God’s Investment Strategy

If you buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing.  Exodus 21:2  Hebrew World

Six years – Apparently God is not interested in profit; at least not in the same way that we are.  Imagine the ridiculous consequences of this Torah commandment.  Someone owes you a big debt – a debt which he is unable to pay.  In the biblical economy (for this is the only way we can read this text), when debts could not be satisfied in any other way, a man would sell himself as an indentured servant in order to pay the debt.  This is not the kind of slavery we usually associate with the term.  This is essentially selling my labor in order to pay my debts.  The debtor is required to work off the debt in service to the lender.  That’s why the opening of this verse does not mean purchasing a person.  It means accepting the indentured status of the debtor.  The lender “buys” the service of the debtor until the debt is paid.

Ah, but now there’s a problem.  The maximum length of time anyone could be indentured was six years and if the cycle of seven years came sooner than this maximum, the Torah required the lender to release the debtor from any further obligation without consequence.  But this doesn’t make any sense to us at all.  Suppose you owe me $150,000.  You can’t pay, so I agree that you will work for me until it is effectively paid by your labor.  We agree that your labor is worth $30,000 a year, so your debt would technically be paid in five years.  But the seven year cycle comes in the third year.  Torah requires me to release you as if the debt were paid in spite of the fact that you have worked off only $90,000.  What kind of economics is that?  I just lost $60,000.  I have to write it off.  You go scot-free.  Ridiculous!

But God is not thinking like a Greek-based capitalist.  God thinks in Hebrew and in Hebrew what matters most is community – the wholeness of each person functioning in order to accomplish God’s will for all.  Profit is important, but it is not more important than shalom – well-being .  If by following Torah the debtor is released before the total is paid, then you have honored God by restoring your fellow and showing that you also count shalom more valuable than monetary reward – and God honors that!  What matters most to God is not your individual losses or gains but rather what enhances and restores the whole community and if restoring a debtor to full status is required in order to bring wholeness to the community, then that’s what the character of God demands.

But wait!  If God just wants wholeness, why doesn’t Torah simply require immediate forgiveness? Why have a seven year cycle?  The answer is that wholeness requires responsibility and responsibility must be demonstrated.  The debtor must pay – some or all – in order to learn not to be a debtor.  The lender must risk – some or all – in order to learn that mercy is an essential quality of being blessed with wealth.  There is no free lunch, even in Torah.  Now take this lesson and apply it – and notice how far from Torah wholeness a culture of individual accumulation really is.

Topical Index:  six years, shalom, debt, responsibility, forgiveness, Exodus 21:2