What Does Exodus 21:2 Mean in the King James?

If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.

Exodus 21:2 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

What was bought does not become permanent: the verse gives service a fixed end and makes freedom cost nothing.

THE MEANING

This verse places a clear limit on purchased service: six years, then the servant goes out free without paying for that freedom. Being bought does not erase the moment of release.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that purchased service can claim a person without end meets a boundary here: the service has a term, and release is not something the servant must buy back.

THE ROOT

עֶבֶד

ʿeved

GROWS FROM

עבד

ʿ-b-d

To work or serve.

⁨עֶבֶד⁩ (ʿeved, servant) grows from the same root as ⁨עָבַד⁩ (ʿāvad, to work or serve), tying the person named in the verse to the service performed. The word’s root brings the labor into view, while the verse makes clear that this service has an end.

ALSO GROWS

ʿāvad: To work or serve.

עָבַד

It is the verb behind the servant’s six years of service, linking the person and the work to one root.

ʿavodah: Work, labor, or service.

עֲבֹדָה

This branch makes the labor within the servant relationship explicit; the verse assigns that labor a term.

THE PATTERN

Release becomes real when service ends and the bound person goes out free.

And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.

Deuteronomy 15:12 · KJVThe same six-year term ends in a seventh-year release, naming the freedom as an actual departure from service.

At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee; and when he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee: but your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear.

Jeremiah 34:14 · KJVThe verse names the same term and release, and shows how refusing that release keeps service from reaching its appointed end.

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

John 8:36 · KJVHere, too, freedom is an actual state that ends the hold of service.

THE THREAD

And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.

Deuteronomy 15:12 · KJV

The word “serve” in Deuteronomy comes from the same ⁨עבד⁩ (ʿ-b-d, work or serve) root that names the servant in Exodus. The parallel spells out the exit: the servant is let go free “from thee,” making release a concrete end to the service relation.

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