GET OUT OF BONDAGE!

Leviticus 25:47-55

Lev 25:47 “If a stranger or temporary resident with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the foreign guest or temporary resident with you or to a member of the temporary resident’s clan,
Lev 25:48 then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him,
Lev 25:49 or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or an actual close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he grows rich he may redeem himself.
Lev 25:50 He will figure out with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of liberation, and the price of his sale will vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner will be rated as the time of a hired worker.
Lev 25:51 If there are still many years left, he will pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price.
Lev 25:52 If there remain but a few years until the year of liberation, he will figure it out and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service.
Lev 25:53 He will treat him as a worker hired year by year. He will not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight.
Lev 25:54 And if he is not redeemed by these means, then he and his children with him will be released in the year of liberation.
Lev 25:55 Because it is to me that the people of Israel are servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am Yahveh your God.

identifying with God

Even though an Israelite was not allowed to make another Israelite his slave, he could sell himself into slavery in order to survive. But the difference was that foreigners understood that there would be limits to his enslaving an Israelite. There would always be a year of liberation set, in which the slavery would end. There would also always be ways for the Israelite to get out of the contract. The reason was that the people were God’s possession whom he had already redeemed from slavery. No matter what their present condition, their identity was in the LORD.

LORD, our identity is in you. Rescue us from anything that does not glorify you.