Ulangan 15:12

Release of Debt Slaves

15:12 If your fellow Hebrew ¹  – whether male or female ²  – is sold to you and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you must let that servant ³  go free. ⁴ 

Ulangan 23:17

Purity in Cultic Personnel

23:17 There must never be a sacred prostitute ⁵  among the young women ⁶  of Israel nor a sacred male prostitute ⁷  among the young men ⁸  of Israel.

[15:12]  ¹ sn Elsewhere in the OT, the Israelites are called “Hebrews” (עִבְרִי, ’ivriy) by outsiders, rarely by themselves (cf. Gen 14:13; 39:14, 17; 41:12; Exod 1:15, 16, 19; 2:6, 7, 11, 13; 1 Sam 4:6; Jonah 1:9). Thus, here and in the parallel passage in Exod 21:2-6 the term עִבְרִי may designate non-Israelites, specifically a people well-known throughout the ancient Near East as ’apiru or habiru. They lived a rather vagabond lifestyle, frequently hiring themselves out as laborers or mercenary soldiers. While accounting nicely for the surprising use of the term here in an Israelite law code, the suggestion has against it the unlikelihood that a set of laws would address such a marginal people so specifically (as opposed to simply calling them aliens or the like). More likely עִבְרִי is chosen as a term to remind Israel that when they were “Hebrews,” that is, when they were in Egypt, they were slaves. Now that they are free they must not keep their fellow Israelites in economic bondage. See v. 15.

[15:12]  ² tn Heb “your brother, a Hebrew (male) or Hebrew (female).”

[15:12]  ³ tn Heb “him.” The singular pronoun occurs throughout the passage.

[15:12]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text includes “from you.”

[23:17]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew term translated “sacred prostitute” here (קְדֵשָׁה [qÿdeshah], from קַדֵשׁ [qadesh, “holy”]; cf. NIV “shrine prostitute”; NASB “cult prostitute”; NRSV, TEV, NLT “temple prostitute”) refers to the pagan fertility cults that employed female and male prostitutes in various rituals designed to evoke agricultural and even human fecundity (cf. Gen 38:21-22; 1 Kgs 14:24; 15:12; 22:47; 2 Kgs 23:7; Hos 4:14). The Hebrew term for a regular, noncultic (i.e., “secular”) female prostitute is זוֹנָה (zonah).

[23:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “daughters.”

[23:17]  ⁷ tn The male cultic prostitute was called קָדֵשׁ (qadesh; see note on the phrase “sacred prostitute” earlier in this verse). The colloquial Hebrew term for a “secular” male prostitute (i.e., a sodomite) is the disparaging epithet כֶּלֶב (kelev, “dog”) which occurs in the following verse (cf. KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB).

[23:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “sons.”