And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:
If the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children. It might be that through attachment to his family, the Hebrew servant, resolving to forfeit his personal privilege, might choose to abide as he was; and as the state of Hebrew servitude was so light, while the evils necessarily attending a servile condition were mitigated by various humane provisions of the Jewish law, it may be presumed the alternative offered to married men-servants, instead of emancipation, would be generally embraced.