54 If he isn't redeemed by these means, then he shall be released in the Year of Jubilee, he, and his children with him.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
In these years - More properly, by one of these means. The extreme period of servitude in this case was six years, as when the master was a Hebrew Exodus 21:2.
Looking at the law of the Jubilee from a simply practical point of view, its operation must have tended to remedy those evils which are always growing up in the ordinary conditions of human society. It prevented the permanent accumulation of land in the hands of a few, and periodically raised those whom fault or misfortune had sunk into poverty to a position of competency. It must also have tended to keep alive family feeling, and helped to preserve the family genealogies.
But in its more special character, as a law given by Yahweh to His special people, it was a standing lesson to those who would rightly regard it, on the terms upon which the enjoyment of the land of promise had been conferred upon them. All the land belonged to Yahweh as its supreme Lord, every Israelite as His vassal belonged to Him. The voice of the Jubilee horns, twice in every century, proclaimed the equitable and beneficent social order appointed for the people; they sounded that acceptable year of Yahweh which was to bring comfort to all that mourned, in which the slavery of sin was to be abolished, and the true liberty of God's children was to be proclaimed Luke 2:25; Isaiah 61:2; Luke 4:19; Acts 3:21; Romans 8:19-23; 1-Peter 1:3-4.
And if he be not redeemed in these years,.... The Targum of Jonathan supplies the text as we do, in any of the years from the time of his sale to the year of jubilee; and so Aben Ezra interprets it, in the years that remain to the jubilee; but he observes there are others that say, by the means of those above mentioned, that is, by his nearest of kin, or by himself; for the word "years" is not in the text, which may be supplied, either with "years" or "relations"; and so the Vulgate Latin, Septuagint, and Oriental versions read, "by these" means, things or persons:
then he shall go out on the year of jubilee: out of the house and service of him that bought him, he shall go out free and freely, without paying anything for his freedom, having served his full time unto which he was bought:
both he and his children with him; and his wife too, if he had any, who, was comprehended in himself, and whom, both wife and children, his master was obliged to maintain during his servitude.
*More commentary available at chapter level.