The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Redemption of Bondmen
Leviticus 25:39–46 — Redemption of Bondmen. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
39If a countryman among you becomes destitute and sells himself to you, then you must not force him into slave labor.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḵî- ’ā·ḥî·ḵā ‘im·māḵ yā·mūḵ wə·nim·kar- lāḵ lō- ṯa·‘ă·ḇōḏ bōw ‘ā·ḇeḏ ‘ă·ḇō·ḏaṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-if thy-brother beside-thee grows-poor, and-he-is-sold to-thee — thou-shalt-not make-him-serve the-service-of a-slave.”
Where the English smooths the original
The voluntary disposal of his own liberty for a money consideration the Israelite could only effect by stress of poverty. Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant. —Under these circumstances he is not to be treated like heathen slaves who are either purchased or captured, and made to do the menial service which these Gentile slaves have to perform.
To serve as a bond-servant — Neither for the time, for ever, nor for the manner, with the hardest and vilest kinds of service, rigorously and severely exacted.
The man to whom he had sold himself as servant was not to have slave-labour performed by him ( Exodus 1:14 ), but to keep him as a day-labourer and sojourner, and let him serve with him till the year of jubilee. He was then to go out free with his children, and return to his family and the possession of his fathers (his patrimony).K&D align the verse with Exodus 1:14 — the same word for Egypt's slave-labor is the thing now forbidden.
The law here appears harmoniously to supplement the earlier one in Exodus 21:1-6 . It was another check applied periodically to the tyranny of the rich. Compare Jeremiah 34:8-17 .Barnes points to Jeremiah 34:8-17, where Judah enslaves brothers it had just freed — the prophetic case that proves this law was both real and broken.
40Let him stay with you as a hired worker or temporary resident; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
yih·yeh ‘im·māḵ kə·śā·ḵîr kə·ṯō·wō·šāḇ ya·‘ă·ḇōḏ ‘im·māḵ ‘aḏ- šə·naṯ hay·yō·ḇêl
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“As-a-hired-man, as-a-sojourner he-shall-be with-thee; until the-year of the Jubilee he-shall-serve with-thee.”
Where the English smooths the original
The master is in all respects to treat him as one who disposes of his service for wages for a certain time, and will then be his own master again. Shall serve thee unto the year of jubile. —Nor could he be kept beyond the year of jubile. This terminated the sale of his services just as it cancelled all the sales of landed property.
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 was to be treated not as a slave, but a hired servant whose engagement was temporary, and who might, through the friendly aid of a relative, be redeemed at any time before the Jubilee. The ransom money was determined on a most equitable principle.JFB describes the redemption mechanics: the kinsman could buy the brother back, the price prorated by the years remaining to the Jubilee — the foreground of the kinsman-redeemer typology.
41Then he and his children are to be released, and he may return to his clan and to the property of his fathers.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hū ū·ḇā·nāw ‘im·mōw wə·yā·ṣā mê·‘im·māḵ wə·šāḇ ’el- miš·paḥ·tōw wə·’el- yā·šūḇ ’ă·ḥuz·zaṯ ’ă·ḇō·ṯāw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-he-shall-go-out from-with-thee, he and-his-children with-him; and-he-shall-return unto his-clan, and-unto the-holding of his fathers he-shall-return.”
Where the English smooths the original
At the same time that he regains his liberty, and takes with him his family, the patrimony which he sold also reverts to him.
Then shall he depart from thee; thou shalt not suffer him or his to abide longer in thy service, as thou mightest do in the year of release, Exodus 21:2 ,6 .
and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return; the estate his father left him by inheritance, and which he was obliged to sell in the time of his poverty, or which fell to him since by the death of his father; to this also he was restored in the year of jubilee
42Because the Israelites are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt, they are not to be sold as slaves.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî- hêm ‘ă·ḇā·ḏay ’ă·šer- hō·w·ṣê·ṯî ’ō·ṯām mê·’e·reṣ miṣ·rā·yim lō yim·mā·ḵə·rū mim·ke·reṯ ‘ā·ḇeḏ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“For My servants are-they, whom I-brought-out from-the-land of-Egypt; they-shall-not be-sold the-selling-of a-slave.”
