2 If thou buy a Hebrew bondman, six years shall he serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. 3 If he came in alone, he shall go out alone: if he had a wife, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Exodus 21:2-4
Commentary on Exodus 21:1-11
(Read Exodus 21:1-11)
The laws in this chapter relate to the fifth and sixth commandments; and though they differ from our times and customs, nor are they binding on us, yet they explain the moral law, and the rules of natural justice. The servant, in the state of servitude, was an emblem of that state of bondage to sin, Satan, and the law, which man is brought into by robbing God of his glory, by the transgression of his precepts. Likewise in being made free, he was an emblem of that liberty wherewith Christ, the Son of God, makes free from bondage his people, who are free indeed; and made so freely, without money and without price, of free grace.