Exodus 21:4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Bible Comments

Her children shall be her master's Having become his in consequence of the right which he had to the parents. He shall go out by himself But was not this separation of man and wife inconsistent with the first institution of marriage, by which that bond is made indissoluble? Answer, 1st, That bond was not necessarily dissolved by this law, both because the separation was at the man's choice, who might have stayed if he pleased, and because the distinction of their habitations might consist with the right use of matrimony, which the master would probably permit for his own advantage.

Exodus 21:4

4 If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.