Where the English smooths the original
For they are my servants. —This is a clue to the whole system of Hebrew servitude. These poverty-stricken men, who are driven to sell themselves to their fellow-Israelites, God claims as His servants. God is their Lord as well as their master’s Lord. He delivered them both alike from bondage to serve Him. There is, therefore, no difference between bond and free.
All servitude to men was an infraction of God’s rights over Israel. God was the Israelites’ ‘Master’; they were His ‘slaves.’ He was so, because He had ‘broken the bands of their yoke, and set them free.’Maclaren's sermon 'God's Slaves' takes this verse as the basis of the whole Mosaic law on servitude.
Because the Israelites were servants of Jehovah, who had redeemed them out of Pharaoh's bondage and adopted them as His people ( Exodus 19:5 ; Exodus 18:10 , etc.), they were not to be sold "a selling of slaves," i.e., not to be sold into actual slavery, and no one of them was to rule over another with severity
They are my servants — They , no less than you, are members of my church and people; such as I have chosen out of all the world to serve me here, and to enjoy me hereafter, and therefore are not to be oppressed, neither are you absolute lords over them to deal with them as you please.Benson's note spans vv. 41-43; this clause comments on v. 42. He reads God's prior ownership covenantally — the poor brother is a fellow member of God's people, not a chattel.
43You are not to rule over them harshly, but you shall fear your God.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
lō- ṯir·deh ḇōw bə·p̄ā·reḵ wə·yā·rê·ṯā mê·’ĕ·lō·he·ḵā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“Thou-shalt-not rule over-him with-crushing-rigor; and-thou-shalt-fear from-thy-God.”
Where the English smooths the original
Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour. —The master is forbidden to tyrannise over him as if he were a slave without any rights.
Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour,.... As the Egyptians ruled over the Israelites, and made them to serve, Exodus 1:13 ; where the same word is used as here, and seems designed to put them in mind of it, that so they might abstain from such usage of their brethren, which they had met with from their most cruel enemies; it signifies tyranny and oppressionGill identifies the rare word pereḵ (“rigour”) as the very term used of Egypt's oppression in Exodus 1:13.
Though thou dost not fear them who are in thy power, and unable to right themselves, yet fear that God who hath commanded thee to use them kindly, and who can and will avenge their cause, if thou dost oppress them.Poole names the exact dynamic of the clause: the powerless brother cannot enforce his own rights, so the only restraint on the strong is reverence for the God who will avenge the weak.
Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God, is paralleled by the New Testament injunction, "And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him" ( Ephesians 6:9 ).
44Your menservants and maidservants shall come from the nations around you, from whom you may purchase them.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·‘aḇ·də·ḵā wa·’ă·mā·ṯə·ḵā ’ă·šer yih·yū- lāḵ mê·’êṯ hag·gō·w·yim ’ă·šer sə·ḇî·ḇō·ṯê·ḵem mê·hem tiq·nū ‘e·ḇeḏ wə·’ā·māh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-thy-manservant and-thy-maidservant who shall-be thine — from the-nations that are-round-about-you, from-them ye-may-acquire manservant and-maidservant.”
Where the English smooths the original
It was the object of Moses, not at once to do away with slavery, but to discourage and to mitigate it. The Law would not suffer it to be forgotten that the slave was a man, and protected him in every way that was possible at the time against the injustice or cruelty of his master.
The Israelites, however, were restricted to the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Edomites, and the Syrians, who were their neighbours, but were not permitted to buy any slaves from the seven nations who were in the midst of them, and whom they were ordered to destroy ( Deuteronomy 20:16-18 ).
On the other hand slaves bought from persons of other nations, or from foreigners sojourning in the land, were to be bondservants in the strictest sense of the word.Cambridge's overview note (on vv. 39-46) states the boundary plainly: the kinsman is shielded from true slavery, the foreigner is not — the very line the Hebrew draws by reusing ʽēḇeḏ and ʼăḥuzzâh.
Slavery is not forbidden in respect to non-Israelites. The world was not yet ready for it, as it was not ready in the days of St. Paul.The Pulpit Commentary's own historical judgment; weigh it — it is the commentator's, not the text's.
