출애굽기 21:3 해설: Rashi, Chizkuni, Da'at Zekenim & Ramban

אם בגפו יבא IF HE CAME IN BY HIMSELF — This means that he was unmarried — as the Targum renders it אם בלחודוהי, if he came in “alone”. The term בגפו is the same as גף) בכנפו being synonymous with כנף wing, skirt) i. e. he came in only just as he was, alone, merely wrapped in his garment: so that בגפו, “in his skirt”, means “in the skirt of his garment”.

אם בגפו יבא, בגפו ילך, according to the plain meaning of the text the meaning is: “he will leave in the same condition as when he had begun his term of service.” The Torah proceeds to illustrate this by quoting examples of how his personal status might have changed during these six years. Even though his master might have given him a gentile slave to live with and to have children with, the “wife” and children remain the property of his master.

ויצאה אשתו עמו, “his wife will leave that master’s employment with him (at the same time). Rashi asks correctly, granted that we have been told that his wife leaves with him, but where did we hear that this applies to his children? As an answer he cites the Talmud, tractate Kiddushin folio 22, that we learn from this verse that the master of the servant of which the Torah speaks here is obligated to look after the servant’s wife’s and family’s needs, if he had such when he was sold to him. Whereas it is clear that the master has to look after such a servants’ wife, it does not appear clear from the text that he is also obligated to look after the children of such a servant. We need to find a nuance in the text that would support this contention. Our author therefore suggests that this can be found in Leviticus 25,41, where the subject is someone who was forced to sell his labour as he had fallen on hard times, debts, etc; the Torah there states that the “master” must release both him and his family in the Jubilee year, showing that there is an unnecessary word. The word שכיר appears both in Leviticus and that same word appears again in Deut. 15,18. The scholars that do not accept this g’zeyrah shaveh as something that is traditional, but simply consider (Talmud Kiddushin there) the phrasing of the verse as sufficient.