I made a covenant with your fathers, saying, At the end of seven years This is the literal translation of מקצ שׁבע שׁנים; but the import of the phrase is, in the course of the seventh year; or, within the term of seven years, as Dr. Waterland renders it. “The seventh year was the year of release, (Deuteronomy 15:9,) consequently servants were to continue in service but six years, and at the beginning of the seventh were to be let go free; ibid, Jeremiah 34:12. And the words mean no more, as appears by a like form of speech, Deuteronomy 14:28, where it is said, At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thy increase that year: which is to be explained by Jeremiah 26:12, where every third year is called the year of tithing. So Christ is said to rise again after three days, Mark 8:31, which is elsewhere explained by his rising the third day. But your fathers hearkened not unto me Their worldly profit swaying more with them than God's command. It appears from hence, that the law, requiring them to let their servants go free after six years' service, had been violated by the Jews for ages before the captivity, as the law respecting the sabbatical year had also been. The consequence was, that the servants had, by long disuse, lost the benefit of the gracious provision which God, in his law, had made for them, for this trespass of them and their fathers God now justly delivered them into servitude to strangers.
Related Commentaries of Jeremiah 34:13
Jeremiah 34:13-14
13 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen, saying,
14 At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee; and when he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee: but your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear.