalienably.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v39 If thy brother . . . be sold unto…
Lev_25:39-55
If thy brother . . . be sold unto thee.
Read full note →
Slavery
I. Texts relating to slaves.
1. Called bondmen (Gen_43:18; Gen_44:9).
2. By birth (Gen_14:14; Psa_116:16; Jer_2:14).
3. By purchase (Gen_17:27; Gen_37:36).
4. Sometimes captives taken in war (Deu_20:14; 2Ki_5:2).
5. Strangers, under certain restrictions (Lev_25:45).
6. Foreigners, might be purchased (Lev_25:44).
7. Debtors, liable to be sold (2Ki_4:1; Neh_5:4-5; Mat_18:25).
8. Thieves were sold (Exo_22:3).
9. Israelites to be kindly treated (Lev_25:39-40; Lev_25:46), and to be liberated after six years (Exo_21:2; Deu_15:12); or if they refused to be free, then (Exo_21:5-6; Deu_15:16-17), when sold to foreigners might be redeemed (Lev_25:47-55), or be free at the jubilee (Lev_25:10; Lev_25:40-41; Lev_25:54), but could not demand wife and child procured during bondage (Exo_21:3-4); were to be furnished liberally on regaining liberty (Deu_15:13-14).
10. Foreign slaves to rest on Sabbath (Exo_20:10), to share in national rejoicing (Deu_12:18; Deu_16:11; Deu_16:14).
11. If ill-treated by masters, to be set free (Exo_21:26-27).
12. Laws respecting killing slaves (Exo_21:20-21).
13. If they ran away, not to be delivered up (Deu_23:15).
14. Sometimes rose to rank (Ecc_10:7), and might intermarry with masters family (1Ch_2:34-35).
15. Kidnapping condemned (Exo_21:16; Deu_24:7; 1Ti_1:10).
II. Note on the above texts. Consider--
1. The nature of slavery as practised by the heathen world (the treatment of Israelites by Egyptians).
2. The restraint laid upon these Israelites in their conduct to foreign bondsmen. But for these laws how might these people--who had been slaves of foreigners themselves--have treated foreigners when in their turn they became masters?
3. The relation of Israelitish slaves to Israelitish masters, with their privileges (social and religious), and certain freedom.
4. The causes for which alone they might become slaves.
5. Especially consider that while these laws ameliorated the condition Of slavery as it then existed--eliminating the elements of cruelty, &c., leaving, in fact, nothing of bondage but the name--they paved the way, by the training of justice and mercy, for the total extinction of slavery.
6. Christianity in spirit, precept, and practice against slavery.
(1) Asserts that there is no bond or free, but that all are one in Christ.
(2) Teaches the fraternity of the race. God hath made of one blood, &c. All we are brethren.
(3) Strikingly illustrates this by the case of a runaway slave--Onesimus--whom Paul sent back to his master, whom in some way he had wronged, not as a slave, but as a brother beloved (Philemon). Learn:
1. No warrant for modern slavery in the Word of God (Isa_58:6).
2. Spiritual slavery the worst form (2Ti_2:26).
3. This may be the state of men who are politically free (Joh_8:34; 2Pe_2:19).
4. Jesus the great Emancipator (Joh_8:32-36; Rom_6:18-22; Gal_5:1; 1Pe_2:16). (J. C. Gray.)
.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v39 "And if thy brother be waxen poor with thee,…
THE JUBILEE AND SLAVERY
Lev_25:39-55
Read full note →
"And if thy brother be waxen poor with thee, and sell himself unto thee; thou shalt not make him to serve as a bondservant: as a hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee; he shall serve with thee unto the year of jubilee: then shall he go out from thee, he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. For they are My servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God. And as for thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have; of the nations that are roundabout you, of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they have begotten in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall make them an inheritance for your children after you to hold for a possession; of them shall ye take your bondmen forever: but over your brethren the children of Israel ye shall not rule, one over another, with rigour. And if a stranger or sojourner with thee be waxen rich, and thy brother be waxen poor beside him, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner with thee, or to the stock of the strangers family: after that he is sold he may be redeemed; one of his brethren may redeem him: or his uncle, or his uncles son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be waxen rich, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he sold himself to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years; according to the time of a hired servant shall he be with him. If there be yet many years, according unto them he shall give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for. And if there remain but few years unto the year of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him according unto his years shall he give back the price of his redemption. As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him: he shall not rule with rigour over him in thy sight. And if he be not redeemed by these means then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, he, and his children with him. For unto Me the children of Israel are servants; they are My servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God."
