Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Leviticus 25:55
For unto me the children of Israel [are] servants; they [are] my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I [am] the LORD your God.
55. Cp. Lev 25:23 ; Lev 25:42.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 55. For unto me the children of Israel are servants] The reason of this law we have already seen, (See Clarke on Le 25:42,) but we must look farther to see the great end of it. The Israelites were a typical people; they represented those under the Gospel dispensation who are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. But these last have a peculiarity of blessing: they are not merely servants, but they are SONS; though they also serve God, yet it is in the newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. And to this difference of state the apostle seems evidently to allude, Ga 4:6, c.: And because ye are SONS, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a SERVANT, but a SON and if a SON, then an HEIR of God through Christ; genuine believers in Christ not being heirs of an earthly inheritance, nor merely of a heavenly one, for they are heirs of God. God himself therefore is their portion, without whom even heaven itself would not be a state of consummate blessedness to an immortal spirit.
THE jubilee was a wonderful institution, and was of very great service to the religion, freedom, and independence of the Jewish people. “The motive of this law,” says Calmet, “was to prevent the rich from oppressing the poor, and reducing them to perpetual slavery; and that they should not get possession of all the lands by way of purchase, mortgage, or, lastly, usurpation. That debts should not be multiplied too much, lest thereby the poor should be entirely ruined; and that slaves should not continue always, they, their wives and children, in servitude. Besides, Moses intended to preserve, as much as possible, personal liberty, an equality of property, and the regular order of families, among the Hebrews. Lastly, he designed that the people should be strongly attached to their country, lands, and inheritances; that they should have an affection for them, and consider them as estates which descended to them from their ancestors which they were to leave to their posterity, without any fear of their going ultimately out of their families.”
But this institution especially pointed out the redemption of man by Christ Jesus:
1. Through him, he who was in debt to God’s justice had his debt discharged, and his sin forgiven.
2. He who sold himself for naught, who was a bondslave of sin and Satan, regains his liberty and becomes a son of God through faith in his blood.
3. He who by transgression had forfeited all right and title to the kingdom of God, becomes an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ. Heaven, his forfeited inheritance, is restored, for the kingdom of heaven is open to all believers; and thus, redeemed from his debt, restored to his liberty, united to the heavenly family, and re-entitled to his inheritance, he goes on his way rejoicing, till he enters the paradise of his Maker, and is for ever with the Lord.
Reader, hast thou applied for this redemption? Does not the trumpet of the jubilee, the glad tidings of salvation by Christ Jesus, sound in the land? Surely it does. Why then continue a bond-slave of sin, a child of wrath, and an heir of hell, when such a salvation is offered unto thee without money and without price? O suffer not this provision to be made ultimately in vain for thee! For what art thou advantaged if thou gain the whole world and lose thy soul?
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
For unto me the children of Israel [are] servants,…. And therefore not to be perpetual servants to men, as those who are bought and redeemed by the blood of Christ should not be, 1Co 7:23; The Targum of Jonathan is, servants to my law; see Ro 7:25; those that are redeemed by Christ are also servants to his Gospel, and obey from their heart the form and doctrine delivered to them;
they [are] my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: where they were in cruel bondage, and made to serve with rigour, but now, being delivered from thence, were laid under obligation to serve the Lord; nor was it his will that others should rule over them with rigour, whether of their own nation or strangers, or that they should be bondmen and bondmaids, or perpetual servants to any:
I [am] the Lord your God; their covenant God, who had been kind to them, particularly in the instance mentioned, and would take care that they should not be ill used by others, and therefore ought to serve him readily and cheerfully.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(55) For unto me the children of Israel are servants.See Lev. 25:38; Lev. 25:42.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
55. They are my servants The term servant here implies property. Hence the Hebrews could never rightfully sell themselves to others as merchandise. No Hebrew had a right to enslave himself. He could only sell his labour till the jubilee. This limit was fixed as a safeguard against involuntary and unlimited slavery. “This is a remarkable expression as connected with the fact of which God is always reminding the children of Israel, namely, that he brought them out of the house of bondage and out of the land of Egypt. He appears to acquire his hold upon their confidence by continually reminding them that at one period of their history they were bondmen. Now he insists that the men whom he has brought into liberty have been brought only into another kind of service. This is the necessity of finite life. Every liberty is in some sense a bondage.” Joseph Parker.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
REFLECTIONS
WHAT motives of thanksgiving and praise pour in upon my soul from every quarter, in the perusal of this chapter, while I consider and compare my privileges and my happiness to those of the LORD’S people of old. They had, it is true, their seventh year of Sabbaths to remind them of the Sabbaths in Paradise, which Adam’s transgression deprived his children of; but I have in that second Adam, the LORD from heaven, (as the Apostle most properly stiles him) an everlasting Sabbath, in him and from him to enjoy. Oh! may the blessed SPIRIT give me by his sweet influences to rest in JESUS!
