WORKING FOR THE DEBT

CONDITIONS

1. Ex.21:2 If you purchase (acquire) a Hebrew servant (as the result of debt or theft), he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, paying nothing. If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him.

2. Ex.21:4 But if his master gave him a wife, and she bore him sons or daughters, then the wife and her children will stay* with the master (belong to her master), and he will leave by himself.

* ‘stay’ does not mean to split the family or to possess them forever but it means to be overseen by the master and to be his responsibility and under his covering until the day when the servant is ready to take financial responsibility for his family taking into consideration that on the Sabbatical year all the work in the fields had to be stopped (Lev. 25:4-5).

3. Deut.15:12 If a Hebrew man or Hebrew woman voluntarily becomes your servant and serves you for six years*, in the seventh year you must set that servant free. When you release a male servant, do not send him away empty-handed. Give him a generous farewell gift from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress. Share with him some of the bounty with which YHWH your Elohim has blessed you.

* To serve for six years does not mean to serve for six years in a row. The seventh year (Sabbatical) constitutes the seven-year cycle of YHWH nation’s life. The commandment shows that if a servant was acquired a year or even a few months/days prior to the Sabbatical year then he must be set free after serving only few days/months! Yeshua told a parable in Matt. 20:1-16 about the workers of the vineyard where a similar principle was followed. 

4. Deut.15:18 Don’t resent it (don’t consider this an unreasonable hardship) when you set him (a servant) free, since during his six years of service he has been worth twice as much as a hired employee. Then YHWH your Elohim will bless you in everything you do.

5. Ex.21:5 But if the servant plainly says, “I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free,” then his master shall bring him to the judges. He shall also bring him to the door, or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl. And he shall serve him forever*. Deut.15:16 And if it happens that he (servant) says to you, ‘I will not go away from you,’ because he loves you and your house, since he prospers with you, then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also to your female servant you shall do likewise. 

* ‘forever’ – it is the master’s responsibility to take care of the servant and his family forever but not to enslave him for the rest of his life. 

6. Ex.21:7 When a man sells his daughter to be a handmaid*, she doesn’t go free after six years like the men. If she does not please her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed**. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, for he has dealt faithlessly with her (treated her unfairly). And if he has betrothed her to his son, he has to treat her like a daughter*** (daughter of Israel). If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her habitation, he does not withdraw (privilege as a wife shall he not diminish). And if he does not do these three things**** for her, then she shall go out free, without paying money.

* Possibly, this situation could have happened when he first came to his master, or if the daughter was born during his stay (Ex.21:4).

** ‘let her be redeemed’ – means to bring her to another man who would be willing to take responsibility for her. Not willing to take her as a wife (with her agreement) was considered a ‘faithless act’. The master’s responsibility was to find a man who would be able ‘to redeem’ her.

*** Based on this expression this woman was supposed to be a part of the family of the master and be considered his daughter.

**** Her rights would not be violated even if the master, or if it is the master’s son who is taking the woman for himself, already has another wife.

***** ‘these three things’ in the original Hebrew test it says: אלה שלש (shelash elleh) ‘these three’.

This commandment is actually talking about the benefit that a woman has while a man does not: she does not need to wait until the Sabbatical year in order to get the redemption. The Master which has power over her becomes her caregiver and he is obligated to fulfill one of the following conditions:

– to marry her (with their conjugal agreement)

– to find a relative (or the person from the same tribe) who would be able to redeem her and take on the responsibility of taking care of her (Lev.25, 48-49)

– to let his son marry her (if the Master is too old for her) and this way she will be treated like his daughter

According to this Spiritual law of the Torah, Boaz fulfilled all of these three conditions in relation to Ruth by marrying her after redeeming her and making her a rightful daughter of Israel. YHWH Elohim  did the same thing with us: FIRST, He chose and redeemed us for Himself (1Pet.2:9; 2Thess.2:13; Rev.17:14; 1Cor.6:19,20); SECOND, He made us the bride of His Son (Eph.5:31,32; Rev.21:2); and THIRD, we are now a rightful ‘Daughter’ of Israel of Father  YHWH! Our family is the house of Israel (Rom.11:17-22).

7. Lev.19:20 Whoever lies carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, designated for a man, and not at all redeemed, nor was freedom given her; there shall be inquisition; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free.

A HIRED SERVANT

8. Lev.25:39 And if one of your brethren who dwells by you becomes poor, and sells* himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve as a bondman. As a hired servant and a sojourner he shall be with you, and shall serve you** until the Year of Jubilee***. And then he shall depart from you – he and his children with him – and shall return to his own family. He shall return to the possession of his fathers.

The difference between the ‘bondman’ and the hired servant is that the ‘bondman’ works for a debt and the hired servant helps the master for a fee or in exchange for food.

* the word נמכר (nimkar) which is translated from Hebrew as ‘sells himself’ actually means ‘voluntarily sells’.

** the translation ‘shall serve you’ is not accurate since it sounds as a forced labour in order to benefit the Master. According to the original Scripture, prior to the year of Jubilee, the bondman was supposed to work עמך (eamakh) or ‘with you’ and not ‘for you’.

*** ‘until the Year of Jubilee’ means until the day when his property or belongings are officially returned to him (Lev.25:9). This does not imply to the 50 year enslaving.

9. Lev.25:42 The people of Israel are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt, so they must never be sold as bondmen. Show your fear of YHWH by treating them well; never exercise your power over them in a ruthless way.

