Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Exodus 21:6 - 21:6
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Shall bring him unto the judges; partly, that it may appear he chooseth this freely, and is not overawed nor overreached by his master; and partly, that the agreement being so publicly and solemnly confirmed, might be irrevocable.
He shall also bring him to the door, to wit, of his master’s house, as it is expressed, Deu_15:17; a token that he was fixed there, and never to go a freeman out of these doors.
His master shall bore his ear through with an awl, as a note of a servant; as it continued to be long after this in Syria and Arabia, as Juvenal and Petpontus Arbiter affirm; and it did fitly represent his settled and perpetual obligation to abide in that house, and there to hear and obey his master’s commands. See Psa_40:6.
For ever, i.e. not only for six years more, but without any limitation of time, as long as he lives, until the jubilee, which is an exception made by God to this law, Lev_25:40 Deu_15:17. The Hebrew word olam, here used, oft signifies not eternity, but only a long time. See Exo_12:14.