And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:
All Commentaries on Exodus 21:5 Go To Exodus 21
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
That man is truly free, a true Hebrew, who is entirely God’s. Everything that he possesses shares in freedom. He has nothing in common with the man who rejects freedom and says, “I have loved my master…. I will not go out free.” The man who subjects himself to the world is returned not only to his master but also to his infirmity, because he loves the world or his mind, that is, his nous,the author of this desire. He is returned not only to his wife but even to those pleasures which make him so bound to household matters that he does not care for what is eternal. Thus “at his threshold and door his master shall pierce his ear,” in order that he might remember the decision by which he chose slavery. ()..
