A Jew Enslaved by a Gentile (Lev. 25:47-55)

11/14/2008 8:18 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                              Focus:  A Jew enslaved by a Gentile

Bible Reading & Meditation               Reference:  Leviticus 25:47-55

            Message of the verses:  “47  ‘Now if the means of a stranger or of a sojourner with you becomes sufficient, and a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to him as to sell himself to a stranger who is sojourning with you, or to the descendants of a stranger’s family, 48  then he shall have redemption right after he has been sold. One of his brothers may redeem him, 49  or his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or one of his blood relatives from his family may redeem him; or if he prospers, he may redeem himself.  50  ‘He then with his purchaser shall calculate from the year when he sold himself to him up to the year of jubilee; and the price of his sale shall correspond to the number of years. It is like the days of a hired man that he shall be with him.  51  ‘If there are still many years, he shall refund part of his purchase price in proportion to them for his own redemption; 52  and if few years remain until the year of jubilee, he shall so calculate with him. In proportion to his years he is to refund the amount for his redemption.  53  ‘Like a man hired year by year he shall be with him; he shall not rule over him with severity in your sight.

54  ‘Even if he is not redeemed by these means, he shall still go out in the year of jubilee, he and his sons with him.  55  ‘For the sons of Israel are My servants; they are My servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”

            The rules for a Gentile who is living in the land of Israel to buy a Jewish slave and then to release that slave are the same as if a Jewish person bought a Jewish slave.  The have to release the slave if the funds become available to the slave, and the price is dictated on when the Year of Jubilee is to when the slave was bought.  The Gentile is to treat the Jewish slave the same way that a Jew was to treat a Jewish slave, and that was very different to how a Gentile slave was treated by a Jew.  Now I must say that all of the slaves that were either Jewish or Gentile were to be treated with dignity, but there was a difference between Gentile slaves and Jewish slaves which was noted earlier.

            Now I do not know how much of all of these laws were ever followed in Israel, but there is one case in which they were followed and that is found in the book of Ruth.  Ruth was a Gentile woman who was married to a Jewish man who died and when she returned to Israel she was redeemed by a man name Boaz who not only redeemed her but he married her and they became the great-grand parents of David.  It was Boaz and Ruth, and their son was Obed, and his son was Jessie, and his son was David.  One more interesting thing to be noted about all of this is that Ruth was a Moabite and that race of people started with incest, for Lot and his daughter were the parents of the Moabites.  God can surely use even the very evil things in life to work out together for His glory.

            “The Lord Jesus Christ took upon Himself sinless human flesh and became our ‘near kinsman’ (Hebrews 2:5-18), so that He might give Himself as a redemption price and set us free.  Only He was qualified to do what had to be done, and He was willing to do it.  Not only did He redeem us, but also He gave us a share in and made us a part of His inheritance!” (Quoted from “Be Holy”)

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  There are two things that speak to my heart after doing this SD, and the first one has to be about the Lord Jesus Christ, my Lord and my Savior who is my Kinsman Redeemer, for He took on flesh and blood in order to be like me, yet without sin, and He paid my price for my sinful condition, He became sin for me that I may have His righteousness, and now I am part of the greatest inheritance that a human being can have.  There is something else that I have taken from this section and that is the whole way the Lord set up the nation of Israel for them to not have economic problems in their land if they followed these laws that are found in this chapter, however they did not follow them and the rich got richer and the poor got poorer and the judges got more corrupt and then God judged that nation for all of the wrong they were doing.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. Trust the Lord to continue to use His Church even in times of hardship that are coming upon our country.

Memory verses for the week:                                  Romans 6:1-5

1. What shall we say then?  Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2. May it never be!  How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
3. Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4. Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5. For if we have become untied with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,

11/14/2008 9:21 AM