What Does Exodus 21:7 Mean?
And if a man sells his daughter to be a maidservant, she does not go out as the menservants go out.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.THE KEY
The same word for “go out” names the male servant’s release, and this verse says the daughter does not leave on those terms.
THE MEANING
This verse gives the daughter sold as a maidservant a different condition of release: she does not go out as male servants do. The unequal boundary is stated plainly in the text.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a daughter in service receives the same exit as a male servant.
THE ROOT
תֵּצֵא
tēṣēʾ
GROWS FROM
י־צ־א
Go out, come forth, emerge.
The verb means “she will go out,” from the root יָצָא (yatsa), “to go out or emerge.” The same root describes the male servant’s release in verse 2, so the distinction here is expressed through the very word for leaving: her departure is not on his terms.
ALSO GROWS
yēṣēʾ: He will go out.
יֵצֵא
This is the form used for the male servant’s release in Exodus 21:2, making the contrast with the daughter’s terms visible in the shared verb.
mōṣāʾ: An outlet, source, or place of going out.
מוֹצָא
This noun from the same root gives “going out” the sense of an actual way through, illuminating the question of who has access to release.
THE PATTERN
The terms of release reveal which people a law or teaching places inside freedom’s scope.
If you buy a Hebrew servant, six years he serves, and in the seventh he goes out free for nothing.And if your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall send him out from you unbound.There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither servant nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus the Anointed One.THE THREAD
If you buy a Hebrew servant, six years he serves, and in the seventh he goes out free for nothing.Both verses use יצא (yatsa), “go out.” Verse 2 says the male servant goes out free, while verse 7 says the daughter does not go out as male servants do; the shared verb carries the release, and the difference in terms remains explicit.
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