Exodus 21:5-6 - Exposition

I love my master , etc. Affection might grow up between the slave and the master, if he were well treated. The Hebrew form of slavery was altogether of a mild kind. Masters are admonished to treat their slaves "not as bond-servants, but as hired servants or sojourners," and again "not to rule over them with rigour" (Le Exodus 25:39 , Exodus 25:40 , 43). Even among the heathen, slaves often bore a true affection to their masters. Or, the slave might be so attached to his wife and children as to be unwilling to separate from them, and might prefer slavery with the solace of their society to freedom without it. For such cases the provision was made, which is contained in Exodus 21:6 . On the slave declaring to his master his unwillingness to go free, the master might take him before the judges, or magistrates (literally "gods") as witnesses, and perhaps registrars of the man' s declaration, and might then reconduct him to his house, and by a significant ceremony mark him as his slave "for ever." The ceremony consisted in boring through one of his ears with an awl, and driving the awl into the door or doorpost of the house, thereby attaching him physically to the dwelling of which he became thenceforth a permanent inmate. Almost all commentators assert that some such custom was common in the East in connection with slavery, and refer to Xen. Aaab. 3.1, § 31; Plant. Poenul . 5.2, 21; Juv. Sat. 1.104; Plutarch. Vit . Cic . § 26, etc. But these passages merely show that the Orientals generally—not slaves in particular—had their ears bored for the purpose of wearing earrings, and indicate no usage at all comparable to the Hebrew practice. The Hebrew custom—probably a very ancient one—seems to have had two objects—

1 . The declaring by a significant act, that the man belonged to the house; and

2 . The permanent marking of him as a slave, dis-entitled to the rights of freemen, he shall serve him for ever . Josephus ( Ant. Jud. 4.8, § 20) and the Jewish commentators generally maintain that the law of the jubilee release overruled this enactment; but this must be regarded as very doubtful.