Jérémie 34:21 Commentaire : Tze'enah Ure'enah & Rashi

“And Zedekiah” [34:21]. I will give Zedekiah, king of Judah, and all of his officials into the hands of their enemies, into the hands of the king of Babylon, who has withdrawn from you. I will bring them back to the city and they will vanquish it and burn it with fire. I will allow the cities of Judah to be devastated, so that nobody will inhabit them. One asks a question. What is the relationship between their not wanting to free their slaves and the Holy One’s severe punishment and the destruction of their holy city? The answer is as Bahya writes in parshat Mishpatim. The Torah tells us that the slave rests in the seventh year and goes free and leaves his master. It is a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, that the Holy One showed His wonders in Egypt. It is also a remembrance that the Holy One created the world and rested on the Sabbath, the seventh day. That is to say, the Holy One took Israel, who were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, to be servants to His holy name, as the verse says, “For it is to Me that Israel are servants” [Leviticus, 25:55]. Israel are My servants because I took them out of Egypt. Therefore, no slave should be with his master more than six years, and he should go free in the seventh year. This is shown by the verse that says, “they are my servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt” [Leviticus, 25:55]. That is, because I took Israel out of Egypt, therefore Israel are My servants and not slaves of one Jew to another. If the slave does not want to go free in the seventh year, then he does not want to be the servant of the Holy One, and states, heaven forbid, that he has forgotten that God took him out of Egypt with miracles and wonders. Furthermore, it is a great mitzvah to free the slaves. One remembers that God created the world in six days and rested on the Sabbath. The seventh day is like the seventh year that the slave should also rest. Therefore, the slave also points to Ma’ase Bereshit [the act of Creation], that the Holy One rested on the seventh day when He created the world.¹Bahya, Exodus, 21:2. Therefore, the Holy One was very angry with Israel when they did not want to free their slaves. This is as if the Holy One did not create the world or take Israel out of Egypt. The Holy One commanded many commandments that we should remember that God created the world and took Israel out of Egypt to be servants to His holy name. Therefore, they were expelled from their land because of that sin.

who have gone up away from you because of the army of Pharaoh that came out of Egypt, as is explained in this Book (37:5).