Leviticus 25:39 - Meaning and Application

These laws about servitude were meant to protect the honor of Israel as a free people. God had rescued them from the house of bondage by his own power and made them his sons, his firstborn. So the law carefully limited slavery among Israelites.

A native Israelite was never to be made a slave for life. If he had been sold because of debt or a crime by the court, he was to serve only six years and go free in the seventh, as stated in Exodus 21:2. But if he had sold himself because of extreme poverty, having nothing left to keep himself alive, and he had sold himself to someone from his own nation, then he was still not to be treated as a bondman. He was to be treated as a hired servant, someone whose labor was used, but who was not under absolute control. The reason is simple: “They are my servants” (Leviticus 25:42). God does not make his servants slaves, so their brothers must not do so either.

This also reminded Israel that God had redeemed them from Egypt, so they must never be sold as bondmen again. Paul applies this spiritually when he says, “You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men” (1 Corinthians 7:23). That means not slaves of human desires, and not slaves of our own sinful desires either. Since we belong to God, we must not let sin rule our mortal bodies (Romans 6:12, Romans 6:22).

While such a servant worked, he was also not to be treated harshly, the way Israel had once been treated in Egypt (Leviticus 25:43). His work and his treatment had to fit someone who was a son of Abraham. Masters are still told to give their servants what is fair and right (Colossians 4:1). Servants may be used, but they must not be abused. Those who keep threatening, mocking, and crushing their servants forget that their own Master is in heaven, and they will have to answer to him. Job spoke this way about himself when he considered how God would judge harsh treatment of others (Job 31:13, Job 31:14).

At the year of jubilee, he was to go free, he and his children, and return to his own family (Leviticus 25:41). This pointed ahead to our rescue from the service of sin and Satan by God’s grace in Christ, whose truth makes us free (John 7:32). Jewish writers said that for ten days before the jubilee trumpet sounded, servants who were about to be released celebrated with feasts and garlands on their heads. That is why it is called “the joyful sound” (Psalm 89:15). We too should rejoice in the freedom we have in Christ.

Israel was also allowed to buy bondmen from the surrounding nations, or from strangers living among them, except for the seven nations marked for destruction. These foreign servants could belong to Israel permanently and pass to their children as an inheritance. The year of jubilee did not release them (Leviticus 25:44, Leviticus 25:46). In this way, the authority Israel had over such servants fit with Jacob’s blessing, “Let peoples serve you” (Genesis 27:29). It also pointed forward to the bringing in of the Gentiles, the non-Jewish nations, into the service of Christ and his church. God said, “Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance” (Psalm 2:8). Isaiah also says, “Foreigners shall stand and tend your flocks” (Isaiah 61:5), and Revelation speaks in the same way (Revelation 2:26, Revelation 2:27). The upright will one day have dominion in the morning, that is, in the time of God’s final victory (Psalm 49:14).

This rule also shows that only true Israelites, people who belong to God by faith, share in the freedom of the gospel jubilee. Those who remain pagan remain in bondage. Paul turns this same thought against unbelieving Jews when he says that Jerusalem, after rejecting Christ, is in bondage with her children (Galatians 4:25). Even so, Jewish teachers said that mercy and wisdom call a man to be compassionate and not make the burden of any servant too heavy.