45You may also purchase them from the foreigners residing among you or their clans living among you who are born in your land. These may become your property.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḡam tiq·nū mib·bə·nê hat·tō·wō·šā·ḇîm hag·gā·rîm ‘im·mā·ḵem mê·hem ū·mim·miš·paḥ·tām ‘im·mā·ḵem ’ă·šer ’ă·šer hō·w·lî·ḏū bə·’ar·ṣə·ḵem wə·hā·yū lā·ḵem la·’ă·ḥuz·zāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-also from-the-children of-the-sojourners who-reside with-you — from-them ye-may-acquire, and-from their-clans that are-with-you, whom they-begot in-your-land; and-they-shall-become to-you for-a-holding.”
Where the English smooths the original
By these strangers the ancient authorities understand those who have been permitted to settle down among the Jews on condition that they submit to the seven commandments given to Noah, but have not embraced Judaism. Hence the Chaldee Version translates this phrase, “the children of uncircumcised strangers.” And they shall be your possession. —These, but not the Hebrews, the masters may hold as their absolute property.
and they shall be your {t} possession. (t) For they shall not be bought out at the Jubile.
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, &c. but were not circumcised, and did not embrace the Jewish religion
46You may leave them to your sons after you to inherit as property; you can make them slaves for life. But as for your brothers, the Israelites, no man may rule harshly over his brother.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·hiṯ·na·ḥăl·tɛm ’ō·ṯām liḇ·nê·ḵem ’a·ḥă·rê·ḵem lā·re·šeṯ ’ă·ḥuz·zāh ta·‘ă·ḇō·ḏū lə·‘ō·lām bā·hem ū·ḇə·’a·ḥê·ḵem bə·nê- yiś·rā·’êl lō- ’îš ṯir·deh bə·p̄ā·reḵ bə·’ā·ḥîw ḇōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-ye-shall-make-them-an-inheritance for-your-sons after-you, to-possess-as-a-holding; for-ever ye-may-make-them-serve. But-over-your-brothers, the-sons-of Israel — a-man over-his-brother thou-shalt-not rule with-crushing-rigor.”
Where the English smooths the original
In contrast to these heathen bondmen the Jewish bondmen are here designated “brethren.” They are co-religionists, who have been reduced to temporary servitude, but who are, nevertheless, fellow-heirs with them in the land of their possession. Hence the greatest consideration was to be shown to them in these adverse circumstances.
Your bondmen forever - i. e. they were not necessarily to be released in the sabbatical year nor at the Jubilee.
these they might leave as an inheritance to their children, and "through them they might work," i.e., have slave-labour performed, but not through their brethren the children of Israel ( Leviticus 25:46 , cf. Leviticus 25:43 ).
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The law begins where life so often breaks: a man yāmūk — sinks, wastes, totters down into ruin. Ellicott reads the verb against the preceding verses: this is the case where every charitable effort “to help him… fail, and he still finds himself in extreme poverty.” It is the last resort, and the law’s first concern is to forbid the obvious cruelty: “thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant” (v. 39). The Hebrew presses the prohibition with a triple drumbeat of one root — taʽāḇōḏ ʽāḇeḏ ʽăḇōḏaṯ, “thou-shalt-not serve-by-him the servitude of a servant” — and the noun for that servitude, ʽăḇōḏâh, is the very word Exodus uses of Israel’s crushing toil in Egypt (1:14). Keil & Delitzsch make the link by name. Instead, says v. 40, he is to be like a hired man, like a sojourner — Gill draws the warmth out of the comparison: an inmate “treated… rather like one of his own family than otherwise.” And it is all bounded by the horn-blast: until the year of the Jubilee. Then (v. 41) he goes out — yāṣā, the very verb of the Exodus — he and his children, back to clan and to the holding of his fathers. Ellicott: “the patrimony which he sold also reverts to him.”
