Exodus 21:1-6 what is with the temporary marriage

[DiscussingTheTopic]

1Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.

2If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.

3If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.

4If 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.

5And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:

6Then 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.
Exodus 21:1-6 King James

 

[CecilW]

Answer: Dunno. Have to ask God some day.

 

[steve]

dtt,
if i am ever in that situation i will follow YHWH's instructions to the letter, and i would recomend that you do the same.

 

[TexasSaint]

I don't see anything here that says the couple is divorced when the husband is released. I would image that they would still be married and he may even be allowed to live in the housing or quarters provided by the master. But the husband is now free to pursue his interests and use his talents for his own employment. I also expect that he would have started working towards redeeming his wife and children as provided in Exodus 21:7-11.

 

[Taller on my knees]

I don't see anything here that says the couple is divorced when the husband is released. I would image that they would still be married and he may even be allowed to live in the housing or quarters provided by the master. But the husband is now free to pursue his interests and use his talents for his own employment. I also expect that he would have started working towards redeeming his wife and children as provided in Exodus 21:7-11.

Agreed. It seems more of a provision for the slave to be able to choose, as a free man, whether to keep the family he was given, which was not of his own free will, or not.

 

[DiscussingTheTopic]

I think the slavewoman is no longer married to the temporary slave-man at the end of slavery unless he decides to stay a slave permanently.

But I do not think she becomes a slave to the master. I think she becomes or continues to be the masters property (continues because the man would temporarily have been the masters property in a sense while being married to the woman who was also the masters property although not the masters spouse)

But there is nothing to say that the man can not try to marry her and pay her master for her after he becomes free is there? Of course there is also nothing to say the master can not give her to marry a different man if the man does not accept the permanent slavery position.