Leviticus25:39–46

The Egyptian crushing forbidden between brothers — pereḵ verbal / quotation — confirmed

The rare word pereḵ (“crushing rigor,” only six occurrences in all of Scripture) brackets this law in vv. 43 and 46 — and reappears a third time in this same chapter at v. 53, where the brother sold to a resident alien is likewise shielded: “he shall not rule over him with rigour.” The very same word names what the Egyptians did to Israel in Exodus 1:13–14. Gill flags the link by name: the term “seems designed to put them in mind” of their bondage, “that so they might abstain from such usage of their brethren.” To rule a brother with pereḵ is to become Pharaoh. Because the lexeme is rare (and four of its six occurrences cluster in these two passages) and the verbal correspondence is exact, the Verifier records this as a confirmed verbal link.

Leviticus 25:43 · Leviticus 25:46 · Leviticus 25:53 · Exodus 1:13 · Exodus 1:14

basis: Verifier: rare shared lexeme H6531 pereḵ (only 6 occurrences total; here in Lev 25:43, 46, 53), with H7287 rāḏâh; the same word names Egypt's oppression in Exodus 1:13-14

The harsh shepherds who rule with rigor — Ezekiel 34:4 verbal / quotation — confirmed

Ezekiel’s indictment of Israel’s shepherds — “with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them” — reaches for the same two words as this law: rāḏâh (“rule”) and the rare pereḵ (“rigor/cruelty”). The prophet charges the leaders with doing to the flock exactly what Leviticus forbids a master to do to a brother. The Verifier confirms the shared lexemes, including the rare pereḵ; the link is verbal, not merely thematic.

Leviticus 25:43 · Leviticus 25:46 · Ezekiel 34:4

basis: Verifier: shared H6531 pereḵ (rare, 6 vv) + H7287 rāḏâh (25 vv); Ezekiel reuses Leviticus's crushing-rule vocabulary against the shepherds

The brother who sinks into poverty — the mûk cluster verbal / quotation — confirmed

The rare verb mûk (“to sink low, grow destitute,” only five occurrences — all in Leviticus 25) ties this case to the chapter’s recurring scenario of the falling brother: the man who must sell his land (v. 25), who must be supported (v. 35), who sells himself (v. 39), and who sells himself to a resident alien (v. 47). The Jubilee legislation circles back to this one verb each time poverty deepens. The Verifier confirms the shared rare lexeme across the cluster.

Leviticus 25:39 · Leviticus 25:25 · Leviticus 25:35 · Leviticus 25:47

basis: Verifier: rare shared lexeme H4134 mûk (only 5 occurrences, all in Lev 25), with H4376 mâkar and H8453 tôšāḇ

“My servants, whom I brought out of Egypt” — the redemption ground structural / thematic — confirmed

The reason no Israelite may be sold as a slave (v. 42) is repeated as the chapter’s refrain in v. 55 — “the children of Israel are servants unto me; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt.” Both verses share the cluster ʽēḇeḏ (servant), yāṣâʼ (brought out), and Miṣrayim (Egypt). The Exodus is the deed that grounds the claim; the same servitude-vocabulary recoils on Egypt itself in Exodus 1:14, the toil God ended. The Verifier confirms the shared lexemes — common words, so the basis is structural/thematic rather than a rare quotation.

Leviticus 25:42 · Leviticus 25:55 · Exodus 1:14

basis: Verifier: shared H5650 ʽēḇeḏ, H3318 yāṣâʼ, H4714 Miṣrayim (all common, freq 500+) — a shared redemption-from-Egypt motif, not a rare quotation

The law kept and then broken — Jeremiah 34 structural / thematic — confirmed

This very statute — that no Israelite is to hold a brother in bondage — has its one great narrative test in Jeremiah 34. Under siege, Zedekiah’s Jerusalem proclaims liberty for its Hebrew slaves, then reneges and drags the freed brothers back into servitude, and the prophet pronounces judgment. Barnes points to the episode on this very verse (“Compare Jeremiah 34:8-17”). The shared vocabulary is the law’s own: mâkar (sell), ʽāḇaḏ (serve), and ’āḥ (brother). The Verifier finds these are common words, so the link is structural/thematic — not a unique quotation but the prophet pressing Leviticus 25’s command against a people who knew it and trampled it, with the deliverance from Egypt held up once more as the ground.

