Jeremiah 34:13

Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen, saying,

The verse recalls that God made a covenant with Israel's fathers in the day He brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen, when He freed them from slavery and bondage. That covenant required the release of servants and of those burdened by debt or oppression, in keeping with the jubilee law. That required release had not been carried out since the time of Moses.

In the setting of Zedekiah's proclamation of liberty, God approved the proclamation but condemned the people for failing to carry it out, and by withholding freedom from their servants they polluted His name. The verse belongs to an indictment of Israel for oppressing the laboring classes and enslaving people, an iniquity committed after God had brought them out of bondage in Egypt. Israel's own bondage in Egypt and God's rescue served as a warning against enslaving others, yet they adopted slavery despite God's commands.

For this disobedience God brought judgment through Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed the state and carried its people into captivity. The covenant of liberty in the surrounding passage was made by a ceremony using a sacrifice divided into pieces, with the parties passing between them. This covenant ceremony is connected to God's covenant with Abraham, and the sacrifice represents Christ, who alone frees people from the bondage of sin.

The permission for slaveholding seen in this chapter was only a temporary concession and not a practice pleasing to God, since slavery violated the moral law, and Jesus later set aside such special permissions and tested conduct by God's moral law.

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