Even with the burdensomeness of debt lightened as above, it was yet possible that a man might be reduced to poverty so extreme that he should feel compelled to sell himself as a slave. Hence arises the question of slavery, and its relation to the law of the jubilee. Under this head two cases were possible: the first, where a man had sold himself to a fellow Hebrew (Lev_25:39-46): the second, where a man had sold himself to a foreigner resident in the land (Lev_25:47-55).
With the Hebrews and all the neighbouring peoples, slavery was, and had been from of old, a settled institution. Regarded simply as an abstract question of morals, it might seem as if the Lord might once for all have abolished it by an absolute prohibition; after the manner in which many modern reformers would deal with such evils as the liquor traffic, etc. But the Lord was wiser than many such. As has been remarked already, in connection with the question of concubinage, that law is not in every case the best which may be the best intrinsically and ideally. That law is the best which can be best enforced in the actual moral status of the people, and consequent condition of public opinion. So the Lord did not at once prohibit slavery; but He ordained laws which would restrict it, and modify and ameliorate the condition of the slave wherever slavery was permitted to exist; laws, moreover, which have had such an educational power as to have banished slavery from the Hebrew people.
In the first place, slavery, in the unqualified sense of the word, is allowed only in the case of non-Israelites. That it was permitted to hold these as bondmen is explicitly declared (Lev_25:44-46). It is, however, important, in order to form a correct idea of Hebrew slavery, to observe that, according Exo_21:16, man stealing was made a capital offence; and the law also carefully guarded from violence and tyranny on the part of the master the non-Israelite slave lawfully gotten, even decreeing his emancipation from his master in extreme cases of this kind. {Exo_21:20-21; Exo_21:26-27}
With regard to the Hebrew bondman, the law recognises no property of the master in his person; that a servant of Jehovah should be a slave of another servant of Jehovah is denied; because they are His servants, no other can own them (Lev_25:42, Lev_25:55). Thus, while the case is supposed (Lev_25:39) that a man through stress of poverty may sell himself to a fellow Hebrew as a bondservant, the sale is held as affecting only the masters right to his service, but not to his person. "Thou shalt not make him to serve as a bondservant: as a hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee."
Further, it is elsewhere provided {Exo_21:2} that in no case shall such sale hold valid for a longer time than six years; in the seventh year the man was to have the privilege of going out free for nothing. And in. this chapter is added a further alleviation of the bondage (Lev_25:40-41):
"He shall serve with thee unto the year of jubilee: then shall he go out from thee, he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. For they are My servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen."
That is, if it so happened that before the six years of his prescribed service had been completed the jubilee year came in, he was to be exempted from the obligation to service for the remainder of that period.
The remaining verses of this part of the law (Lev_25:44-46) provide that the Israelite may take to himself bondmen of "the children of the strangers" that sojourn among them; and that to such the law of the periodic release shall not be held to apply. Such are "bondmen forever." "Ye shall make them an inheritance for your children after you, to hold for a possession; of them shall ye take your bondmen forever."
It is to be borne in mind that even in such cases the law which commanded the kind treatment of all the strangers in the land {Lev_19:33-34} would apply; so that even where permanent slavery was allowed it was placed under humanising restriction.
In Lev_25:47-55 is taken up, finally, the case where a poor Israelite should have sold himself as a slave to a foreigner resident in the land. In all such cases it is ordered that the owner of the man must recognise the right of redemption. That is, it was the privilege of the man himself, or of any of his near kindred, to buy him out of bondage. Compensation to the owner is, however, enjoined in such cases according to the number of the years remaining to the next jubilee, at which time he would be obliged to release him (Lev_25:54), whether redeemed or not. Thus we read (Lev_25:50-52):
"He shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he sold himself to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years; according to the time of a hired servant shall he be with him. If there be yet many years, according unto them he shall give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for. And if there remain but few years unto the year of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him; according unto his years shall he give back the price of his redemption. As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him."
