What Does Leviticus 25:46 Mean?
And you shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to hold as a holding for the ages; in them you shall serve. But over your brothers, the children of Israel, you shall not tread one another with breaking.
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 ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.THE KEY
The verse’s protection stops at kinship: it forbids harsh rule among Israelites while permitting outsiders to be held as perpetual inherited property.
THE MEANING
This verse draws a sharp boundary: one Israelite may not rule another with crushing severity, while outsiders may be inherited as property and kept in perpetual servitude. Its protection is tied to kinship; it does not extend to everyone the verse calls “them.”
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the assumption that this verse’s ban on harsh rule rejects slavery itself: the same sentence allows outsiders to be inherited and held forever.
THE ROOT
לָרֶשֶׁת
lārešet
GROWS FROM
ירשׁ
To take possession, inherit, or dispossess.
“inherit” in this verse is lārešet. The root can name both receiving an inheritance and taking possession by displacing another. Here, the object inherited is people, so the word’s language of possession is starkly literal.
ALSO GROWS
hôrîš: To dispossess or drive out.
הוֹרִישׁ
This branch shows the root’s force can include removing someone from what they hold, not only receiving what is passed down.
môrāšāh: Inheritance or possession.
מוֹרָשָׁה
The noun makes the connection between inheritance and possession explicit; this verse applies that language to human beings.
תַּעַבְדוּ
taʿavdū
GROWS FROM
עבד
To work or serve.
The Hebrew form beneath “bondmen” is a verb from the root that also names work and service. The word family binds a person’s status to the labor demanded of them, and this verse makes that service perpetual.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeḇeḏ: Servant or slave.
עֶבֶד
This noun names the person held in the relation of service described by the verb.
ʿăḇōḏāh: Work, labor, or service.
עֲבוֹדָה
This branch names the labor itself, showing how the root joins the status of the bondman to the work extracted from him.
THE PATTERN
These texts constrain a master’s treatment of servants through kinship or accountability while leaving the master–servant relation intact.
And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with crushing.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.And you masters, do the same things to them, releasing the threat, knowing that their Lord and yours is in the heavens, and with him there is no lifting of faces.THE THREAD
And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with crushing.The Hebrew phrase בְּפָרֶךְ (bəfāreḵ, “with crushing severity”) appears in both verses. Its echo makes the boundary plain: harsh domination is forbidden among Israelite kin, while this verse permits outsiders to be held as permanent inherited property.
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