Exodus 12:44

12:44 But everyone’s servant who is bought for money, after you have circumcised him, may eat it.

Exodus 22:3

22:3 If the sun has risen on him, then there is blood guilt for him. A thief ¹  must surely make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he will be sold for his theft.

Genesis 27:28

27:28 May God give you

the dew of the sky ² 

and the richness ³  of the earth,

and plenty of grain and new wine.

Genesis 27:36

27:36 Esau exclaimed, “‘Jacob’ is the right name for him! ⁴  He has tripped me up ⁵  two times! He took away my birthright, and now, look, he has taken away my blessing!” Then he asked, “Have you not kept back a blessing for me?”

Leviticus 25:39-41

25:39 “‘If your brother becomes impoverished with regard to you so that he sells himself to you, you must not subject him to slave service. ⁶  25:40 He must be with you as a hired worker, as a resident foreigner; ⁷  he must serve with you until the year of jubilee, 25:41 but then ⁸  he may go free, ⁹  he and his children with him, and may return to his family and to the property of his ancestors. ¹⁰ 

Leviticus 25:44

25:44 “‘As for your male and female slaves ¹¹  who may belong to you – you may buy male and female slaves from the nations all around you. ¹² 

Leviticus 25:2

25:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must observe a Sabbath ¹³  to the Lord.

Leviticus 4:1

Sin Offering Regulations

4:1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses: ¹⁴ 

Nehemiah 5:1-5

Nehemiah Intervenes on behalf of the Oppressed

5:1 Then there was a great outcry from the people and their wives against their fellow Jews. ¹⁵  5:2 There were those who said, “With our sons and daughters, we are many. We must obtain ¹⁶  grain in order to eat and stay alive.” 5:3 There were others who said, “We are putting up our fields, our vineyards, and our houses as collateral in order to obtain grain during the famine.” 5:4 Then there were those who said, “We have borrowed money to pay our taxes to the king ¹⁷  on our fields and our vineyards. 5:5 And now, though we share the same flesh and blood as our fellow countrymen, ¹⁸  and our children are just like their children, ¹⁹  still we have found it necessary to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. ²⁰  Some of our daughters have been subjected to slavery, while we are powerless to help, ²¹  since our fields and vineyards now belong to other people.” ²² 

Nehemiah 5:8

5:8 I said to them, “To the extent possible we have bought back our fellow Jews ²³  who had been sold to the Gentiles. But now you yourselves want to sell your own countrymen, ²⁴  so that we can then buy them back!” They were utterly silent, and could find nothing to say.

Matthew 18:25

18:25 Because ²⁵  he was not able to repay it, ²⁶  the lord ordered him to be sold, along with ²⁷  his wife, children, and whatever he possessed, and repayment to be made.

Matthew 18:1

Questions About the Greatest

18:1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

Colossians 1:20

1:20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross – through him, ²⁸  whether things on earth or things in heaven.

[22:3]  ¹ tn The words “a thief” have been added for clarification. S. R. Driver (Exodus, 224) thinks that these lines are out of order, since some of them deal with killing the thief and then others with the thief making restitution, but rearranging the clauses is not a necessary way to bring clarity to the paragraph. The idea here would be that any thief caught alive would pay restitution.

[27:28]  ² tn Heb “and from the dew of the sky.”

[27:28]  ³ tn Heb “and from the fatness.”

[27:36]  ⁴ tn Heb “Is he not rightly named Jacob?” The rhetorical question, since it expects a positive reply, has been translated as a declarative statement.

[27:36]  ⁵ sn He has tripped me up. When originally given, the name Jacob was a play on the word “heel” (see Gen 25:26). The name (since it is a verb) probably means something like “may he protect,” that is, as a rearguard, dogging the heels. This name was probably chosen because of the immediate association with the incident of grabbing the heel. Esau gives the name “Jacob” a negative connotation here, the meaning “to trip up; to supplant.”

[25:39]  ⁶ tn Heb “you shall not serve against him service of a slave.” A distinction is being made here between the status of slave and indentured servant.

[25:40]  ⁷ tn See the note on Lev 25:6 above.

[25:41]  ⁸ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have adversative force here.

[25:41]  ⁹ tn Heb “may go out from you.”

[25:41]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “fathers.”

[25:44]  ¹¹ tn Heb “And your male slave and your female slave.” Smr has these as plural terms, “slaves,” not singular.

[25:44]  ¹² tn Heb “ from the nations which surround you, from them you shall buy male slave and female slave.”

[25:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “the land shall rest a Sabbath.”

[4:1]  ¹⁴ sn The quotation introduced here extends from Lev 4:2 through 5:13, and encompasses all the sin offering regulations. Compare the notes on Lev 1:1 above, and 5:14 and 6:1 [5:20 HT] below.

[5:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “their brothers the Jews.”

[5:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “take” (so also in v. 3).

[5:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “for the tax of the king.”

[5:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “according to the flesh of our brothers is our flesh.”

[5:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “like their children, our children.”

[5:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “to become slaves” (also later in this verse).

[5:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “there is not power for our hand.” The Hebrew expression used here is rather difficult.

[5:5]  ²² 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]  ²³ tn Heb “our brothers, the Jews.”

[5:8]  ²⁴ tn Heb “your brothers.”

[18:25]  ²⁵ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[18:25]  ²⁶ tn The word “it” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[18:25]  ²⁷ tn Grk “and his wife.”

[1:20]  ²⁸ tc The presence or absence of the second occurrence of the phrase δι᾿ αὐτοῦ (di’ autou, “through him”) is a difficult textual problem to solve. External evidence is fairly evenly divided. Many ancient and excellent witnesses lack the phrase (B D* F G I 0278 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 al latt sa), but equally important witnesses have it (Ì⁴⁶ א A C D¹ Ψ 048^vid 33 Ï). Both readings have strong Alexandrian support, which makes the problem difficult to decide on external evidence alone. Internal evidence points to the inclusion of the phrase as original. The word immediately preceding the phrase is the masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou); thus the possibility of omission through homoioteleuton in various witnesses is likely. Scribes might have deleted the phrase because of perceived redundancy or awkwardness in the sense: The shorter reading is smoother and more elegant, so scribes would be prone to correct the text in that direction. As far as style is concerned, repetition of key words and phrases for emphasis is not foreign to the corpus Paulinum (see, e.g., Rom 8:23, Eph 1:13, 2 Cor 12:7). In short, it is easier to account for the shorter reading arising from the longer reading than vice versa, so the longer reading is more likely original.