Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Deuteronomy 15:14 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 14. 14Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Deuteronomy 15:14 requires generous provision from flock, threshing floor, and winepress.
Read It With
- Deuteronomy 15:12–18
Read Deuteronomy 15:14 with 15:12–18. It requires generous provision from flock, threshing floor, and winepress. The complete unit establishes this contextual meaning: A Hebrew man or woman sold into service goes free in the seventh year with generous livestock, grain, and wine; exodus memory opposes empty release, while an ear rite marks voluntary permanent service.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Released Servants Must Leave with Provision advances Deuteronomy's movement from remembered wilderness failure through covenant instruction, land-facing law, public choice, leadership succession, witness song, blessing, and Moses' death. Its particular movement is this: A Hebrew man or woman sold into service goes free in the seventh year with generous livestock, grain, and wine; exodus memory opposes empty release, while an ear rite marks voluntary permanent service. At 15:14, the verse requires generous provision from flock, threshing floor, and winepress.
Follow the Context
- Release includes capital for a viable new start.
- The permanent-service option remains inside an unequal ancient labor system.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“release”
In plain language: The noun names letting a debt claim drop in the seventh-year setting.
The noun names letting a debt claim drop in the seventh-year setting. Within Deuteronomy 15:12–18, it helps interpret this verse's role: requires generous provision from flock, threshing floor, and winepress.
Why it matters: Interpreters disagree about the composition, date, Mosaic presentation, final-form role, legal relationship, rhetoric, history, and reception of “Released Servants Must Leave with Provision.” Confidence is strongest in the received unit's movement summarized here; historical and source-critical reconstructions remain probable, plausible, or uncertain as the evidence warrants.
How certain? probableWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
This verse does not create a free-standing rule. At Deuteronomy 15:14, its distinct contribution is requires generous provision from flock, threshing floor, and winepress; This law regulates rather than abolishes slavery and does not authorize ownership, coerced contracts, bodily marking, or pressure to remain with an employer.
What Remains True
Because Deuteronomy 15:14 requires generous provision from flock, threshing floor, and winepress, its proportionate enduring truth is this: Economic arrangements must resist predatory debt, stolen wages, permanent dispossession, coerced labor, and indifference to people whose need limits their bargaining power. This unit also keeps the following boundary explicit: This law regulates rather than abolishes slavery and does not authorize ownership, coerced contracts, bodily marking, or pressure to remain with an employer.
How It Can Shape Life
- Verse role: Deuteronomy 15:14 requires generous provision from flock, threshing floor, and winepress. Contextual meaning: A Hebrew man or woman sold into service goes free in the seventh year with generous livestock, grain, and wine; exodus memory opposes empty release, while an ear rite marks voluntary permanent service. Proportionate enduring truth: Economic arrangements must resist predatory debt, stolen wages, permanent dispossession, coerced labor, and indifference to people whose need limits their bargaining power. This unit also keeps the following boundary explicit: This law regulates rather than abolishes slavery and does not authorize ownership, coerced contracts, bodily marking, or pressure to remain with an employer. Application: Where labor has been constrained by debt or dependency, provide real exit, substantial transition resources, and freedom from bodily marking or emotional pressure to remain.
Teach It Back
Explain why Deuteronomy 15:14 requires generous provision from flock, threshing floor, and winepress. Use 15:12–18, state one Hebrew, textual, legal, historical, or compositional limit, identify one person or group at risk, and reject one conclusion the verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Deuteronomy 15:12–18 — Released Servants Must Leave with ProvisionSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
Deuteronomy 15:14 remains within this thought-unit limit: Interpreters disagree about the composition, date, Mosaic presentation, final-form role, legal relationship, rhetoric, history, and reception of “Released Servants Must Leave with Provision.” Confidence is strongest in the received unit's movement summarized here; historical and source-critical reconstructions remain probable, plausible, or uncertain as the evidence warrants.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Deuteronomy 15:12–18, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Deuteronomy
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, speech and legal clauses, poetic lines, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Deut.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 15:12–18
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Deuteronomy with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
eBible.org distribution of the NET Bible, PDF generated 2026-08-12
Supports: Unit-bounded translation, syntax, lexical, legal, poetic, measure, name, and selected textual notes; silence is not evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible Deuteronomy PDF, complete PDF pp. 1–111, translation and translator notes attached to 15:12–18
Open source ↗modern critical open study guide
Deuteronomy Part 1: Law, Reform, and Historical Setting
Joel S. Baden and Yale Bible Study
Yale Divinity School, 2023 course edition
Supports: Concise critical framing of Deuteronomy's law collection, historical setting, relationship to other Torah laws, centralization, and moral tensions.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study, 'Deuteronomy Part 1,' complete two-page PDF and linked lesson sections on law, legal collections, reform, centralization, and ethics, applied to Deuteronomy 15:12–18
Open source ↗modern scholarly handbook chapter abstract
The Place of Deuteronomy in the Formation of the Pentateuch
Konrad Schmid
The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch, Oxford University Press, 2020
Supports: A current debate map only; no unexposed chapter argument is attributed.
Exact location: Schmid, Oxford Handbook chapter (2020), official abstract and six-question scope: Pentateuchal setting, reworked Tetrateuch, layers, date, covenant and treaty, and Deuteronomism
Open source ↗modern jewish scholarly open composition study
Deuteronomy: The First Torah
David A. Glatt-Gilad
TheTorah.com, 2015
Supports: Mosaic speech presentation, self-referential Torah language, final-form function, and one model of earlier independent literary life.
Exact location: Glatt-Gilad, 'Deuteronomy: The First Torah,' complete article sections on speeches, Torah self-reference, law differences, and Joshua-Kings reception; applied to Deuteronomy 15:12–18
Open source ↗modern jewish scholarly open poverty and reception study
Gleanings for the Poor: Justice, Not Charity
Gregg E. Gardner
TheTorah.com, 2018
Supports: Concrete poor-person access, restricted owner agency, release, wages, pledges, gleaning, and later Jewish interpretation.
Exact location: Gardner, 'Gleanings for the Poor,' complete sections on Deuteronomy 14, 15, 24, and 26, debt, tithes, harvest access, and rabbinic property-right development; applied to Deuteronomy 15:12–18
Open source ↗modern jewish scholarly open comparative law study
The Hebrew Slave: Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy
Marvin A. Sweeney
TheTorah.com, 2014
Supports: Debt-service release, male and female treatment, departure provision, legal-development alternatives, and slavery's continuing coercion.
Exact location: Sweeney, 'The Hebrew Slave: Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy,' complete sections comparing Exodus 21, Deuteronomy 15, and Leviticus 25; applied to Deuteronomy 15:12–18
Open source ↗