פּירוש אויף שמות 21:8

אם רעה בעיני אדניה IF SHE BE EVIL IN THE EYES OF HER LORD — i. e. that she did not find favour in his eyes so that he might be induced to marry her (cf. Mekhilta).

אבל אם רעה, “but if she is ugly, etc.” the term רעה while often used to describe moral ugliness, is also used to describe physical ugliness, i.e. being “sourfaced,” as we know from when Joseph asked the baker and cupbearer who had dreamt dreams which had upset them. Compare Genesis 40,7: ?מדוע פניכם רעים היום, “why do you look so crestfallen today?” בעיני אדוניה, “in her master’s eyes;” so that he does not wish her to remain in his house as a prospective bride until she will have completed her years of service;

והפדה, “he must help her to obtain her freedom;” the unusual phrasing means that he must do more than the law requires to give her freedom, i.e. enable her to avoid having to become someone else’s “slave” due to her being penniless. Rashi explains our verse as follows: if the servant girl had been sold for six years service, for say 600 dollars, and she had only worked for two years, she must give him 400 dollars upon her going free. If you were to ask what did her master loose in that scenario, seeing that he had received the correct percentage of the work performed? The answer is that the girl’s services becoming worth more every year she grew closer to adulthood, the master had paid her for work performed while she was too young to be worth what he had paid for. In other words, the master did sustain a financial loss by her early release.