Exodus
21:1 ¶ Now these are the judgments which
thou shalt set before them. 2 If thou
buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go
out free for nothing. 3 If he came in by
himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go
out with him. 4 If his master have given
him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children
shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. 5 And if the servant shall plainly say, I love
my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: 6 Then his master shall bring him unto the
judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his
master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.
7 And if a man sell his daughter to be a
maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do. 8 If she please not her master, who hath
betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a
strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with
her. 9 And if he have betrothed her unto
his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. 10 If he take him another wife; her food, her
raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. 11 And if he do not these three unto her, then
shall she go out free without money.
Now
comes the civil law that God wants to give the Hebrews to set them apart from
other cultures in the world and other nations. This will give us a clue of some
of the customs the Hebrews were part of in Egypt, which God is modifying here.
He starts with rules for purchasing a servant of his own people. While this
would not seem to be of much relevance to us there are some important things to
note. Compare the mercy and moderation called for servants to the treatment the
Egyptians dealt out to the Hebrews.
Having
servants or slaves was a normal part of these cultures and the world of that
time. In fact, until recently, with the advent of electric appliances and
gas-powered equipment for farms having slaves or servants or children to do the
manual work alongside farm animals was essential for survival on anything but a
subsistence scale.
God
did not create culture and civilization. He permitted man to do it and He
modified it. He molded and tempered societies. His purpose is His ministry of
reconciling mankind to Himself, not creating something for historians to write
about. As an example, Christianity’s focus moved to Europe, leavened and mixed
in with pagan practices to make it more sellable. God did not call for this but
permitted this corrupted Christianity but out of that milieu He drew certain
people, some called heretics or nonconformists and other names like Paulicians,
Henricians, Bogomils, Albigensians, Waldensians and others given their names by
their enemies, each group not being perfect in doctrine or understanding but
drawing closer to Him moving away from the paganism of established political
churches and dying cruel martyrs’ deaths.
Constantly,
signs of God’s molding and tempering of the Christian faith moved into the
Reformation and beyond. Each generation saw people striving for a purer faith
and one more lined up with the Bible. It is a process, a part of reconciling
man to Himself but using man’s free will and man’s understanding here a little,
there a little to move mankind closer to God.
Back
to the Hebrews meant to be a theocracy with God as king, God tempers and
constrains the customs of the Ancient Near East to make a people unique to Him.
He did not simply wipe the board clean and start over but worked within the
framework of culture that existed. He works like that when we are saved
individually. We typically don’t quit our jobs, leave our families, and forget all
that we’ve learned in the world to start over like a newborn baby with no
memory. God molds and shapes us through His Bible, preaching, prayer, and our
experience to make us the person He wants us to be which will never be
completed on this earth and in this life.
Verse
10 gives us a hint about God’s continuing value of the children of Israel, even
today. God the Father calls Israel His wife. For instance, in the book of Hosea
Israel is likened to an unfaithful wife…
Hosea
1:2 The beginning of the word of the
LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of
whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great
whoredom, departing from the LORD.
…and Israel is
also God’s firstborn…
Exodus
4:22 And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh,
Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:
…and the Church is
Christ’s bride….
2Corinthians
11:2 For I am jealous over you with
godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you
as a chaste virgin to Christ.
John
3:29 He that hath the bride is the
bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him,
rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is
fulfilled.
Revelation
19:9 And he saith unto me, Write,
Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he
saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
Revelation
21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for
her husband…9 And there came unto me one
of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues,
and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s
wife.
Revelation
22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say,
Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And
whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
…and rules are
given about a first wife and then the second wife’s children…
Deuteronomy
21: 15 ¶ If a man have two wives, one beloved, and
another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated;
and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: 16 Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to
inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved
firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: 17 But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated
for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he
is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.
These
verses help explain the doctrine that God has a unique place for Israel in the
end times. He is not done with the people He created out of the heathen world
of the second millennium BC. There are promises of their supernatural
redemption all through the Old Testament.
Jeremiah
31:31 Behold, the days come, saith the
LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the
house of Judah: 32 Not according to the
covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand
to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although
I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:33
But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of
Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward
parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be
my people.
Jeremiah
32:40 And I will make an everlasting covenant
with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put
my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.
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