John Gill Bible Commentary

If she please not her master,.... "Be evil in the eyes of her master" (p); and he has no liking of her, and love to her, not being agreeable in her person, temper, or conduct, so that he does not choose to make her his wife: who hath betrothed her to him; but not completed the marriage, as he promised, when he bought her, or at least gave reason to expect that he would; for, according to the Jewish canons, a Hebrew handmaid might not be sold but to one who laid himself under obligation to espouse her to himself, or his son, when she was fit to be betrothed (q); and so Jarchi says, he ought to espouse her, and take her to be his wife, for the money of her purchase is the money of her espousals. There is a double reading of this passage, the Keri, or marginal reading we follow; the Cetib, or written text, is, "who hath not betrothed her", both may be taken in, "who hath not betrothed her to him", as he said he would, or as it was expected he should; for, had she been really betrothed, what follows could not have been done: then shall he let her be redeemed; she being at age, and fit for marriage, and her master not caring to marry her, her father shall redeem her, as the Targum of Jonathan; it was incumbent on him to do that, as it was on her master to let her be redeemed, to admit of the redemption of her; or whether, as Aben Ezra says, she redeemed herself, or her father, or one of her relations, if she was near the six years (the end of them), they reckoned how many years she had served, and how many were yet to the seventh, or to the time that she is in her own power, and according to the computation was the redemption: thus, for instance, as it is by others (r) put, if she was bought for six pounds, then one pound is the service of every year; and if she redeemed herself, her master took off of the money for the years she had served; or thus (s), if she was bought for sixty pence, and had served two years, he must pay her forty pence, and so free her: to sell her unto a strange nation, he shall have no power; that is, to another man, as both the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, even to an Israelite that was of another family, to whom the right of redemption did not belong; for to sell an Israelite, man or woman, to a Gentile, or one of another nation, was not allowed of in any case, as Josephus (t) observes; but the meaning is, he had no power to sell her to another, though of the same nation, to be his handmaid; this power neither her master nor her father had, as Jarchi asserts, she being redeemed, and in her own power: seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her; in not fulfilling his promise made to her father when he sold her to him, or not answering the expectation he had raised in her; and especially he dealt thus with her, if he had corrupted her, and yet refused to betroth and marry her. (p) "mala in oculis", Montanus; "mala videbitur in oculis", Junius & Tremellius; "mala fuerit in oculis", Drusius. (q) Maimon. Hilchot Abadim, c. 4. sect. 11. & in Misn. Kiddushin, c. 1. sect. 2. (r) Bartenora in Kiddush. ib. (s) Maimon. in ib. (t) Antiqu. l. 16. c. 1. sect. 1.