Leviticus 25:42

_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:_ If thy brother ... be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, х_ 'AACHIYKAA_ (H251) _ `IMAAK_ (H5973), thy neighbour]. An Israelite might be compelled, through misfortune, not only to mortgage his inheritance, but himself х_ WªNIMKAR_ (H4376)] - not, be sold but sell himself (cf. 2 Kings 4:1; Nehemiah 5:6; Isaiah 50:1; Isaiah 58:6;...

42._For they are my servants. _God here declares that His own right is invaded when those, whom He claims as His property, are taken into subjection by another; for He says that He acquired the people as His own when He redeemed them from Egypt. Whence He infers that His right is violated if any should usurp perpetual dominion over a Hebrew. If any object that this is of equal force, when they only serve for a time, I reply, that though God might have justly asserted His sole ownership, yet He was satisfied with this symbol of it; and therefore that He suffered by indulgence that they should be enslaved for a fixed period, provided some trace of His deliverance of them should remain. In a word, He simply chose to apply this preventative lest slavery should altogether extinguish the recollection of His grace, although He allowed it to be thus smothered as it were. Lest, therefore, cruel m...

39-55 A native Israelite, if sold for debt, or for a crime, was to serve but six years, and to go out the seventh. If he sold himself, through poverty, both his work and his usage must be such as were fitting for a son of Abraham. Masters are required to give to their servants that which is just and equal, Colossians 4:1. At the year of jubilee the servant should go out free, he and his children, and should return to his own family. This typified redemption from the service of sin and Satan, by the grace of God in Christ, whose truth makes us free, John 8:32. We cannot ransom our fellow-sinners, but we may point out Christ to them; while by his grace our lives may adorn his gospel, express our love, show our gratitude, and glorify his holy name....

Verse Leviticus 25:42. _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; Leviticus 25:23....

EXPOSITION The subject of the sacred seasons is taken up again in this chapter, after the parenthetical insertion of Leviticus 24:1. There remain the septennial festive season and that of the half-century—the sabbatical year and the jubilee. The sabbatical year was instituted not for any supposed physical benefit accruing from it to the land, but, first, as serving for a link between the sabbath and the jubilee by means of the sacred number seven—the sabbatical year being the seventh year, and the jubilee being the year following the seven-times-seventh year; and secondly, and chiefly, as enforcing the lesson of the weekly sabbath in a manner that could not be overlooked, and symbolically, teaching the universal application of the sabbatical law, even where physical needs were not concerned, and in that way suggesting the expectation of a rest to be hereafter attain

FOR THEY [ARE] MY SERVANTS, WHICH I BROUGHT FORTH OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT,.... The Lord redeemed them out of Egypt, made a purchase of them, and had a prior right unto them, and being his servants first, they cannot be the servants of others; his right unto them as such antecedes and prevents any other claim upon them: THEY SHALL NOT BE SOLD AS BONDMEN; or, "with", or, "according to the sale of a bondman" u; in the manner they are sold, or according to the laws of selling of servants; not in such a public manner as they are sold in markets, nor for such purposes to be used as slaves in a rigorous manner, nor so as to be retained for ever in servitude; not to be sold by proclamation, as Jarchi observes, saying, here is a servant to be sold; nor shall they set him upon the stone of sale; for it seems in public places in markets, where slaves were sold, there was a stone on which they wer...

4. THE SABBATIC YEAR AND THE YEAR OF JUBILEE CHAPTER 25 _ 1. The Sabbatic year (Leviticus 25:1)_ 2. The jubilee (Leviticus 25:8) 3. The jubilee and the land (Leviticus 25:13) 4. The jubilee and the dwelling houses (Leviticus 25:29) 5. The jubilee, the poor and the bondmen (Leviticus 25:35) This is the great restoration chapter in Leviticus. All is connected preeminently with Israel's land. The application, which has been made, that this chapter foreshadows a universal res

An extension of Exodus 21:2 *, Deuteronomy 15:12 *, from the master's point of view, substituting for slavery proper a mild kind of serfdom, but for the seventh year the fiftieth. To foreign slaves, however, the law is not to apply (_cf._ Deuteronomy 15:3; Deuteronomy 23:20). _Cf._ Johns, C. H. W., _Relations between Laws of Babylonia and Laws of Hebrews_, pp. 41ff. On slavery in Israel see p. 110....

BROUGHT FORTH. Note the four occurrences of this expression in these two Chapter s: Leviticus 26:13, brought out to be free men (in relation to the Egyptians); Leviticus 25:42 (in relation to fellow-Israelites); Leviticus 25:38, to be inheritors; and Leviticus 25:55, to be Jehovah _'_. servants. AS BONDMEN. Hebrew "with the sale of. bondman": i.e. as "bondmen [are sold]"....

_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. Leviticus 25:42 adds the reason (cp. Leviticus 25:13_; Leviticus 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...