Leviticus 25:40

40 he shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee.

Leviticus 25:40 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 25:40

[But] as an hired servant
Who is hired by the day, or month, or year; and, when his time is up, receives his wages and goes where he pleases, and while a servant is not under such despotic power and government as a slave is: [and] as a sojourner;
an inmate, one that dwells in part of a man's house, or boards and lodges with him, and whom he treats in a kind and familiar manner, rather like one of his own family than otherwise: he shall be with thee;
as under the above characters, and used as such: this the Jews refer to food and drink, and other things, as they do, ( Deuteronomy 15:16 ) ; and say F17 that a master might not eat fine bread, and his servant bread of bran; nor drink old wine, and his servant new; nor sleep on soft pillows and bedding, and his servant on straw: hence, they say F18, he that gets himself an Hebrew servant is as if he got himself a master: [and] shall serve thee unto the year of the jubilee;
and no longer; for if the year of jubilee came before the six years were expired for which he sold himself, the jubilee set him free, as Jarchi observes; nay, if be sold himself for ten or twenty years, and that but one year before the jubilee, it set him free, as Maimonides says F19.


FOOTNOTES:

F17 Maimon. in Misn. Kiddushin, c. 1. sect. 2.
F18 Ibid.
F19 Hilchot Abadim, c. 2. sect. 3.

Leviticus 25:40 In-Context

38 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
39 "If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave:
40 he shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee.
41 Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers.
42 For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves.
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.