Furthermore, it is commanded (Lev_25:53) that the owner of the Israelite, for so long time as he may remain in bondage, shall "not rule over him with rigour"; and by the addition of the words "in thy sight" it is intimated that God would hold the collective nation responsible for seeing that no oppression was exercised by any alien over any of their enslaved brethren. To which it should also be added, finally, that the regulations for the release of the slave carefully provided for the maintenance of the family relation. Families were not to be parted in the emancipation of the jubilee: the man who went out free was to take his children with him (Lev_25:41, Lev_25:54). In the case, however, where the wife had been given him by his master, she and her children remained in bondage after his emancipation in the seventh year; but of course only until she had reached her seventh year of service. But if the slave already had his wife when he became a slave, then she and their children went out with him in the seventh year. {Exo_21:3-4} The contrast in the spirit of these laws with that of the institution of slavery as it formerly existed in the Southern States of America, and elsewhere-in Christendom, is obvious.
These, then, were the regulations connected with the application of the ordinance of the jubilee year to rights of property, whether in real estate or in slaves. In respect to the cessation from the cultivation of the soil which was enjoined for the year, the law was essentially the same as that for the sabbatic year, except that, apparently, the right of property in the spontaneous produce of the land, which was in abeyance in the former case, was in so far recognised in the latter that each man was allowed to "eat the increase of the jubilee year out of the field" (Lev_25:12).
PRACTICAL OBJECTS OF THE SABBATIC YEAR AND JUBILEE LAW
Such was this extraordinary legislation, the like of which will be sought in vain in any other people. It is indeed true that, in some instances, ancient lawgivers decreed that land should not be permanently alienated, or that individuals should, not hold more than a certain amount of land. Thus, for example, the Lacedemonians were forbidden to sell their lands, and the Dalmatians were wont to redistribute their lands every eight years. But laws such as these only present accidental coincidences with single features of the jubilee year; an agreement to be accounted for by the fact that the aim of such lawgivers was, in so far, the same as that of the Hebrew code, that they sought thus to guard against excessive accumulations of property in the hands of individuals, and those consequent great inequalities in the distribution of wealth which, in all lands and ages, and never more clearly than in our own, have been seen to be fraught with the gravest dangers to the highest interests of society. Beyond this single point we shall search in vain the history, of any other people for an analogy to these laws concerning the sabbatic and the jubilee year.
What was the immediate object of this remarkable legislation? It is not irrelevant to observe that in so far as regards the prescription of a periodic rest to the land, agricultural science recognises that this is an advantage, especially in places where it may be difficult to obtain fertilisers for the soil in adequate amount. But it cannot be supposed that this was the chief object of these ordinances, not even in so far as they had respect to the land. We shall not err in regarding them as intended, like all in the Levitical system, to make Israel to be in reality, what they were called to be, a people holy, i.e., fully consecrated to the Lord. The bearing of these laws on this end is not hard to perceive.
In the first place, the law of the sabbatic year and the jubilee was a most impressive lesson as to the relation of God to what men call their property; and, in particular, as to His relation to mans property in land. By these ordinances every Israelite was to be reminded in a most impressive way that the land which he tilled, or on which he fed his flocks and herds, belonged, not to himself, but to God. Just as God taught him that his time belonged to Him, by putting in a claim for the absolute consecration to Himself of every seventh day, so here He reminded Israel that the land belonged to Him, by asserting a similar claim on the land every seventh year, and twice in a century for two years in succession.
No one will pretend that the law of the sabbatic year or the jubilee is binding on communities now. But it is a question for our times as to whether the basal principle regarding the relation of God to land, and by necessary consequence the right of man regarding land, which is fundamental to these laws, is not in its very nature of perpetual force. Surely, there is nothing in Scripture to suggest that Gods ownership of the land was limited to the land of Palestine, or to that land only during Israels occupancy of it. Instead of this, Jehovah everywhere represents Himself as having given the land to Israel, and therefore by necessary implication as having a like right over it while as yet the Canaanites were dwelling in it. Again, the purpose of Gods dealing with Egypt is said to be that Pharaoh might know this same truth: that the earth (or land) was the Lords; {Exo_9:29} and in Psa_24:1 it is stated, as a broad truth, without qualification or restriction, that the earth is the Lords, as well as that which fills it. It is true that there is no suggestion in any of these passages that the relation of God to the earth or to the land is different from His relation to other property; but it is intended to emphasise the fact that in the use of land, as of all else, we are to regard ourselves as Gods stewards, and hold and use it as in trust from Him.
