(13) And He said to Abram, “Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years; (14) but I will execute judgment on the nation they shall serve, and in the end they shall go free with great wealth.
Josephus' Antiquities 2.14
The Egyptians honored them with these gifts, in order to hasten their departure. Others gave out of good neighborliness and friendship they had for them. When they went forth from Egypt the Egyptians wept and had remorse for how they treated them.
וְאוֹמֵר (שמות לב) וְהַלֻּחֹת מַעֲשֵׂה אֱלֹקִים הֵמָּה וְהַמִּכְתָּב מִכְתַּב אֱלֹקִים הוּא חָרוּת עַל הַלֻּחֹת, אַל תִּקְרָא חָרוּת אֶלָּא חֵרוּת, שֶׁאֵין לְךָ בֶן חוֹרִין אֶלָּא מִי שֶׁעוֹסֵק בְּתַלְמוּד תּוֹרָה.
And it says (Exodus 32:16): "And the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tablets," do not read "graven" (harut) but rather "freedom" (herut), for there is no free man except one that involves himself in Torah learning.
(10) Everyone, officials and people, who had entered into the covenant agreed to set their male and female slaves free and not keep them enslaved any longer; they complied and let them go. (11) But afterward they turned about and brought back the men and women they had set free, and forced them into slavery again. (12) Then it was that the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD: (13) Thus said the LORD, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage, saying: (14) “In the seventh year each of you must let go any fellow Hebrew who may be sold to you; when he has served you six years, you must set him free.” But your fathers would not obey Me or give ear. (15) Lately you turned about and did what is proper in My sight, and each of you proclaimed a release to his countrymen; and you made a covenant accordingly before Me in the House which bears My name. (16) But now you have turned back and have profaned My name; each of you has brought back the men and women whom you had given their freedom, and forced them to be your slaves again. (17) Assuredly, thus said the LORD: You would not obey Me and proclaim a release, each to his kinsman and countryman. Lo! I proclaim your release—declares the LORD—to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine; and I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
Rabbi Sacks
"Freedom is more than an abstract idea. It means (in an age in which slavery was taken for granted - it was not abolished in Britain or the United States until the nineteenth century) letting a slave go free after seven years, or immediately if his master has injured him. It means granting slaves complete rest and freedom one day in seven. These laws … turn slavery from an existential fate to a temporary condition. Slavery is not what you are or how you were born, but some thing that has happened to you for a while and from which you will one day be liberated.
Some questions for discussion:
1. What do these sources teach us about the process of emancipation? What does it take for a person to be made free?
2. Freedom is often described in negative terms--i.e, freedom from something. What kind of freedom is at play in these sources?
3. What are the consequences of acting unjustly with respect to emancipation on slaves? On slaveowners? On society at large?