Hebrew word · H5659

עַבְדוּת

be'avdutenu

slavery

Servitude or bondage. It is used of political subjection (Nehemiah 9:17; Ezra 9:8–9). It is related to 'eved, which covers everything from slave to royal official to vassal.

Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

servitude, bondage

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Ezra 9:8

Range of meaning

Servitude or bondage. It is used of political subjection (Nehemiah 9:17; Ezra 9:8–9). It is related to 'eved, which covers everything from slave to royal official to vassal.

Against the English

KJV and WEB 'bondage', YLT 'servitude', some modern versions 'slavery'.

How it drifted

Church readers can hear 'bondage' as spiritual bondage to sin, or 'slavery' as chattel slavery. Ezra means that the people are subjects of a foreign empire.

Used elsewhere in the period

Nehemiah 9:36–37, where the returned community says 'we are slaves today in the land you gave our fathers... its produce goes to the kings you set over us.' Ezra 9:9 makes the same point: 'we are slaves... before the kings of Persia.'

Where it appears

Ezra · 2

  1. Ezra 9:8 בְּעַבְדֻתֵֽנוּ׃ in servitude our

    But now, for a brief moment, grace has come from the LORD our God to preserve for us a remnant and to give us a stake in His holy place. Even in our bondage, our God has given us new life and light to our eyes.

    Here: 'In our servitude': political subjection to a foreign empire. The returnees live in Judah but are still subjects of the Persian king (v. 9, 'we are slaves'; compare Nehemiah 9:36).

  2. Ezra 9:9 וּבְעַבְדֻ֔תֵנוּ and in servitude our

    Though we are slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage, but He has extended to us grace in the sight of the kings of Persia, giving us new life to rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins, and giving us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem.

    Here: 'And in our servitude'. The rare abstract noun names the condition itself. It comes in front of the verb, so the point is that God stayed with them even there.

Nehemiah · 1

  1. Nehemiah 9:17 לְעַבְדֻתָ֖ם to servitude their

    They refused to listen and failed to remember the wonders You performed among them. They stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return them to their bondage in Egypt. But You are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in loving devotion, and You did not forsake them.

    Here: 'To their slavery': going back to Egyptian forced labour. It anticipates the prayer's end, where the speakers say 'we are slaves today' under Persian kings (9:36).

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.