The vital relation of this great truth to the burning questions of our day regarding the rights of men in land is self-evident. It does not indeed determine how the land question should be dealt with in any particular country, but it does settle it that if in these matters we will act in the fear of God, we must keep this principle steadily before us, that, primarily, the land belongs to the Lord, and is to be used accordingly. How, as a matter of fact, God did order that the land should be used, in the only instance when He has condescended Himself to order the political government of a nation, we have already seen, and shall presently consider more fully.
It is obvious that the natural and therefore intended effect of these regulations, if obeyed, would have been to impose a constant and powerful check upon mans natural covetousness and greed of gain. Every seventh year the Hebrew was to pause in his toil for wealth, and for one whole year he was to waive even his ordinary right to the spontaneous produce of his fields; which year of abstinence from sowing and reaping once in fifty years was doubled. Add to this the strict prohibition of lending money upon interest to a fellow Israelite, and we can see how far reaching and effective, if obeyed, were such regulations likely to be in restraining that insatiate greed for riches which ever grows the more by that which feeds it.
Yet again; the law of the sabbatic year and the jubilee was adapted to serve also as a singularly powerful discipline in that faith toward God which is the soul of all true religion. In this practical way every Hebrew was to be taught that "man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The lesson is ever hard to learn, though none the less necessary. This thought is alluded to in Lev_25:20, where it is supposed that a man might raise the very natural objection to these laws, "What shall we eat the seventh year?" To which the answer is given, with reference even to the extreme case of the jubilee year: "I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for the three years; until the ninth year ye shall eat the old store."
But probably the most prominent and important object of the regulations in this chapter was to secure, as far as possible, the equal distribution of wealth, by preventing excessive accumulations either of land or of capital in the hands of a few, while the mass should be sunk in poverty. It is certain that these laws, if carried out, would have had a marvellous effect in this respect. As for capital, we all know what an important factor in the production of wealth is accumulation by interest on loans, especially when the interest is constantly compounded. There can be no doubt of its immense power as an instrument for at once enriching the lender and in proportion impoverishing the borrower. But among the Israelites, to receive interest or its equivalent was prohibited. One other chief cause of the excessive wealth of individuals among us, as in all ages, is the acquirement in perpetuity by individuals of a disproportionate amount of the public land. The condition of things in the United Kingdom is familiar to all, with its inevitable effect on the condition of large masses of people; and in parts of the United States there are indications of a like tendency working toward the similar disadvantage of many small landholders and cultivators. But in Israel, if these laws should be carried into effect, such a state of things, so often witnessed among other nations, was made forever impossible. Individual ownership in the land itself was forbidden; no man was allowed more than a leasehold right; nor could he, even by adding largely to his lease holds, increase his wealth indefinitely, so as to transmit a fortune to his children, to be still further augmented by a similar process in the next and succeeding generations; for every fifty years the jubilee came around, and whatever leaseholds he might have acquired from less fortunate brethren, reverted unconditionally to the original owner or his legal heirs.
However impracticable such arrangements may seem to us under the conditions of modern life, yet it must be confessed that in the case of a nation just starting on its career in a new country, as was Israel at that time, nothing could well be thought of more likely to be effective toward securing, along with careful regard to the rights of property, an equal distribution of wealth among the people, than the legislation which is placed before us in this chapter.
