Leviticus 25:45

45 You can also buy them from the foreign guests who live with you and from their extended families that are with you, who were born in your land. These can belong to you as property.

Leviticus 25:45 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 25:45

Moreover, of the children of the strangers, that do sojourn
among you
The uncircumcised sojourners as they are called in the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, proselytes of the gate, such of the nations round about who came and sojourned among them, being subject to the precepts given to the sons of Noah respecting idolatry but were not circumcised, and did not embrace the Jewish religion: of them shall ye buy;
for bondmen and bondmaids: and of their families that [are] with you, which they begat in your
land;
but, as the Targum of Jonathan adds, are not of the Canaanites; though the Jewish writers ^F24 say, that one of the nations that lies with a Canaanitish woman, and begets a son of her, he may be bought for a servant; and so if a Canaanitish man lies with one of the nations, and begets a son of her, he may also be bought for a servant: and they shall be your possession;
as servants, as bondmen and bondmaids, and be so for ever to them and their heirs, as follows.

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FOOTNOTES:

F24 Torat Cohanim apud Yalkut, par. 1. fol. 195. 1.

Leviticus 25:45 In-Context

43 You will not harshly rule over them but must fear your God.

44 Regarding male or female slaves that you are allowed to have: You can buy a male or a female slave from the nations that are around you.

45 You can also buy them from the foreign guests who live with you and from their extended families that are with you, who were born in your land. These can belong to you as property.

46 You can pass them on to your children as inheritance that they can own as permanent property. You can make these people work as slaves, but you must not rule harshly over your own people, the Israelites.

47 If an immigrant or foreign guest prospers financially among you, but your fellow Israelite faces financial difficulty and so sells themselves to the immigrant or foreign guest, or to a descendant of a foreigner,