Context No. 2441 of 4322 · Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 15:17-23: in context

17then you shall take an awl, and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also to your female servant you shall do likewise. 18It shall not seem hard to you when you let him go free from you, for he has been double the value of a hired hand as he served you six years. The LORD your God will bless you in all that you do. 19You shall dedicate all the firstborn males that are born of your herd and of your flock to the LORD your God. You shall do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. 20You shall eat it before the LORD your God year by year in the place which the LORD shall choose, you and your household. 21If it has any defect—is lame or blind, or has any defect whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to the LORD your God. 22You shall eat it within your gates. The unclean and the clean shall eat it alike, as the gazelle and as the deer. 23Only you shall not eat its blood. You shall pour it out on the ground like water.

Deuteronomy describes a striking moment in the law of servants. When a bondservant's six years are up and he is free to go, he may instead say he loves his master and does not want to leave. Then his master takes an awl and pierces his ear to the door, and he becomes a servant for life. It is freedom voluntarily surrendered, not out of debt but out of love, and marked permanently in the flesh.

This is not slavery imposed; it is belonging chosen. The servant has been offered his release and looks at it and decides that life with this master is better than freedom without him. The pierced ear at the doorpost is the sign of a love that would rather stay bound than walk away. It is a small picture of a strange freedom: to be so devoted that you choose to give up your own independence and be marked as another's for good. The psalmist would later say to God, you have opened my ears.

Offered my own freedom, would I choose to bind myself to God out of love, marked as his for life?

Sources

Deuteronomy 15:17: then you shall take an awl, and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever.
Deuteronomy 15:16: If he tells you, I will not go out from you; because he loves you and your house, because he is well with you.
Psalm 40:6: You have opened my ears. You have not required burnt offering and sin offering.