Exodus 21:1-9

1 “These are the laws you are to set before them:

Hebrew Servants

2 “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything.

3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him.

4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.

5 “But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’

6 then his master must take him before the judges.^[a] He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life.

7 “If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do.

8 If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself,^[b] he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her.

9 If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter.

Exodus 21:1-9 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS 21

In this, and the two following chapters, are delivered various laws and precepts, partly of a moral, and partly of a religious, but chiefly of a civil nature, respecting the commonwealth of Israel, and its political good. This chapter treats of servants, and laws relating to them; to menservants, how long they shall serve, and what is to be done to those who are desirous of staying with their masters after their time is up, Ex 21:1-6, to maidservants, and especially betrothed ones, either to a father or a son, Ex 21:7-11, likewise it contains laws concerning the slaughter of men, whether with design or unawares, Ex 21:12-14, and concerning the ill usage of parents, Ex 21:15,17, and man stealing, Ex 21:16 and of mischief that comes by men's quarrelling and fighting, Ex 21:18,19 and by smiting a man or maidservant, Ex 21:20,21,26,27, to a woman with child, that is, by means of men's striving and contending with each other, Ex 21:22-25 and of damages that come by oxen, or to them, Ex 21:28-36.

Cross References

• 1. Exodus 24:3; Exodus 34:32; Deuteronomy 4:14; Deuteronomy 6:1
• 2. Exodus 22:3
• 3. ver 7; Jeremiah 34:8,14
• 4. Deuteronomy 15:16
• 5. Exodus 22:8-9; Deuteronomy 17:9; Deuteronomy 19:17; Deuteronomy 25:1
• 6. Psalms 40:6
• 7. Job 39:9; Job 41:4; Nehemiah 5:5

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "before God"
• [b]. Or "master so that he does not choose her"