Then comes the sentence on which the whole structure rests. “For My servants are they, whom I brought out from the land of Egypt” (v. 42). The Hebrew sets two uses of one word against each other: they cannot be made a man’s ʽēḇeḏ (the “slave” of v. 39) because they are already God’s ʽăḇāḏay (“My servants”). Ellicott calls this “a clue to the whole system of Hebrew servitude”: God is “their Lord as well as their master’s Lord… there is, therefore, no difference between bond and free.” Maclaren, preaching this verse under the title God’s Slaves, presses the same logic: “all servitude to men was an infraction of God’s rights over Israel… He had broken the bands of their yoke, and set them free.” Keil & Delitzsch, citing Oehler, draw the conclusion: “through this principle slavery was completely abolished, so far as the people of the theocracy were concerned.” Verse 43 then forbids the manner as v. 42 forbade the status: “thou shalt not rule over him with pereḵ” — a rare, brutal word (six occurrences in all of Scripture) that Gill identifies as the very term used of Egypt in Exodus 1:13: to treat a brother so is to become Pharaoh. The only restraint named is not the slave’s leverage but the master’s reverence: “thou shalt fear thy God.” Barnes: “to treat a Hebrew as a slave was… to interfere with the rights of Yahweh.”
The law then turns, with what is to the modern reader its hardest face, to permit perpetual slavery of foreigners (vv. 44–46). It is honest to let the difficulty stand. The text restricts the source — Ellicott and Gill name the surrounding nations, with the seven banned Canaanite peoples excluded (Deuteronomy 20:16–18) — and Barnes frames the law’s trajectory: “it was the object of Moses, not at once to do away with slavery, but to discourage and to mitigate it. The Law would not suffer it to be forgotten that the slave was a man.” The Pulpit Commentary offers its own historical judgment — “the world was not yet ready” — which is the commentator’s reading, not the text’s, and should be weighed as such. What the Hebrew does unmistakably is mark the boundary by reusing its key words: the alien becomes an ’ăḥuzzâh (“holding,” v. 45) — the very word for the ancestral land the brother regains in v. 41 — and may be kept ləʽōlām, “for ever” (v. 46), the exact antithesis of the brother’s release “until the Jubilee.” And then the paragraph closes where it opened: “but over your brothers… a man over his brother thou shalt not rule with pereḵ.” The rare crushing-word of v. 43 returns to seal an inclusio. The hinge of the entire law is one repeated noun — ’āḥ, brother (vv. 39, 46).
Read under the rule that Scripture is the final authority, three things stand out from this hard chapter — offered as a reading to be tested, not a verdict to be trusted. First, the redemption defines the relationship. The decisive word is not a humanitarian sentiment but a divine claim: “My servants are they, whom I brought out of Egypt.” Because God redeemed them, no man may own them absolutely — ownership is pre-empted by prior ownership. Second, the law restrains rather than ratifies. It does not invent the institution of servitude; it walls it in — bounding the brother’s service by the Jubilee, forbidding pereḵ (the Egyptian crushing) absolutely, and tethering the master to the fear of God. Barnes’ reading — mitigation aimed at a world not yet remade — fits the grain of the text. Third, the permission for foreign slavery is left standing, not celebrated, and the canon does not stop here. The same Scripture that allows it also plants the seed that undoes it: if redemption from bondage is the reason an Israelite cannot be enslaved, then the deeper, fuller redemption of the New Covenant pulls the ground out from under the institution altogether — “there is neither bond nor free… for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). The law that says “fear thy God” is on the road that ends with Paul sending a runaway back “no longer as a slave, but… a beloved brother” (Philemon 16). The trajectory is real; weigh it against the text.
The chapter’s whole mercy hangs on one word said twice — “brother” at the start, “brother” at the close; and the gospel’s whole work is to make that one word reach everyone.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The rare word pereḵ (“crushing rigor,” only six occurrences in all of Scripture) brackets this law in vv. 43 and 46 — and reappears a third time in this same chapter at v. 53, where the brother sold to a resident alien is likewise shielded: “he shall not rule over him with rigour.” The very same word names what the Egyptians did to Israel in Exodus 1:13–14. Gill flags the link by name: the term “seems designed to put them in mind” of their bondage, “that so they might abstain from such usage of their brethren.” To rule a brother with pereḵ is to become Pharaoh. Because the lexeme is rare (and four of its six occurrences cluster in these two passages) and the verbal correspondence is exact, the Verifier records this as a confirmed verbal link.
Leviticus 25:43 · Leviticus 25:46 · Leviticus 25:53 · Exodus 1:13 · Exodus 1:14
basis: Verifier: rare shared lexeme H6531 pereḵ (only 6 occurrences total; here in Lev 25:43, 46, 53), with H7287 rāḏâh; the same word names Egypt's oppression in Exodus 1:13-14
Ezekiel’s indictment of Israel’s shepherds — “with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them” — reaches for the same two words as this law: rāḏâh (“rule”) and the rare pereḵ (“rigor/cruelty”). The prophet charges the leaders with doing to the flock exactly what Leviticus forbids a master to do to a brother. The Verifier confirms the shared lexemes, including the rare pereḵ; the link is verbal, not merely thematic.