10. Lev.25:47 Now if a sojourner or stranger close to you becomes rich, and one of your brethren who dwells by him becomes poor, and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner close to you, or to a member of the stranger’s family, after he is sold he may be redeemed again. One of his brothers may redeem him; or his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him; or anyone who is near of kin to him in his family may redeem him; or if he is able he may redeem himself. Thus he shall reckon with him who bought him: The price of his release shall be according to the number of years, from the year that he was sold to him until the Year of Jubilee; it shall be according to the time of a hired servant for him. If there are still many years remaining, according to them he shall repay the price of his redemption from the money with which he was bought. And if there remain but a few years until the Year of Jubilee, then he shall reckon with him, and according to his years he shall repay him the price of his redemption. He shall be with him as a yearly hired servant, and he shall not rule with rigor over him in your sight. And if he is not redeemed in these years, then he shall be released in the Year of Jubilee – he and his children with him. For the children of Israel are servants to Me. They are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am YHWH your Elohim.

STRANGERS AND SOJOURNERS

11. Lev.25:44 As for your bondmen and your bondmaids whom you may have, they shall be from the nations round about you, of whom you may buy* bondmen and bondmaids.

* ‘buy’ In Hebrew the word קָנָה (kanah) means ‘to redeem’, ‘to possess’. The same word is used when Boaz redeemed the land of Elimelekh and Ruth, who was a foreigner inhabiting that land. The nations around Israel who decided to leave their pagan ways of life and to become a part of YHWH’s family had the same right – to work for the master in order to pay off the debt. This commandment protects the right of the foreigners in case the Hebrews refuse to take them in. Buying a bondman from the surrounding nations, according to the Torah, was perceived more as a blessing to those nations and not as «suppressing them», as one might mistakenly understand it.

12. Lev.25:45 Moreover, of the children of the strangers who sojourn among you, of them you may buy and of their families that are with you which they have begotten in your land, and they shall be your possession. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them* on to your children as a permanent inheritance*. You may take your bondmen for ever. But as far as your brothers the people of Isra’el are concerned, you are not to treat each other harshly.

* ‘passing them as a permanent inheritance’ and ‘taking them as bondmen forever’ does not imply keeping them by force. The rights for possessing them is the responsibility of taking care of them which was passed along from one generation to the next (forever) without the right of selling them to someone else (Lev. 25:42). This commandment protects the rights of strangers and sojourners to remain so called ‘bondmen’. YHWH forbids the Israelites to get close to the surrounding nations and this commandment shows that there are certain sojourners who had turned away from their pagan past and became members of the house of Israel since they could have been redeemed on the same rights as the Israelites. Since the wish of the newcomers to be ‘bondmen’ in the nation of Israel had been refused on certain occasions because of their past, this commandment became a guarantee for them to be accepted into Israel’s society.

13. Deut.23:15 You shall not give up to his master a servant who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you in your midst wherever he chooses in one of your towns where it pleases him best. You shall not defraud or oppress him.

The rights of servants excluded rudeness and harshness in relation to them.

ENSLAVING

14. Deut.21:14 In the event that you lose interest in her (captivating a good-looking woman), you are to let her go wherever she wishes. But you may not sell her for money or treat her like a slave, because you have humbled* her.

* A captivated woman was taken into the house of the one who ‘humbled’ her, not by force but with a purpose of taking care of her and giving her a peaceful life. If she rejected this care then she was let go to ‘wherever she wished’.

This commandment is about the captivated woman and not about a slave (refer to the chapter on FAMILY). The most important part of this commandment is that it is not acceptable to sell her into slavery. This confirms that ‘slavery’ in the Torah talks about a very different concept as compared to the present day understanding of it.

COMPENSATION TO THE LOSSES

15. Ex.21:20 If a man smite his bondman, or his bondwoman, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished; for he is his money.

The expression ‘if he continue a day or two’ in the original text implies a physical state of the human who is on his way to recovery. In Hebrew the words יעמד יומים או יום (yom o yomayim yaamod) mean: ‘after a day or two will stand (or will rise)’. When it comes to monetary compensation for a delay in work, it had been sought from the Master since the bondman was not capable of working during his sickness and the Master has losses due to this; this is the meaning of the words הוא כספו כי (kee kaspo khu) — ‘for he is his money’.

16. Ex.21:26 And if a man smite the eye of his bondman, or the eye of his bondwoman, and destroy it, he shall let him go free for the sake of his eye. And if he smite out his bondman’s tooth, or his bondwoman’s tooth, he shall let him go free for the sake of his tooth.

This commandment confirms that the price of the bondman’s life and health is very high and that even the smitten out tooth could compensate a bondman’s whole debt!

17. Ex.21:32 If the ox gores a male or female servant, he shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.

This verse is not about the value of the servant himself, for whom the Master holds the same responsibility as for his own life. This payment is an extra compensation to the Master of the one killed by the ox. The master of that ox is one who holds responsible for the life of anyone whom the ox gored in case: ‘the ox was in the habit of goring in the past’ (Ex.21:28). However, the compensation of 30 shekels is paid to the master anyways since the master of the ox has caused damage to the master of the servant(s). Compensation of 30 shekels for the life of a servant is comparable to the sum of 30 pieces of silver which was paid to Judas Iscariot for betraying Yeshua (Mtt.26:14–16), as it is mentioned in Phil.2:7 that ‘He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant’.