Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Leviticus 25:46 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 46. 46And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse makes foreign slaves inheritable property while forbidding ruthless rule over Israelites.
Read It With
- Leviticus 25:44-46
Start with 25:44-46 rather than Leviticus 25:46 alone. In that complete movement, this verse makes foreign slaves inheritable property while forbidding ruthless rule over Israelites. The unit's controlling claim is: Israel is permitted to acquire male and female slaves from surrounding nations and resident families, hold them as property, and pass them to children permanently while not ruling Israelite brothers harshly.
Why This Verse Appears Here
This verse makes foreign slaves inheritable property while forbidding ruthless rule over Israelites. Its place in Leviticus 25:44-46 matters because the permission to own foreign slaves directly contrasts with the preceding protections for poor Israelite kin, exposing an ethnic boundary rather than universal abolition. Within the whole book, this unit contributes: Israel is permitted to acquire male and female slaves from surrounding nations and resident families, hold them as property, and pass them to children permanently while not ruling Israelite brothers harshly.
Follow the Context
- The unit opens the particular procedure, case, scene, or instruction named “Foreign people may be bought, owned, and inherited.”
- Israel is permitted to acquire male and female slaves from surrounding nations and resident families, hold them as property, and pass them to children permanently while not ruling Israelite brothers harshly.
- The unit closes with this interpretive boundary: This is chattel slavery with an ethnic boundary; regulation is not abolition or moral approval, and the text can never excuse owning, trafficking, coercing, or abusing people.
What This Verse Is Not Saying
Leviticus 25:46 does not make owning people morally acceptable or permit inherited slavery, trafficking, forced labor, ethnic hierarchy, or abuse.
What Remains True
Foreign slaves may be inherited as permanent property while Israelite kin may not be ruled harshly; the unequal protection is explicit and morally grave.
How It Can Shape Life
- Extend freedom and labor protection across citizenship and ethnicity instead of repeating the chapter's exclusion boundary.
Teach It Back
Explain Leviticus 25:46's contribution to Leviticus 25:44-46. Name the category involved, what the surrounding verses add, any material uncertainty, and what 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 Leviticus 25:44-46 — Foreign people may be bought, owned, and inheritedSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
Interpreters disagree over Jubilee's date, relationship to sabbatical laws and ancient release decrees, historical implementation, land-sale mechanics, debt service, the scope of kinship protection, and the composition of Leviticus 25. The contrast between protected Israelite debt servants and inheritable foreign slaves remains textually explicit and ethically severe.
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: Leviticus 25:44-46, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Leviticus
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, ritual and legal vocabulary, names, clause relationships, KJV language controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Lev.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 25:44-46
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Leviticus with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
eBible.org distribution of the NET Bible, PDF generated 2025-12-31
Supports: Unit-bounded translator notes on Hebrew, syntax, ritual vocabulary, measures, textual questions, and older-English wording; silence is not treated as evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible Leviticus PDF, complete PDF pp. 1-99, translation and translator notes for 25:44-46
Open source ↗