Leviticus 25:43 · Leviticus 25:46 · Ezekiel 34:4
basis: Verifier: shared H6531 pereḵ (rare, 6 vv) + H7287 rāḏâh (25 vv); Ezekiel reuses Leviticus's crushing-rule vocabulary against the shepherds
The rare verb mûk (“to sink low, grow destitute,” only five occurrences — all in Leviticus 25) ties this case to the chapter’s recurring scenario of the falling brother: the man who must sell his land (v. 25), who must be supported (v. 35), who sells himself (v. 39), and who sells himself to a resident alien (v. 47). The Jubilee legislation circles back to this one verb each time poverty deepens. The Verifier confirms the shared rare lexeme across the cluster.
Leviticus 25:39 · Leviticus 25:25 · Leviticus 25:35 · Leviticus 25:47
basis: Verifier: rare shared lexeme H4134 mûk (only 5 occurrences, all in Lev 25), with H4376 mâkar and H8453 tôšāḇ
The reason no Israelite may be sold as a slave (v. 42) is repeated as the chapter’s refrain in v. 55 — “the children of Israel are servants unto me; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt.” Both verses share the cluster ʽēḇeḏ (servant), yāṣâʼ (brought out), and Miṣrayim (Egypt). The Exodus is the deed that grounds the claim; the same servitude-vocabulary recoils on Egypt itself in Exodus 1:14, the toil God ended. The Verifier confirms the shared lexemes — common words, so the basis is structural/thematic rather than a rare quotation.
Leviticus 25:42 · Leviticus 25:55 · Exodus 1:14
basis: Verifier: shared H5650 ʽēḇeḏ, H3318 yāṣâʼ, H4714 Miṣrayim (all common, freq 500+) — a shared redemption-from-Egypt motif, not a rare quotation
This very statute — that no Israelite is to hold a brother in bondage — has its one great narrative test in Jeremiah 34. Under siege, Zedekiah’s Jerusalem proclaims liberty for its Hebrew slaves, then reneges and drags the freed brothers back into servitude, and the prophet pronounces judgment. Barnes points to the episode on this very verse (“Compare Jeremiah 34:8-17”). The shared vocabulary is the law’s own: mâkar (sell), ʽāḇaḏ (serve), and ’āḥ (brother). The Verifier finds these are common words, so the link is structural/thematic — not a unique quotation but the prophet pressing Leviticus 25’s command against a people who knew it and trampled it, with the deliverance from Egypt held up once more as the ground.
Leviticus 25:39 · Leviticus 25:42 · Jeremiah 34:14
basis: Verifier: shared H4376 mâkar (74 vv), H5647 ʽāḇaḏ (262 vv), H251 ’āḥ (571 vv) — common words; Jeremiah 34 invokes and indicts the breach of this slave-release law, flagged by Barnes on Lev 25:39
The New Testament gathers the principle of v. 43 (“fear thy God”) and applies it to Christian masters. The Pulpit Commentary pairs the verse with Ephesians 6:9 — “ye masters… forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven” — and Barnes links “fear thy God” to Romans 14:4 (“to his own master he standeth or falleth”). Henry adds Colossians 4:1, “masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal.” Held honestly: these are cross-Testament links (Greek↔Hebrew), so they cannot rest on shared Strong’s numbers and the Verifier finds none; the connection is thematic, argued through the human commentators, not a verbal citation.
Leviticus 25:42 · Leviticus 25:43 · Ephesians 6:9 · Colossians 4:1 · Romans 14:4
basis: Cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew): no shared Strong's possible; thematic uptake named by Pulpit Commentary (Eph 6:9), Barnes (Rom 14:4), Henry (Col 4:1)
Verse 40’s humane formula — the poor brother kept “as a hired man, as a sojourner” — uses a fixed legal word-pair that recurs across the Torah’s status-laws: the hired man and resident alien excluded from the Passover (Exodus 12:45), barred from holy things (Leviticus 22:10), yet fed by the sabbatical land (Leviticus 25:6). The same pairing even shapes the prayer of Genesis 23:4 and Psalm 39:12, where the worshipper calls himself a sojourner before God. The Verifier confirms the shared lexemes tôšāḇ and śāḵîr; these are recurring legal terms, so the link is structural.
