Leviticus 25:42

For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(42) For they are my servants.—This is a clue to the whole system of Hebrew servitude. These poverty-stricken men, who are driven to sell themselves to their fellow-Israelites, God claims as His servants. God is their Lord as well as their master’s Lord. He delivered them both alike from bondage to serve Him. There is, therefore, no difference between bond and free.

They shall not be sold as bondmen—That is, as personal property or chattels. The authorities during the second Temple, however, interpreted this clause to mean that an Israelite is not to be sold by proclamation or in public places, but privately, and in an honourable manner, with all possible consideration for his feelings.

MacLaren's Expositions

Leviticus

GOD’S SLAVES

Leviticus 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.’

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

25:39-55 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, Col 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, Joh 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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The law here appears harmoniously to supplement the earlier one in Exodus 21:1-6. It was another check applied periodically to the tyranny of the rich. Compare Jeremiah 34:8-17.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

39-46. 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.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

They are my servants; they, no less than you, are members of my church and people; such as I have chosen out of all the world to serve me here, and to enjoy me hereafter, and therefore are not to be oppressed or abused, neither are you absolute lords over them, to deal with them as you please.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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 were placed, which showed that they were to be sold; but now an Israelite was not to be sold in such a manner, so Maimonides (w) says, but privately, in an honourable way.

(u) "venditione servi", Drusius. (w) Hilchot Abadim, c. 1. sect. 5.

Geneva Study Bible

For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not {s} be sold as bondmen.

(s) To perpetual servitude.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Leviticus 25:42

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Because the Israelites were servants of Jehovah, who had redeemed them out of Pharaoh's bondage and adopted them as His people (Exodus 19:5; Exodus 18:10, etc.), they were not to be sold "a selling of slaves," i.e., not to be sold into actual slavery, and no one of them was to rule over another with severity (Leviticus 25:43, cf. Exodus 1:13-14). "Through this principle slavery was completely abolished, so far as the people of the theocracy were concerned"' (Oehler).