Bible Strands
Exodus 21:2
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.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God delivers this statute through Moses to the Israelites as part of the covenant legal code introduced in Exodus 21:1. The command establishes a fixed term for Hebrew indentured labor within the newly organized community.
The words — The text uses תִקְנֶה (tikneh), meaning "you will buy," and עֶבֶד (eved), meaning "a slave" or "servant," to define the transactional nature of the arrangement. יַעֲבֹד (ya'avad), "he will serve," specifies the labor obligation before the seventh-year release.
The thread — This six-year service and seventh-year release pattern appears in Deuteronomy 15:12 and Deuteronomy 15:18. The legal status of purchased slaves is also referenced in Exodus 12:44 regarding Passover eligibility.
Why it lands — The text mandates a mandatory release after six years of labor without any ransom payment. It requires the reader to acknowledge a divinely imposed limit on human ownership and a guaranteed restoration of freedom.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 15:12 If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you must set him free.
- Exodus 12:44 But any slave who has been purchased may eat of it, after you have circumcised him.
- Deuteronomy 15:18 Do not regard it as a hardship to set your servant free, because his six years of service were worth twice the wages of a hired hand. And the LORD your God will bless you in all you do.
- Exodus 22:3 But if it happens after sunrise, there is guilt for his bloodshed. A thief must make full restitution; if he has nothing, he himself shall be sold for his theft.
- Leviticus 25:39 If a countryman among you becomes destitute and sells himself to you, then you must not force him into slave labor.
- Deuteronomy 15:1 At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.
- Deuteronomy 31:10 Then Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of remission of debt, during the Feast of Tabernacles,
- Nehemiah 5:1 About that time there was a great outcry from the people and their wives against their fellow Jews.
- Nehemiah 5:8 and said, “We have done our best to buy back our Jewish brothers who were sold to foreigners, but now you are selling your own brothers, that they may be sold back to us!” But they remained silent, for they could find nothing to say.
- Jeremiah 34:8 After King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim liberty, the word came to Jeremiah from the LORD