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2.) The servitude of a Hebrew might be terminated in three ways: (a) by
the satisfaction or the remission of all claims against him; (b) by the
recurrence of the year of Jubilee (<032540>Leviticus 25:40), which might arrive
at any period of his servitude; and (c), failing either of these, the expiration
of six years from the time that his servitude commenced (<022102>Exodus 21:2;
<051512>Deuteronomy 15:12). There can be no doubt that this last regulation
applied equally to the cases of poverty and theft, though Rabbinical writers
have endeavored to restrict it to the former. The period of seven years has
reference to the sabbatical principle in general, but not to the sabbatical
year, for no regulation is laid down in reference to the manumission of
servants in that year (<032501>Leviticus 25:1 sq.; <051501>Deuteronomy 15:1 sq.). We
have a single instance, indeed, of the sabbatical year being celebrated by a
general manumission of Hebrew slaves, but this was in consequence of the
neglect of the law relating to such cases (<243414>Jeremiah 34:14). To the above
modes of obtaining liberty the Rabbinists added, as a fourth, the death of a
master without leaving a son, there being no power of claiming the slave
on the part of any heir except a son (Maimonides, Abad. 2, § 12).
If a servant did not desire to avail himself of the opportunity of leaving his
service, he was to signify his intention in a formal manner before the judges
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(or, more exactly, at the place of judgment), and then the master was to
take him to the door post, and to bore his ear through with an awl
(<022106>Exodus 21:6), driving the awl into or “unto the door,” as stated in
<051517>Deuteronomy 15:17, and thus fixing the servant to it. Whether the door
was that of the master’s house, or the door of the sanctuary, as Ewald
(Alterth. p. 245) infers from the expression el ha-elohim, to which
attention is drawn above, is not stated; but the significance of the action is
enhanced by the former view; for thus a connection is established between
the servant and the house in which he was to serve. The boring of the ear
was probably a token of subjection, the ear being the organ through which
commands were received (<194006>Psalm 40:6). A similar custom prevailed
among the Mesopotamians (Juvenal, 1, 104), the Lydians (Xenophon,
Anab. 3, 1, 31), and other ancient nations. A servant who had submitted to
this operation remained, according to the words of the law, a servant
“forever” (<022106>Exodus 21:6). These words are, however, interpreted by
Josephus (Ant. 4, 8, 28) and by the Rabbinists as meaning until the year of
Jubilee, partly from the universality of the freedom that was then
proclaimed, and partly perhaps because it was necessary for the servant
then to resume the cultivation of his recovered inheritance. The latter point
no doubt presents a difficulty, but the interpretation of the word “forever”
in any other than its obvious sense presents still greater difficulties.