15:12 If your fellow Hebrew 6 – whether male or female 7 – is sold to you and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you must let that servant 8 go free. 9
24:7 If a man is found kidnapping a person from among his fellow Israelites, 10 and regards him as mere property 11 and sells him, that kidnapper 12 must die. In this way you will purge 13 evil from among you.
32:30 How can one man chase a thousand of them, 14
and two pursue ten thousand;
unless their Rock had delivered them up, 15
and the Lord had handed them over?
1 sn Heb “send her off.” The Hebrew term שִׁלַּחְתָּה (shillakhtah) is a somewhat euphemistic way of referring to divorce, the matter clearly in view here (cf. Deut 22:19, 29; 24:1, 3; Jer 3:1; Mal 2:16). This passage does not have the matter of divorce as its principal objective, so it should not be understood as endorsing divorce generally. It merely makes the point that if grounds for divorce exist (see Deut 24:1-4), and then divorce ensues, the husband could in no way gain profit from it.
2 tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates by the words “in any case.”
3 tn The Hebrew text includes “for money.” This phrase has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.
4 tn Or perhaps “must not enslave her” (cf. ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); Heb “[must not] be tyrannical over.”
5 sn You have humiliated her. Since divorce was considered rejection, the wife subjected to it would “lose face” in addition to the already humiliating event of having become a wife by force (21:11-13). Furthermore, the Hebrew verb translated “humiliated” here (עָנָה, ’anah), commonly used to speak of rape (cf. Gen 34:2; 2 Sam 13:12, 14, 22, 32; Judg 19:24), likely has sexual overtones as well. The woman may not be enslaved or abused after the divorce because it would be double humiliation (see also E. H. Merrill, Deuteronomy [NAC], 291).
6 sn Elsewhere in the OT, the Israelites are called “Hebrews” (עִבְרִי, ’ivriy) by outsiders, rarely by themselves (cf. Gen 14:13; 39:14, 17; 41:12; Exod 1:15, 16, 19; 2:6, 7, 11, 13; 1 Sam 4:6; Jonah 1:9). Thus, here and in the parallel passage in Exod 21:2-6 the term עִבְרִי may designate non-Israelites, specifically a people well-known throughout the ancient Near East as ’apiru or habiru. They lived a rather vagabond lifestyle, frequently hiring themselves out as laborers or mercenary soldiers. While accounting nicely for the surprising use of the term here in an Israelite law code, the suggestion has against it the unlikelihood that a set of laws would address such a marginal people so specifically (as opposed to simply calling them aliens or the like). More likely עִבְרִי is chosen as a term to remind Israel that when they were “Hebrews,” that is, when they were in Egypt, they were slaves. Now that they are free they must not keep their fellow Israelites in economic bondage. See v. 15.
7 tn Heb “your brother, a Hebrew (male) or Hebrew (female).”
8 tn Heb “him.” The singular pronoun occurs throughout the passage.
9 tn The Hebrew text includes “from you.”
11 tn Heb “from his brothers, from the sons of Israel.” The terms “brothers” and “sons of Israel” are in apposition; the second defines the first more specifically.
12 tn Or “and enslaves him.”
13 tn Heb “that thief.”
14 tn Heb “burn.” See note on the word “purge” in Deut 19:19.
16 tn The words “man” and “of them” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarity.
17 tn Heb “sold them” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
21 tn Heb “gates” (also in vv. 27, 28, 29).
22 sn Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. This strange prohibition – one whose rationale is unclear but probably related to pagan ritual – may seem out of place here but actually is not for the following reasons: (1) the passage as a whole opens with a prohibition against heathen mourning rites (i.e., death, vv. 1-2) and closes with what appear to be birth and infancy rites. (2) In the other two places where the stipulation occurs (Exod 23:19 and Exod 34:26) it similarly concludes major sections. (3) Whatever the practice signified it clearly was abhorrent to the