Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 21:4

If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself.

4. The third case. If the master marries a slave to one of his female slaves, the wife remains her master’s slave as she was before, and does not go free with her husband. If she has borne him children, the remain in servitude with their mother. At this early time, children’s relationship to their mother was held to be closer and more binding than that to their father.

give him ] for the slave would not have the right to choose a wife for himself.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Verse 4. The wife and her children shall be her master’s] It was a law among the Hebrews, that if a Hebrew had children by a Canannitish woman, those children must be considered as Canaanitish only, and might be sold and bought, and serve for ever. The law here refers to such a case only.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

That being a true rule, and approved both by Scripture and by heathen authors, that the birth follows the belly, Gen 21:10; Gal 4:24,25; and he that owns the tree hath right to all its fruit.

Quest. How was this separation of man and wife agreeable with the first institution of marriage, by which that bond is made indissoluble?

Answ. 1. That bond was not necessarily dissolved by this law, both because the separation was at the mans choice, who might have staid there if he so pleased; and because the distinction of their habitations might consist with the right and use of matrimony, which the master also would probably permit for his own advantage.

Answ. 2. God might here, as well as in the case of divorces, dispense with his own laws and institutions, especially in this case, where he might design this for a punishment to the man for marrying a stranger, which was not pleasing to God, as appears from Deu 21:11; Ezr 10:2; Neh 13:23. And that this woman was a stranger, and not a Hebrewess, is manifest, because then she also must have gone out free, Exo 21 7-9; Deu 15:12.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

If his master have given him a wife,…. One of his slaves, a Canaanitish woman, on purpose to beget slaves on her, since all born in his house were his own; this is supposed to be after he was come into his house, and into his service:

and she have born him sons or daughters; as she might have born him several of the one sort, or the other, if she was given to him quickly after his servitude began:

the wife and her children shall be her master’s: she being his slave, and bought with his money, he had a right unto her, and to the children belonging to her, the birth following the belly; and being born in his house, they were also his. Jarchi here observes, that the Scripture speaks of a Canaanitish woman, for an Hebrew woman went out at the sixth year, and even before the sixth, if she produced the signs, that is, of puberty:

and he shall go out by himself; without his wife and children: if it be objected to this law, that it is contrary to the law of marriage, which is indissoluble, but by this dissolved; it may be replied, that the servant was not obliged by it to leave his wife, unless he chose it; on complying with certain conditions after mentioned, he might continue with her; besides, she was, according to Jarchi, but his secondary wife, and not only so, the marriage was not lawful, being with a Canaanitish woman, and not agreeable to the Lord; and being also her master’s slave, to whom he had a right, he could retain her if he pleased, having only given her to his servant to beget slaves on for him.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(4) If his master have given him a wife.If, however, the Hebrew slave, being previously unmarried, had been allowed by his master to take to wife one of his female slaves, then, when the husband claimed his freedom the wife could not claim hers. Both she and her children remained in the slave condition.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

4. If his master have given him a wife This condition involved certain rights of family and household possession . It contemplates the patriarchal family, in which servants were born, and may also have had in view the fact that the wife in the case supposed might often be a bondmaid acquired from among the heathen, whose legal term of service would not expire before the jubilee. “This may appear oppressive, but it was an equitable consequence of the possession of property in slaves at all.” Keil.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments