What Does Jeremiah 34:9 Mean in the King James?
That every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being an Hebrew or an Hebrewess, go free; that none should serve himself of them, to wit, of a Jew his brother.
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
The command to “let go” rests on שָׁלַח (shalach, “send forth; release”): freedom begins when a brother is sent beyond another’s claim on his labor.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks wherever one person is held to serve another: the demand is release. It names the manservant and maidservant as kin, so using a sibling for one’s own service contradicts the relationship the verse names. Freedom here takes concrete form: the person is no longer held for another’s labor.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that another person’s usefulness to me gives me a claim over their freedom.
THE ROOT
לְשַׁלַּח
le-shalleach
GROWS FROM
שלח
sh-l-ḥ
send forth, send away; release
“let go” in this verse is le-shalleach. The verse pairs the act of sending away with the explicit condition of being free. Release is enacted separation from another’s control, not only a name for a changed status.
ALSO GROWS
shilleach: send away, dismiss
שִׁלֵּחַ
This form makes the sending deliberate: release means actively sending someone out of a controlling relation.
mishloach: sending, dispatch; something sent
מִשְׁלוֹחַ
This related word also names what is sent outward, illuminating the concrete movement in the command to let a person go.
עָבַד
'avad
GROWS FROM
עבד
ʿ-b-d
work, serve, labor
English separates “manservant” from “serve himself,” but both grow from עָבַד (ʿavad, “work; serve”). The verse exposes bondage as the taking of a brother’s labor, so release ends not only a status but the act that keeps him available to another.
ALSO GROWS
eved: servant, slave
עֶבֶד
The noun for the person held in service shares the root of the verb describing the service being extracted.
avodah: work, labor, service
עֲבֹדָה
This branch names the labor itself, clarifying what the verse forbids one sibling to claim from another.
THE PATTERN
When a person is held under another’s power, release is the act that restores their freedom.
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.Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,THE THREAD
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.The same release verb returns alongside “every man his brother,” then names the service and the required release. It opens this verse further: the person being held remains a brother, and sending him out ends the claim on his labor.
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