Exodus 21:2 Cross References

Exodus 21:2

2: "If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom.

"If an Israelite man or 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 the LORD your God has blessed you.
Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you! That is why I am giving you this command.

"Do not consider it a hardship when you release your servants. Remember that for six years they have given you the services worth double the wages of hired workers, and the LORD your God will bless you in all you do.

This message came to Jeremiah from the LORD after King Zedekiah made a covenant with the people, proclaiming freedom for the slaves.
He had ordered all the people to free their Hebrew slaves--both men and women. No one was to keep a fellow Judean in bondage.
The officials and all the people had obeyed the king's command,
but later they changed their minds. They took back the people they had freed, making them slaves again.
So the LORD gave them this message through Jeremiah:

Then Moses gave them this command: "At the end of every seventh year, the Year of Release, during the Festival of Shelters,

At the meeting I said to them, "The rest of us are doing all we can to redeem our Jewish relatives who have had to sell themselves to pagan foreigners, but you are selling them back into slavery again. How often must we redeem them?" And they had nothing to say in their defense.

"If any of your Israelite relatives go bankrupt and sell themselves to you, do not treat them as slaves.
Treat them instead as hired servants or as resident foreigners who live with you, and they will serve you only until the Year of Jubilee.
At that time they and their children will no longer be obligated to you, and they will return to their clan and ancestral property.
The people of Israel are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt, so they must never be sold as slaves.
Show your fear of God by treating them well; never exercise your power over them in a ruthless way.

About this time some of the men and their wives raised a cry of protest against their fellow Jews.
They were saying, "We have such large families. We need more money just so we can buy the food we need to survive."
Others said, "We have mortgaged our fields, vineyards, and homes to get food during the famine."
And others said, "We have already borrowed to the limit on our fields and vineyards to pay our taxes.
We belong to the same family, and our children are just like theirs. Yet we must sell our children into slavery just to get enough money to live. We have already sold some of our daughters, and we are helpless to do anything about it, for our fields and vineyards are already mortgaged to others."

One day the widow of one of Elisha's fellow prophets came to Elisha and cried out to him, "My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he feared the LORD. But now a creditor has come, threatening to take my two sons as slaves."

May God always give you plenty of dew for healthy crops and good harvests of grain and wine.

But if it happens in daylight, the one who killed the thief is guilty of murder. "A thief who is caught must pay in full for everything that was stolen. If payment is not made, the thief must be sold as a slave to pay the debt.

Esau said bitterly, "No wonder his name is Jacob, for he has deceived me twice, first taking my birthright and now stealing my blessing. Oh, haven't you saved even one blessing for me?"

He couldn't pay, so the king ordered that he, his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt.

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