Leviticus 25:39 · Leviticus 25:42 · Jeremiah 34:14

basis: Verifier: shared H4376 mâkar (74 vv), H5647 ʽāḇaḏ (262 vv), H251 ’āḥ (571 vv) — common words; Jeremiah 34 invokes and indicts the breach of this slave-release law, flagged by Barnes on Lev 25:39

Masters and the Master in heaven — New Testament uptake structural / thematic — confirmed

The New Testament gathers the principle of v. 43 (“fear thy God”) and applies it to Christian masters. The Pulpit Commentary pairs the verse with Ephesians 6:9 — “ye masters… forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven” — and Barnes links “fear thy God” to Romans 14:4 (“to his own master he standeth or falleth”). Henry adds Colossians 4:1, “masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal.” Held honestly: these are cross-Testament links (Greek↔Hebrew), so they cannot rest on shared Strong’s numbers and the Verifier finds none; the connection is thematic, argued through the human commentators, not a verbal citation.

Leviticus 25:42 · Leviticus 25:43 · Ephesians 6:9 · Colossians 4:1 · Romans 14:4

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew): no shared Strong's possible; thematic uptake named by Pulpit Commentary (Eph 6:9), Barnes (Rom 14:4), Henry (Col 4:1)

The sojourner-and-hired-man pair — tôšāḇ / śāḵîr structural / thematic — confirmed

Verse 40’s humane formula — the poor brother kept “as a hired man, as a sojourner” — uses a fixed legal word-pair that recurs across the Torah’s status-laws: the hired man and resident alien excluded from the Passover (Exodus 12:45), barred from holy things (Leviticus 22:10), yet fed by the sabbatical land (Leviticus 25:6). The same pairing even shapes the prayer of Genesis 23:4 and Psalm 39:12, where the worshipper calls himself a sojourner before God. The Verifier confirms the shared lexemes tôšāḇ and śāḵîr; these are recurring legal terms, so the link is structural.

Leviticus 25:40 · Leviticus 25:6 · Exodus 12:45 · Leviticus 22:10 · Genesis 23:4

basis: Verifier: shared H8453 tôšāḇ (13 vv) + H7916 śāḵîr (17 vv) — a recurring legal word-pair, structural rather than a unique quotation

The Redeemer who buys back the brother who has sold himself ancient/widely-held

The chapter’s logic — a man sunk in poverty (mûk), sold into bondage, awaiting the horn-blast of release — is the gospel in shadow. The same Leviticus 25 that governs this case provides the kinsman-redeemer (gō’ēl) who buys his fallen relative back (vv. 25, 48–49). Matthew Henry reads the whole paragraph this way: the servant’s release at Jubilee “typified redemption from the service of sin and Satan, by the grace of God in Christ, whose truth makes us free, John 8:32.” Christ is the near kinsman who, when we had “sold” ourselves under sin (Romans 7:14), pays the ransom and brings us home to the inheritance. This redemptive reading of the Jubilee is ancient and widely held.

Leviticus 25:39 · Leviticus 25:41 · John 8:32 · Romans 7:14

“Ye are not your own” — bought to belong to God widely-held

“For My servants are they, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt” (v. 42): because God owns the redeemed, no man may own them absolutely. The New Testament takes the identical principle and grounds it in the cross — “ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20; 7:23, “ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men”). Maclaren, preaching this verse as God’s Slaves, traces the line: redemption is the title-deed of God’s mastery. What the Exodus secured for Israel against human ownership, Calvary secures for the church. The typology is widely held; the verbal echo is thematic, since it crosses from Hebrew to Greek and shares no Strong’s number.

Leviticus 25:42 · 1 Corinthians 6:19 · 1 Corinthians 7:23

From “not as a bondservant” to “no longer a slave but a brother” novel

The law’s deepest instinct — that a fellow-believer is a brother, not a chattel (vv. 39, 46) — finds its consummation in the gospel. Paul sends the runaway Onesimus back “no longer as a slave, but… a beloved brother” (Philemon 16), and declares that in Christ “there is neither bond nor free… for ye are all one” (Galatians 3:28). What Leviticus restrains by mercy, the New Covenant dissolves by adoption: all who are redeemed become sons, and therefore brothers. This is a novel synthesis offered here — not a claim the human commentators draw from this verse — and should be weighed against the text rather than received as its plain sense.

Leviticus 25:46 · Philemon 16 · Galatians 3:28