Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
If you need servants or slaves, you should buy them from the foreign nations around you, not from your fellow Israelites.
This verse instructed ancient Israelites that any slaves they owned should come from surrounding non-Israelite nations, not from their own people.
📚 Historical Context
In the historical context of ancient Israel, God was giving the Mosaic Law to the Israelites after their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, providing guidelines for a just society amid surrounding cultures that practiced various forms of servitude. This verse in Leviticus 25 is part of a broader set of laws regulating economic practices, including the treatment of slaves, to protect Israelites from permanent enslavement while allowing the acquisition of servants from foreign nations. These regulations reflected the realities of the ancient Near East, where slavery was common, but they also introduced limits and humane elements, such as the Jubilee year for debt release.
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