211 "Now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them: 2 "If you buy a Hebrew slave , he shall serve for six years ; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment . 3 "If he comes alone , he shall go out alone ; if he is the husband of a wife , then his wife shall go out with him. 4 "If his master gives him a wife , and she bears him sons or daughters , the wife and her children shall belong to her master , and he shall go out alone . 5 "But if the slave plainly says , 'I love my master , my wife and my children ; I will not go out as a free man ,' 6 then his master shall bring him to God , then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost . And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl ; and he shall serve him permanently . 7 " If a man sells his daughter as a female slave , she is not to go free as the male slaves do . 8 "If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed . He does not have authority to sell her to a foreign people because of his unfairness to her. 9 "If he designates her for his son , he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters . 10 "If he takes to himself another woman , he may not reduce her food , her clothing , or her conjugal rights . 11 "If he will not do these three things for her, then she shall go out for nothing , without payment of money .
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Exodus 21:1-11
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.