But if your servant says to you, ‘I do not want to leave you,’ because he loves you and your household and is well off with you,
God's people must not be held in perpetual slavery; thus are His spiritual Israel called unto liberty. When released, masters must furnish them with stock to begin again, for they leave with nothing of their own. A servant who chooses to stay for life gets reputation among some as quiet and contented, among others as one without due sense of freedom's honor.
AI summary
Commenting on Deuteronomy 15:12-18
And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee,.... Out of his house, nor quit his service: because he loveth thee and thine house; his master and his family, and so loath to leave them, but chooses rather to stay with them than have his liberty; hence the Jews say (k), if his master has not a wife...
Debtors sold into slavery when their property could not cover debt faced a six-year limit, no longer. They gained freedom either after six years or at the jubilee, whichever came first, even if their full term had not expired.
AI summary
Commenting on Deuteronomy 15:12-19