Leviticus 25:55

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.

For unto me the children of Israel are servants,.... And therefore not to be perpetual servants to men, as those who are bought and redeemed by the blood of Christ should not be, 1 Corinthians 7:23; The Targum of Jonathan is, servants to my law; see Romans 7:25 ; those that are redeemed by Christ are also servants to his Gospel, and obey from their heart the form and doctrine delivered to them; they are my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: where they were in cruel bondage, and made to serve with rigour, but now, being delivered from thence, were laid under obligation to serve the Lord; nor was it his will that others should rule over them with rigour, whether of their own nation or strangers, or that they should be bondmen and bondmaids, or perpetual servants to any: I am the Lord your God; their covenant God, who had been kind to them, particularly in the instance mentioned, and would take care that they should not be ill used by others, and therefore ought to serve him readily and cheerfully.

In these years - More properly, by one of these means. The extreme period of servitude in this case was six years, as when the master was a Hebrew Exo 21:2. Looking at the law of the Jubilee from a simply practical point of view, its operation must have tended to remedy those evils which are always growing up in the ordinary conditions of human society. It prevented the permanent accumulation of land in the hands of a few, and periodically raised those whom fault or misfortune had sunk into poverty to a position of competency. It must also have tended to keep alive family feeling, and helped to preserve the family genealogies. But in its more special character, as a law given by Yahweh to His special people, it was a standing lesson to those who would rightly regard it, on the terms upon which the enjoyment of the land of promise had been conferred upon them. All the land belonged to Yahweh as its supreme Lord, every Israelite as His vassal belonged to Him. The voice of the Jubilee horns, twice in every century, proclaimed the equitable and beneficent social order appointed for the people; they sounded that acceptable year of Yahweh which was to bring comfort to all that mourned, in which the slavery of sin was to be abolished, and the true liberty of God's children was to be proclaimed Luke 2:25; Isaiah 61:2; Luke 4:19; Acts 3:21; Romans 8:19-23; 1 Peter 1:3-4.

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.

If he were not redeemed by these (the relations mentioned in Leviticus 25:48 , Leviticus 25:49 ), he was to go out free in the year of jubilee along with his children, i.e., to be liberated without compensation. For ( Leviticus 25:55 ) he was not to remain in bondage, because the Israelites were the servants of Jehovah (cf. Leviticus 25:42 ). But although, through these arrangements, the year of jubilee helped every Israelite, who had fallen into poverty and slavery, to the recovery of his property and personal freedom, and thus the whole community was restored to its original condition as appointed by God, through the return of all the landed property that had been alienated in the course of years to its original proprietor the restoration of the theocratical state to its original condition was not the highest or ultimate object of the year of jubilee. The observance of sabbatical rest throughout the whole land, and by the whole nation, formed part of the liberty which it was to bring to the land and its inhabitants. In the year of jubilee, as in the sabbatical year, the land of Jehovah was to enjoy holy rest, and the nation of Jehovah to be set free from the bitter labour of cultivating the soil, and to live and refresh itself in blessed rest with the blessing which had been given to it by the Lord its God.

In this way the year of jubilee became to the poor, oppressed, and suffering, in fact to the whole nation, a year of festivity and grace, which not only brought redemption to the captives and deliverance to the poor out of their distresses, but release to the whole congregation of the Lord from the bitter labour of this world; a time of refreshing, in which all oppression was to cease, and every member of the covenant nation find his redeemer in the Lord, who brought every one back to his own property and home.

They were rather the preamble, as Calvin says, by which God prepared the minds of the people for obeying them, and in this sense they were frequently repeated to give emphasis to other laws, sometimes in full, as in Exodus 29:46 ; Leviticus 19:36 ; Leviticus 23:43 ; Leviticus 25:38 , Leviticus 25:55 ; Leviticus 26:13 , etc., sometimes in the abridged form, "I am Jehovah your God," as in Leviticus 11:44 ; Leviticus 18:2 , Leviticus 18:4 , Leviticus 18:30 ; Leviticus 19:4 , Leviticus 19:10 , Leviticus 19:25 , Leviticus 19:31 , Leviticus 19:34 ; Leviticus 20:7 , etc., for which the simple expression, "I am Jehovah," is now and then substituted, as in Leviticus 19:12-13 , Leviticus 19:16 , Leviticus 19:18 , etc.