It deserves to be specially noticed by how exact equity the laws are distinguished. While, on the one hand, excessive accumulations, either of capital or of land, were thus made impossible, there is here nothing of the destructive communism advocated by many in our day. These laws put no premium on laziness; for if a man, through indolence or vice, was compelled to sell out his right in his land, he had no security of obtaining it again until the jubilee; that is to say, upon an average, during his working lifetime. On the other hand, encouragement was given to industry, as a man who was thrifty might, by purchase of leaseholds, materially increase his wealth and comfort in life. And the effect on inheritance is evident. There could, on the one hand, be no inheritance of such colossal and overgrown fortunes as are possible in our modern states, -no blessing, certainly, in many cases, to the heirs; and neither, on the other hand, could there be any inheritance of hopeless and degrading poverty. A man might have had an indolent or a vicious father, who had thus forfeited his landholding; but while the father would doubtless suffer deserved poverty during his active life, the young man, when the jubilee returned, and the lost paternal inheritance reverted to him, would have the opportunity to see whether he might not, with his fathers experience before him as a warning, do better, and retrieve the fortunes of the family. In any case, he would not start upon the work of life weighted, as are multitudes among us, with a crushing and almost irremovable burden of poverty.
It is certain, no doubt, that these laws are not morally binding now: and no less certain, probably, that failing, as they did, to secure observance in Israel, such laws, even if enacted, could not in our day be practically carried out any more than then. Nevertheless, so much we may safely say, that the intention and aim of these laws as regards the equal distribution of wealth in the community ought to be the aim of all wise legislation now. It is certain that all good government ought to seek in all righteous and equitable ways to prevent the formation in the community of classes, either of the excessively rich or of the excessively poor. Absolute equality in this respect is doubtless unattainable, and in a world intended for purposes of moral training and discipline were even undesirable; but extreme wealth or extreme poverty are certainly evils to the prevention of which our legislators may well give their minds. Only it needs also to be kept in mind that these Hebrew laws no less distinctly teach us that this end is to be sought only in such a way as shall neither, on the one hand, put a premium on laziness and vice, nor, on the other, deny to the virtuous and industrious the advantage which industry and virtue deserve, of additional wealth, comfort, and exemption from toilsome drudgery.
In close connection with all this it will be observed that all this legislation, while guarding the rights of the rich, is evidently inspired by that same merciful regard for the poor which marks the Levitical law throughout. For in all these regulations it is assumed that there would still be poor in the land; but the law secured to the poor great mitigations of poverty. Every seventh year the produce of the land was to be free alike to all; if one were poor his brother was to uphold him; when lending him, he was not to add to the debt the burden of interest or increase. And then there was to the poor man the ever-present assurance, which alone would take off half the bitterness of poverty, that through the coming of the jubilee the children at least would have a new chance, and start life on an equality, in respect of inheritance in land, with the sons of the richest. And when we remember the close connection between extreme poverty and every variety of crime, it is plain that the whole legislation is as admirably adapted to the prevention of crime as of abject and hopeless poverty. Well might Asaph use the words which he employs, with evident allusion to the trumpet sound which ushered in the jubilee: "Happy the people that know the joyful sound!" i.e., that have the blessed experience of the jubilee, that supreme earthly sabbatism of the people of God.
Most significant and full of instruction, no less to us than to Israel, was the ordinance that both the sabbatic and the jubilee years should date from the day of Atonement. It was when, having completed the solemn ritual of that day, the high priest put on again his beautiful garments and came forth, having made atonement for all the transgressions of Israel, that the trumpet of the jubilee was to be sounded. Thus was Israel reminded in the most impressive manner possible that all these social, civil, and communal blessings were possible only on condition of reconciliation with God through atoning blood; atonement in the highest and fullest sense, which should reach even to the Holy of Holies, and place the blood on the very mercy seat of Jehovah. This is true still, though the nations have yet to learn it. The salvation of nations, no less than that of individuals, is conditioned by national fellowship with God, secured through the great Atonement of the Lord. Not until the nations learn this lesson may we expect to see the crying evils of the earth removed, or the questions of property, of land holding, of capital and labour, justly and happily solved.
TYPICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SABBATIC AND JUBILEE YEARS
But we must not forget that the sabbatic year and the year of jubilee, following the seventh seven of years, are the two last members of a sabbatic system of septenary periods, namely, the sabbath of the seventh day, the feast of Pentecost, following the expiry of the seventh week from Passover, and then the still more sacred seventh month, with its two great feasts, and the day of atonement intervening. But, as we have seen, we have good scriptural authority for regarding all these as typical. Each in succession brings out another stage or aspect of the great Messianic redemption, in a progressive revelation historically unfolding. In all of these alike we have been able to trace thoughts connected with the sabbatic idea, as pointing forward to the final rest, redemption, and consummated restoration. the sabbatism that remaineth to the people of God. To these preceding sabbatic periods these last two are closely related. Both alike began on the great day of atonement, in which all Israel was to afflict their souls in penitence for sin; and on that day they both began when the high priest came out from within the veil, where, from the time of his offering the sin offering, he had been hidden from the sight of Israel for a season; and both alike were ushered in with a trumpet blast.
We shall hardly go amiss if we see in both of these-first in the sabbatic year, and still more clearly in the year of jubilee-a prophetic foreshadowing in type of that final repentance of the children of Israel in the latter days, and their consequent reestablishment in their land, which the prophets so fully and explicitly predict. In that day they are to return, as the prophets bear witness, every man to the land which the Lord gave for an inheritance to their fathers. Indeed, one might say with truth that even the lesser restoration from Babylon was prefigured in this ordinance; but, without doubt, its chief and supreme reference must be to that greater restoration still in the future, of which we read, for example, in Isa_11:11, when "the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people, which shall remain, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from the islands of the sea."
But the typical reference of these sacred years of sabbatism reaches yet beyond what pertains to Israel alone. For not only, according to the prophets and apostles, is there to be a restoration of Israel, but also, as the Apostle Peter declared to the Jews, {Act_3:19-21} closely connected with and consequent on this, a "restoration of all things." And it is in this great, final, and exceedingly glorious restoration of the time of the end that we recognise the ultimate antitype of these sabbatic seasons. When read in the light of later predictions they appear to point forward with singular distinctness to what, according to the Holy Word, shall be-when Jesus Christ, the heavenly High Priest, shall come forth from within the veil; when the last trumpet shall sound, and He who was "once offered to bear the sins of many" shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for Him, unto salvation. {Heb_9:28}
Even in the beginning of the Pentateuch {Gen_3:17-19} it is explicitly taught that because of Adams sin, the curse of God, in some mysterious way, fell even upon the material earthly creation. We read that the Lord said unto Adam: "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground." It is because of sin, then, that man is doomed to labour, toilsome and imperfectly requited by an unwilling soil. It lies immediately before us that both the sabbatic year and the year of jubilee, by the ordinance regarding the rest for the land, and the special promise of sufficiency without exhausting labour, involved for Israel a temporary suspension of the full operation of this curse. The ordinance therefore points unmistakably in a prophetic way to what the New Testament explicitly predicts-the coming of a day when, with man redeemed, material nature also shall share the great deliverance. In a word, in the sabbatic year, and in a yet higher form in the year of jubilee, we have in symbol the wonderful truth which in the most didactic language is formally declared by the Apostle Paul in these words: {Rom_8:19-22}
"The earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected. it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."
The jubilee year contained in type all this, and more. Where the sabbatic year had typically pointed only to a coming rest of the earth from the primeval curse, the jubilee, falling, not on a seventh, but on an eighth year, following immediately on the sabbatic seventh, pointed also to the permanence of this blessed condition. It is the festival, by eminence, of the new creation, of paradise completely and forever restored.
Moreover, as falling in the fiftieth year, and therefore on an eighth year of the sabbatic calendar, the jubilee was to the week of years as the Lords day to the week of days. Like that, it is the festival of resurrection. This is as clearly foreshadowed in the type as the other. For in the year of jubilee not only was the land to rest, but every bond slave was to be released, and to return to his inheritance and to his family. In the light of what has preceded, and of other revelations of Scripture, we can hardly miss of perceiving the typical meaning of this. For what is the great event which the Apostle Paul, in the passage just cited, associates in time with the deliverance of the earthly creation, but "the redemption of the body," as the final issue of the atoning work of Christ? For as yet even believers are in bondage to death and the grave; but the day which is coming, the day of earths redemption, shall bring to all that are Christs, all that are Israelites indeed, deliverance "from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God."
