Leviticus 25:35-46--Kindness for Poor Brothers

Leviticus 25:35-46
English Standard Version

Kindness for Poor Brothers
35 “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. 36 Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. 37 You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. 38 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

39 “If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: 40 he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. 41 Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. 42 For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. 43 You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God. 44 As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. 45 You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. 46 You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

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For those looking to find "welfare" commanded in the Bible, this is probably one of the best passages, but it's not like the welfare programs of today that are secularized and teach people to depend on government instead of God.  No, this should have been a natural overflow of the people of God taking care of each other.  There were to be no homeless or indigent people among the people of God.  If a man could not care for himself and his family, then they would be taken in (we'll see exactly what the rules were for this in the next paragraph), and if your brother (neighbor) got into a situation where he needed to borrow money from you, you were to lend it without interest to him and were never to sell him and his family food for above cost because you don't try to make a profit off of your brothers and sisters in the family of God.  This is what God their Redeemer who saved them out of slavery commanded.

That is a great transition to the next point that God makes--they were never to be slaves to one another.  They could be hired men (hourly-wage employees).  Whatever the man's debt for which he is working to pay it off, the debt must be canceled and he must be set free at the year of jubilee--the man, and his wife, and their children will all be set free to return to their clan and to their family's land which will be returned to them that year.  The longest anyone would have to wait to return home in such a situation is 50 years if they incurred such a debt the day after the Day of Atonement in the year of jubilee and had to wait a full 50 years for the next year of jubilee.

No Israelite was to be the servant of another Israelite because they were only to be servants of God.  He is the one who bought them with a great price, though they did not realize it yet.  For this reason in the New Testament, we are called slaves of God and slaves of Christ--though often this word is translated as "bondservant" because the translators felt that the word "slave" had been sullied by the African slave trade.

So then, if some form of slavery or indentured servitude was okay, what exactly did that look like and how is that different than what we think of when we think of the word "slave"?  Well, we've already seen in the Law that human trafficking was illegal and was a capital crime. Kidnapping people and selling them for a profit, even the people who were your enemies, was illegal.  Here God gives commands for how the stranger, sojourners and indentured servants being discussed here should be treated.  They are not to be bought and sold as slaves nor are they to be abused as the taskmasters in Egypt did--the passage calls this treating them "ruthlessly."  Once again this connects back to who God is and what He had done for His people.

The people were however allowed to buy male and female slaves from the nations around them and from any sojourners living in the Promised Land, just not from the people of God.  These slaves were to obey all the same laws and were to fear God and worship him, and they were to be taken care of--not mistreated or abused.  They would be the property of the one who purchased them.  I know that doesn't sound right to us, but the people were supposed to take good care of all that they owned and it makes sense the sense that these people who were not part of the covenant should not be treated as "family" for the purposes of inheritance because they had no right to land since that was part of God's eternal covenant with the children of Abraham, however, it does mean that these slaves and their families were to be part of the inheritance that was passed along from generation to generation and that the Israelites would continue to care for these people who would loyal to their families.  We've already seen a good example of this in Genesis with Eliezer of Damascus.  He was the slave of Abraham, but was well taken care of and seemed to manage Abraham's household (much like Joseph did for a time with Potiphar's household), and Eliezer became the slave of Isaac, the son of the promise, after the death of Abraham.  So, our minds should not conjure up thoughts of slave ships and slaves being beaten to the point of death.  That was a perversion of Scripture and something God has always hated, and as mentioned before was something that God commanded the death penalty for.  Such slaves that were not of the people of God had no chance of being redeemed by a kinsman redeemer, nor did they have the promise the year of jubilee.  However, they had the opportunity not specifically mentioned here to convert to Judaism and to be adopted as a part of the family who had once owned them as a slave and to instead be treated as a brother or sister.  Their identity and status would change at the point of conversion.  In this way, the "gospel" as it was revealed at that time was at work among those who lived among the people of God, but were not part of the people of God.  These people would have to obey laws they did not understand from a God they did not know, but they would see some of this through the people of God and it would make them want to have a relationship with this God whom they could not approach.  With that in mind, read what the New Testament says about us where not part of God's people who have not been brought near and adopted into His family.

​1 Peter 2:10-12
English Standard Version10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

​11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

Ephesians 2:11-22
English Standard Version
One in Christ
11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands-- 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Ephesians 1:3-14
English Standard Version
Spiritual Blessings in Christ​
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Romans 8:12-17
English Standard Version
Heirs with Christ
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Romans 6:15-23
English Standard Version
Slaves to Righteousness
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

​20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

These are just a few of the passages in the New Testament where we are told of our change in status from being slaves of sin and the flesh, but being changed to be sons, heirs, and slaves of righteous.  We once had no inheritance, but now we have an eternal inheritance as co-heirs with Jesus, yet just because we are family does not mean that God is not both King and Master.  We still serve Him, but now we do so willingly (we'll get to that part of the Law later when we'll talk about the real meaning of the word "bondservant" as one who has willingly given themselves over to another as they choose not to be released when the year of jubilee comes or once their debt is paid off.)  There's much more that can and will be said about servitude and slavery in the Old Testament and New Testament, but let's not forget that the theme of today's passage was about generosity, hospitality and taking care of our neighbors who are of the same identity as us as well those who are in our care and custody (maybe those who work for us and are of a different identity).  The Law tells us that in both cases we treat everyone with at least a common grace and hospitality, but for our brothers and sisters in faith there is an uncommon grace because of the uncommon grace which God has lavished on us.

1 John 3:1-3
English Standard Version
3 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.