Exodus 21:16

21:16 “Whoever kidnaps someone ¹  and sells him, ²  or is caught still holding him, ³  must surely be put to death.

Deuteronomy 24:7

24:7 If a man is found kidnapping a person from among his fellow Israelites, ⁴  and regards him as mere property ⁵  and sells him, that kidnapper ⁶  must die. In this way you will purge ⁷  evil from among you.

Deuteronomy 28:68

28:68 Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

Nehemiah 5:4-5

5:4 Then there were those who said, “We have borrowed money to pay our taxes to the king ⁸  on our fields and our vineyards. 5:5 And now, though we share the same flesh and blood as our fellow countrymen, ⁹  and our children are just like their children, ¹⁰  still we have found it necessary to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. ¹¹  Some of our daughters have been subjected to slavery, while we are powerless to help, ¹²  since our fields and vineyards now belong to other people.” ¹³ 

Nehemiah 5:8

5:8 I said to them, “To the extent possible we have bought back our fellow Jews ¹⁴  who had been sold to the Gentiles. But now you yourselves want to sell your own countrymen, ¹⁵  so that we can then buy them back!” They were utterly silent, and could find nothing to say.

Isaiah 50:1

50:1 This is what the Lord says:

“Where is your mother’s divorce certificate

by which I divorced her?

Or to which of my creditors did I sell you? ¹⁶ 

Look, you were sold because of your sins; ¹⁷ 

because of your rebellious acts I divorced your mother. ¹⁸ 

Ezekiel 27:13

27:13 Javan, Tubal, and Meshech were your clients; they exchanged slaves and bronze items for your merchandise.

Amos 2:6

God Will Judge Israel

2:6 This is what the Lord says:

“Because Israel has committed three covenant transgressions ¹⁹  –

make that four! ²⁰  – I will not revoke my decree of judgment. ²¹ 

They sold the innocent ²²  for silver,

the needy for a pair of sandals. ²³ 

Amos 8:6

8:6 We’re eager to trade silver for the poor, ²⁴ 

a pair of sandals ²⁵  for the needy!

We want to mix in some chaff with the grain!” ²⁶ 

Amos 8:1

More Visions and Messages of Judgment

8:1 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ²⁷  a basket of summer fruit. ²⁸ 

Amos 1:10

1:10 So I will set fire to Tyre’s city wall; ²⁹ 

fire ³⁰  will consume her fortresses.”

[21:16]  ¹ tn Heb “a stealer of a man,” thus “anyone stealing a man.”

[21:16]  ² sn The implication is that it would be an Israelite citizen who was kidnapped and sold to a foreign tribe or country (like Joseph). There was always a market for slaves. The crime would be in forcibly taking the individual away from his home and religion and putting him into bondage or death.

[21:16]  ³ tn Literally “and he is found in his hand” (KJV and ASV both similar), being not yet sold.

[24:7]  ⁴ 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.

[24:7]  ⁵ tn Or “and enslaves him.”

[24:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “that thief.”

[24:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “burn.” See note on the word “purge” in Deut 19:19.

[5:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “for the tax of the king.”

[5:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “according to the flesh of our brothers is our flesh.”

[5:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “like their children, our children.”

[5:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to become slaves” (also later in this verse).

[5:5]  ¹² tn Heb “there is not power for our hand.” The Hebrew expression used here is rather difficult.

[5:5]  ¹³ sn The poor among the returned exiles were being exploited by their rich countrymen. Moneylenders were loaning large amounts of money, and not only collecting interest on loans which was illegal (Lev 25:36-37; Deut 23:19-20), but also seizing pledges as collateral (Neh 5:3) which was allowed (Deut 24:10). When the debtors missed a payment, the moneylenders would seize their collateral: their fields, vineyards and homes. With no other means of income, the debtors were forced to sell their children into slavery, a common practice at this time (Neh 5:5). Nehemiah himself was one of the moneylenders (Neh 5:10), but he insisted that seizure of collateral from fellow Jewish countrymen was ethically wrong (Neh 5:9).

[5:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “our brothers, the Jews.”

[5:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “your brothers.”

[50:1]  ¹⁶ sn The Lord challenges the exiles (Zion’s children) to bring incriminating evidence against him. The rhetorical questions imply that Israel accused the Lord of divorcing his wife (Zion) and selling his children (the Israelites) into slavery to pay off a debt.

[50:1]  ¹⁷ sn The Lord admits that he did sell the Israelites, but it was because of their sins, not because of some debt he owed. If he had sold them to a creditor, they ought to be able to point him out, but the preceding rhetorical question implies they would not be able to do so.

[50:1]  ¹⁸ sn The Lord admits he did divorce Zion, but that too was the result of the nation’s sins. The force of the earlier rhetorical question comes into clearer focus now. The question does not imply that a certificate does not exist and that no divorce occurred. Rather, the question asks for the certificate to be produced so the accuser can see the reason for the divorce in black and white. The Lord did not put Zion away arbitrarily.

[2:6]  ¹⁹ tn For this translation see the note at 2:4.

[2:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Because of three violations of Israel, even because of four.”

[2:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “I will not bring it [or “him”] back.” The translation understands the pronominal object to refer to the decree of judgment that follows; the referent (the decree) has been specified in the translation for clarity. For another option see the note on the word “judgment” in 1:3.

[2:6]  ²² tn Or “honest” (CEV, NLT). The Hebrew word sometimes has a moral-ethical connotation, “righteous, godly,” but the parallelism (note “poor”) suggests a socio-economic or legal sense here. The practice of selling debtors as slaves is in view (Exod 21:2-11; Lev 25:35-55; Deut 15:12-18) See the note at Exod 21:8 and G. C. Chirichigno, Debt-Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East (JSOTSup). Probably the only “crime” the victim had committed was being unable to pay back a loan or an exorbitant interest rate on a loan. Some have suggested that this verse refers to bribery in legal proceedings: The innocent are “sold” in the sense that those in power pay off the elders or judges for favorable decisions (5:12; cf. Exod 23:6-7).

[2:6]  ²³ tn Perhaps the expression “for a pair of sandals” indicates a relatively small price or debt. Some suggest that the sandals may have been an outward token of a more substantial purchase price. Others relate the sandals to a ritual attached to the transfer of property, signifying here that the poor would be losing their inherited family lands because of debt (Ruth 4:7; cf. Deut 25:8-10). Still others emend the Hebrew form slightly to נֶעְלָם (ne’lam, “hidden thing”; from the root עָלַם, ’alam, “to hide”) and understand this as referring to a bribe.

[8:6]  ²⁴ tn Heb “to buy the poor for silver.”

[8:6]  ²⁵ tn See the note on the word “sandals” in 2:6.

[8:6]  ²⁶ tn Heb “The chaff of the grain we will sell.”

[8:1]  ²⁷ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[8:1]  ²⁸ sn The basket of summer fruit (also in the following verse) probably refers to figs from the summer crop, which ripens in August-September. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 115.

[1:10]  ²⁹ sn The city wall symbolizes the city’s defenses and security.

[1:10]  ³⁰ tn Heb “it”; the referent (the fire mentioned in the previous line) has been specified in the translation for clarity.