And as the slave who was freed in the year of jubilee therewith also returned to his forfeited inheritance, so also shall it be in that day. For precisely this is given us by the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, {1Pe_1:4-5} as another aspect of the day when the heavenly Aaron shall come forth from the Holiest. For we are begotten unto an inheritance, reserved in heaven for us, "who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." Cast out through death from the inheritance of the earth, which in the beginning was given by God to our first father, and to his seed in him, but which was lost to him and to his children through his sin, the great jubilee of the future shall bring us again, every man who is in Christ by faith, into the lost inheritance, redeemed and glorified citizens of a redeemed and glorified earth. Hence it is that in Revelation 22 we are shown in vision, first, the new earth, delivered from the curse, and then the New Jerusalem, the Church of the risen and glorified saints of God, descending from God out of heaven, to assume possession of the purchased inheritance.
And the law adds also: "Ye shall return every man unto his family"; which gives the last feature here prefigured of that supreme sabbatism which remaineth for the people of God. {Heb_4:9} It shall bring the reunion of those who had been parted and scattered. The day of resurrection is accordingly spoken of {2Th_2:1} as a day of "gathering together" of all who, though one in Christ, have been rudely parted by death. And yet more, it will be "the day of our gathering together unto Him," even the blessed Lord Jesus Christ, the "Goel, " the Kinsman-Redeemer of the ruined bondsmen and their lost inheritance: "Whom not having seen, we love," but then expect to see even as He is, and beholding Him, be like Him, and be with Him forever and forever. Who should not long for the day?-the day when for the first time, this last type of Leviticus shall pass into complete fulfilment in the antitype: the day of "the restoration of all things"; the day of the deliverance of the material creation from her present bondage to corruption; the day also of the release of every true Israelite from the bondage of death, and the eternal establishment of all such with the Elder Brother, the First-begotten, in the enjoyment of the inheritance of the saints in light.
"Love, rest, and home! Sweet hope! Lord! tarry not, but COME!"
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv42, 48
Leviticus
GOD’S SLAVES
Read full note →
Lev 25:42.
This is the basis of the Mosaic legislation as to slavery. It did not suppress but regulated that accursed system. Certainly Hebrew slavery was a very different thing from that of other nations. In the first place, no Jew was to be a slave. To that broad principle there were exceptions, such as the case of the man who voluntarily gave himself up to his creditor. But even he was not to be treated as a slave, but as a ‘hired servant,’ and at the jubilee was to be set free. There were also other regulations of various kinds in other circumstances on which we do not need to dwell. The slaves of alien blood were owned and used, but under great mitigations and restrictions.
Of course we have here an instance of the incompleteness of the Mosaic law,-or rather we may more truly say of its completeness, regard being had to the state of the world at the time. All social change hangs together. Institutions cannot be altered at a blow, without altering the stage of civilisation, of which they are the expression. ‘Raw haste’ is ‘half-sister to delay.’ What is good and necessary for one era is out of place in another. So God works slowly, and lets bad things die out, by changing the atmosphere in which they flourish.
All servitude to men was an infraction of God’s rights over Israel. God was the Israelites’ ‘Master’; they were His ‘slaves.’ He was so, because He had ‘broken the bands of their yoke, and set them free.’ There is, then, here-
I. The ground of God’s rights. ‘I brought you forth.’
II. Our servitude because of our redemption. ‘Ye are My servants.’
III. Our consequent freedom from all other masters. ‘Ye shall not be sold as bondmen.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv43, 48, 49, 54 (See Scofield "Psa 19:9")
fear
(See Scofield "Psa 19:9")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv39, 42, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53 you must not make him work like a slave.…
you must not make him work like a slave. Treat him as a hired servant
This means the owner was to treat the Israelite with more respect than he would treat a slave.
Read full note →
the year of Jubilee
"the year of restoration" or "the year to return land and free slaves"
translationWords
servant
servant
ancestor
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv40, 42, 43, 44, 47 25:40 The terms hired worker . . . temporary…
25:40 The terms hired worker . . . temporary resident appear in parallel, suggesting they were similar in Israel’s socioeconomic system. Both terms describe day laborers who had no land and depended on landowners to hire them (see Matt 20:1-16; also see study note on Lev 19:13). • Jubilee: See study note on 25:8-17.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.