In this Jubilee season to the poor captive and bond-servant may I behold by faith, the lively emblem of that eternal jubilee in JESUS, wherewith he makes his people free. Oh! thou kinsman Redeemer, that hast caused thy gospel trumpet to be sounded, never may I lose sight of what I was by nature, and what I now am by grace. Thou didst find me, O LORD, a bond-servant, indeed, to Sin and Satan, serving divers lusts and pleasures; and even in love with my chains, and averse to freedom. Eternal praises to thy dear name, that thou hast both proclaimed liberty to the captive, and made me willing to be redeemed in the day of thy power. Oh! may it be my happiness to return, as the redeemed Israelite, to my FATHER’S house, and now the mortgaged and sold inheritance is ransomed; LORD keep me from being ever again entangled in the old yoke of bondage. And while I behold so many all round me in nature’s chains of sin, LORD give me grace, to adore the distinguishing mercy of my Deliverer. Let it be wholly to the praise of the glory of thy grace, wherein thou hast made me accepted in the beloved.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
“Handfuls of Purpose”
For All Gleaners
“For unto me the children of Israel are servants.” Lev 25:55
This is a remarkable expression as connected with the fact of which God is always reminding the children of Israel, namely, that he brought them out of the house of bondage and out of the land of Egypt. He appears to acquire his hold upon their confidence by continually reminding them that at one period of their history they were bondmen. Now he insists that the men whom he has brought into liberty, have been brought only into another kind of service. This is the necessity of finite life. Every liberty is in some sense a bondage. Christians are the slaves of Christ; they are burden-bearers and yoke-carriers, specially under the supervision and sovereignty of the Son of God. All depends upon the nature of the service which is rendered. Where the service is arbitrary and compulsory, it is of necessity reluctant, and by so much vicious and worthless. The glory of Christian service is that such bondage is considered sweeter than any other freedom: those, indeed, who have known most about it have not hesitated to describe it as the glorious liberty of the children of God. Where our love is, there is our service. In the best sense of the term, we are the slaves of those whom we love. Christians are called into the sweet bondage which gives them liberty. They have seen that the mastery of Jesus Christ is a sovereignty which reason can accept, and love can joyfully obey. It is not because of the grandeur of the mastery or the superlativeness of celestial dignity, it is because the sovereignty of Christ is in harmony with all that is best and purest in human nature itself; filling up every void in the life, and giving full development and scope to every faculty of the being. The earth is glad to be the slave of the sun. The folly of rebelling against the Christian religion because it requires the subjugation of the will ought to be obvious to every unprejudiced mind. The subjugation of the will is a phrase, the meaning of which wholly depends on circumstances which have to be explained. To subjugate the will to an inferior is to disennoble human nature; to subjugate the will to an equal because of some temporary advantage is the deepest injustice to one’s self. But to subjugate the will to the eternal God is really to acquire a still higher will, and to enter into the mystery of the peace of the God whose will we have accepted. No analogy can be drawn as between the subjugation of the will of man to man, and the subjugation of the will to God. This is the foundation principle of the true theocracy. We are taught to say, “Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven”; and again, “Not my will, but thine, be done.” If Christ could say this in his human relation, we need have no difficulty in repeating it in our condition. When did the will of God ever interfere with the broadest and deepest human progress? When did it turn aside noble aspiration? When did it enclose the soul in selfish narrowness, and forbid the outgoing of sympathy towards the outcast and the weary? By these signs and tokens should the divine will be examined and judged. Christianity does not shrink from such examination, but rather challenges it, knowing that they who know most of God will be most ready to accept his gracious dominion.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
my servants: Lev 25:42, Exo 13:3, Exo 20:2, Psa 116:16, Isa 43:3, Luk 1:74, Luk 1:75, Rom 6:14, Rom 6:17, Rom 6:18, Rom 6:22, 1Co 7:22, 1Co 7:23, 1Co 9:19, 1Co 9:21, Gal 5:13
Reciprocal: Lev 26:13 – I am