What Does Exodus 21:3 Mean?

"If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him.

If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be their master's, and he shall go out alone." The marriage-status provisions regulate the slave-release's family implications with a principle of covenant entry-state preservation: "if he came in single, he goes out single; if he came in married, his wife goes with him." The slave's pre-servitude family relationship is protected: the wife who entered servitude with the husband leaves with him. The covenant protects the pre-existing marriage bond against disruption by servitude.

The master-provided-wife situation, if the master gave the slave a wife during servitude and she bore children, creates a property-relationship tension: the master-assigned wife and children remain the master's possession ("are their master's"). This appears harsh by modern standards, but it reflects the ancient Near Eastern legal reality that the master retains ownership of family relationships he initiated within his household. The covenant's limitation is that the slave himself cannot be retained permanently against his will: the slave who chooses freedom chooses it without the master-assigned wife.

The voluntary permanent servitude option (verses 5-6) addresses exactly this dilemma: if the slave who was given a wife and children by the master loves his family enough to extend his service rather than leave them, the law provides a mechanism. The pierced-ear ceremony formalizes the voluntary permanent commitment.

The slave who chooses his master's household over freedom-without-family is the covenant's most striking portrait of covenant loyalty: choosing belonging over liberty. Paul uses the voluntary-slave imagery in 1 Corinthians 9:19 ("though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all") to describe his apostolic self-giving.