Leviticus 25:40 · Leviticus 25:6 · Exodus 12:45 · Leviticus 22:10 · Genesis 23:4
basis: Verifier: shared H8453 tôšāḇ (13 vv) + H7916 śāḵîr (17 vv) — a recurring legal word-pair, structural rather than a unique quotation
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The chapter’s logic — a man sunk in poverty (mûk), sold into bondage, awaiting the horn-blast of release — is the gospel in shadow. The same Leviticus 25 that governs this case provides the kinsman-redeemer (gō’ēl) who buys his fallen relative back (vv. 25, 48–49). Matthew Henry reads the whole paragraph this way: the servant’s release at Jubilee “typified redemption from the service of sin and Satan, by the grace of God in Christ, whose truth makes us free, John 8:32.” Christ is the near kinsman who, when we had “sold” ourselves under sin (Romans 7:14), pays the ransom and brings us home to the inheritance. This redemptive reading of the Jubilee is ancient and widely held.
Leviticus 25:39 · Leviticus 25:41 · John 8:32 · Romans 7:14
“For My servants are they, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt” (v. 42): because God owns the redeemed, no man may own them absolutely. The New Testament takes the identical principle and grounds it in the cross — “ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20; 7:23, “ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men”). Maclaren, preaching this verse as God’s Slaves, traces the line: redemption is the title-deed of God’s mastery. What the Exodus secured for Israel against human ownership, Calvary secures for the church. The typology is widely held; the verbal echo is thematic, since it crosses from Hebrew to Greek and shares no Strong’s number.
Leviticus 25:42 · 1 Corinthians 6:19 · 1 Corinthians 7:23
The law’s deepest instinct — that a fellow-believer is a brother, not a chattel (vv. 39, 46) — finds its consummation in the gospel. Paul sends the runaway Onesimus back “no longer as a slave, but… a beloved brother” (Philemon 16), and declares that in Christ “there is neither bond nor free… for ye are all one” (Galatians 3:28). What Leviticus restrains by mercy, the New Covenant dissolves by adoption: all who are redeemed become sons, and therefore brothers. This is a novel synthesis offered here — not a claim the human commentators draw from this verse — and should be weighed against the text rather than received as its plain sense.
Leviticus 25:46 · Philemon 16 · Galatians 3:28
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). The named voices are quoted verbatim from public-domain works (Ellicott, Benson, Henry, Barnes, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Poole, Gill, Geneva Study Bible, Cambridge Bible, Pulpit Commentary, Keil & Delitzsch, and Maclaren on v. 42) and attributed in place via BibleHub. The Hebrew is the Masoretic tradition; transliterations, literal renderings, divergence notes, and word notes are this tool’s own work (⚙) — careful but fallible; check them against a lexicon (BDB, HALOT).
On the hard text. This unit grants property in foreign slaves “for ever” (vv. 44–46). We have not softened it. The honest reading is the one Barnes gives — the law restrains and mitigates an existing institution rather than instituting or endorsing it — while the canon’s own trajectory (the redemption-ground of v. 42, carried to Galatians 3:28 and Philemon) pulls toward its undoing. The Pulpit Commentary’s “the world was not yet ready” is the commentator’s historical judgment, flagged as such, not the text’s claim.
On the threads. The two strongest cross-references rest on genuinely rare lexemes the Verifier flagged: pereḵ (H6531, 6 occurrences) for the Egyptian-crushing inclusio — which recurs a third time within this chapter at v. 53 and echoes in Ezekiel 34:4 — and mûk (H4134, 5 occurrences, all in Leviticus 25) for the falling-brother cluster; these are marked “verbal — confirmed.” The redemption-from-Egypt thread, the sojourner-pair thread, and the Jeremiah 34 link (where Judah breaks this very slave-release law) rest on common words and are marked “structural.” The New Testament master/slave links are cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew): they cannot share a Strong’s number and are tiered structural/thematic, argued through the human commentators, never asserted as verbal quotation. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11).
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)