Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 21

These are the judgments. —“The laws” (Knobel), “the rights” (Keil), “the rules which shall guide judicial decisions” (Pool). The paraphrase alone gives the full meaning.

If thou buy an Hebrew servant. —Ancient society was founded upon slavery. “The ultimate elements of the household,” says Aristotle, “are the master and his slave, the husband and his wife, the father and his children” (Pol. i. 2, § 1). In any consideration of the rights of persons, those of the slave class naturally presented themselves first, since they were the most liable to infraction.

Slaves might be either natives or foreigners. A Hebrew could become a slave in the following ways:

1. Through crime (Exodus 22:3).
2. Through indebtedness (Leviticus 25:39).
3. Through his father’s right to sell him (Nehemiah 5:5).

Foreign slaves might be either prisoners taken in war or persons bought from their owners (Leviticus 25:45). The rights of Hebrew slaves are specially considered here.

Six years shall he serve. —The Hebrew was not to be retained in slavery for a longer period than six years. If a jubilee year occurred before the end of the six years, then he regained his freedom earlier (Leviticus 25:39–41); however, in no case could he be retained for more than six years in the slave condition, except by his own consent, formally given (Exodus 21:5).

This law was an enormous advance upon anything previously known in the slave legislation of the most civilised country and at once marks the Mosaic code as sympathising with the slave and intent on improving his condition. Some have thought it strange that slavery was not then abrogated; but even Christianity, fifteen hundred years later, did not venture on such a complete social revolution.

His wife shall go out with him. —The privilege of the married Hebrew slave also extended to his wife, if he was married when he became a slave. It extended further, no doubt, to his children.

If his master have given him a wife.—If, however, the Hebrew slave, being previously unmarried, had been allowed by his master to take to wife one of his female slaves, then, when the husband claimed his freedom the wife could not claim hers. Both she and her children remained in the slave condition.

And if. —Better, But if.

I love my master. —Under every system of slavery, affection grows up between slaves and a master who is indulgent to them. At Rome, it was common for slaves to endure the severest torture rather than betray or accuse their owners. If a man has no rights, he is thankful for small mercies, and responds with warm feeling to those who treat him kindly.

As the Hebrew form of slavery was of a mild type, masters being admonished to treat their slaves not as bondservants, but as hired servants (Leviticus 25:39–40), and, again, not to rule over them with rigour (Leviticus 25:46), there would naturally be frequent cases where the slave would not wish to go out.

He might actually love his master; or he might value the security from want which attaches to the slave condition; or he might be unwilling to break up the family which, by his master’s favour, he had been allowed to create.

For such cases, some provision was necessary. It was made by the law here formulated (Exodus 21:5–6), which allowed the Hebrew slave, if he liked, to forfeit all claim to freedom and take upon himself permanently the condition of a bondman.