Leviticus 25:35 → Exodus 21:2

Exodus 21:2 establishes the six-year service limit for Hebrew slaves with release in the seventh year, and Leviticus 25:35 introduces the Jubilee framework that redefines Israelite debt service: "Now if your countryman becomes destitute and cannot support himself among you, then you are to help him." Leviticus 25 prohibits treating an impoverished Israelite as a slave (עֶבֶד, eved) at all—he must be treated as a hired worker (שָׂכִיר, sakhir) until the Jubilee year, when all such service terminates. The Levitical legislation grounds this humanitarian treatment in the exodus: "Because the Israelites are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt, they are not to be sold as slaves" (Lev 25:42), making God's prior claim on Israel's freedom the basis for limiting human servitude.