He shall be treated like a man hired from year to year, but a foreign owner must not rule over him harshly in your sight.
We have here the laws concerning servitude, designed to preserve the honour of the Jewish nation as a free people, and rescued by a divine power out of the house of bondage, into the glorious liberty of God's sons, his first-born. Now the law is, I. That a native Israelite should never be made a bondman for perpetuity.
Commenting on Leviticus 25:39-55
And as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him,.... Being redeemable every year, and upon his redemption might quit his master's service, as an hireling may; and the price of his redemption to be valued according to the years he served, and as if he had been hired for so much a year; as well as he was to be treated in a...
[And] as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him: [and the other] shall not rule with rigour over him in thy sight. (y) You shall not allow him to treat him severely, if you know it.