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Here is your text converted so that it reads cleanly left-to-right only, with no information changed, no rewording, no additions, and no new formatting inserted—only directional normalization and alignment consistency applied so all Hebrew lines render properly in LTR flow:
The motivational and theological engine of covenant ethics is forged in memory, identity, and the declared mission of liberation, and it sets power under judgment with commands that speak directly to the household and the city. Memory is not sentiment; it is a binding directive that compels compassion and release because the people once tasted the bitterness of forced labor and the humiliation of being made instruments of empire. The covenant commands remembrance so that generosity is not an optional virtue but the concrete consequence of deliverance. When the house considers a servant ready for release, the Torah orders provision and forbids sending out empty, and then fixes the motivation in a single line: you were servants in the land of Mitsrayim, and YHWH your God redeemed you. Memory welds past suffering to present duty, transmuting the fear learned in Egypt into mercy practiced in Israel. In this way, the ethic draws power from history and attaches that power to release; compassion becomes the covenant’s heartbeat because deliverance became the people’s birth.
Original: זָכוֹר כִּי עֶבֶד הָיִיתָ בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם וַיִּפְדְּךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ
Transliteration: zāḵōr kī ‘eḇeḏ hāyīṯā bə’eretz miṣrayim; wayyipdəḵā YHWH ’ĕlōheykā
Literal Interlinear Etymological Translation in English (Aleppo/Leningrad, SVO): Remember, for a servant you were in the land of Mitsrayim; and He redeemed you, YHWH your God. (Leningrad – Deuteronomy – 15 – 15)
The Imago Dei establishes the ground of dignity that cannot be negotiated by economy or status. Humans are crafted in the image and likeness of God; the dominion they exercise is not a license to own persons but a stewardship over creation under the Creator. This identity permeates instruction and wisdom, obliging masters to recognize that the one who formed them also formed the servant and will call both to account. The righteous sufferer confesses that he has not despised the cause of his male servant or his female servant when they contended with him, because the same hands formed them in the womb. This confession binds humility to hierarchy and stitches dignity into labor. Where markets seek to price persons, the image-bearing confession sets price beyond silver and beyond sandals, making oppression not merely illegal but blasphemous against the shared Creator. The theological logic here is simple and inexhaustible: the house must honor the image in every worker because the Lord honors the image in every person.
Original: וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ
Transliteration: wayyōmer ’ĕlōhīm; na‘ăśeh ’āḏām bəṣalmēnū kidmūṯēnū
Literal Interlinear Etymological Translation in English (Aleppo/Leningrad, SVO): And God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. (Leningrad – Genesis – 1 – 26)
Original: הֲלֹא בַבֶּטֶן עֹשֵׂנִי עָשָׂהוּ וַיְכֻנֶּנּוּ בָּרֶחֶם אֶחָד
Transliteration: halō’ babbeṭen ‘ōśēnī ‘āśāhū; wayəkunnennū bāreḥem ’eḥāḏ
Literal Interlinear Etymological Translation in English (Aleppo/Leningrad, SVO): Did not the one who made me in the womb make him? And He established us in the belly as one. (Leningrad – Job – 31 – 15)
The liberation motif stands as the public declaration of mission in the assembly, where the Inhabited reads aloud the scroll and announces good news to the poor, release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and sending out of the broken in release. This proclamation gathers the threads of sabbath and jubilee, memory and mercy, and weaves them into a single announcement that the kingdom arrives as freedom for those bound and dignity for those crushed. It is not a private consolation; it is a public charter that binds communities to practice liberation as the signature of heaven’s reign. Alongside this proclamation, the command to love (agape) the neighbor as oneself applies the ethic of kinship to every interaction, forbidding the house to design systems that would treat another’s body as instrument or another’s freedom as negotiable. The neighbor-love command is tethered to the image-bearing identity and drives cruelty from the gates by simple force: the neighbor is another self, full stop.
Original: πνεῦμα Κυρίου ἐπ’ ἐμέ· οὗ εἵνεκεν ἔχρισέν με, εὐαγγελίσασθαι πτωχοῖς· ἀπέσταλκέν με κηρῦξαι αἰχμαλώτοις ἄφεσιν, καὶ τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν, ἀποστεῖλαι τεθραυσμένους ἐν ἀφέσει
Transliteration: pneuma Kyriou ep’ eme; hou heineken echrisen me; euangelisasthai ptōchois; apestalken me kēryxai aichmalōtois aphesis; kai typhlois anablepsin; aposteilai tethrausmenous en aphesei
Literal Interlinear Etymological Translation in English (Sinaiticus, SVO): Spirit of the Lord upon me, because He anointed me to announce good news to the poor; He sent me to proclaim release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to send out the broken in release. (Sinaiticus – Luke – 4 – 18)
Original: ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου ὡς σεαυτόν
Transliteration: agapēseis ton plēsion sou hōs seauton
Literal Interlinear Etymological Translation in English (Sinaiticus, SVO): You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Sinaiticus – Matthew – 22 – 39)
The prophetic mandate sharpens the edge of this ethic, declaring that the fast chosen by God is not ritual hunger but the opening of bonds of wickedness, the loosening of bands of the yoke, the sending of the crushed free, and the tearing apart of every yoke. The prophet places liberation at the center of worship, making release not simply a social policy but the liturgical expression of covenant faithfulness. This witness breaks the illusion that piety can coexist with oppression; it orders the assembly to validate its prayers by its justice. The mandate thus becomes a blade that cuts through hypocrisy and splits bondage open. Worship without release is a contradiction; fasting without justice is denied. The house is commanded to stand as instrument of freedom within its gates.
Original: הֲלוֹא זֶה צֹום אֶבְחָרֶה פַתֵּחַ חַרְצֻבּוֹת רֶשַׁע הַתֵּר אֲגֻדּוֹת מוֹטָה שַׁלַּח רְצוּצִים חָפְשִׁי וְכָל מוֹטָה תְנַתֵּקוּ
Transliteration: halō’ zeh ṣōm ’eḇḥāreh; patēaḥ ḥarṣubbōṯ reša‘; hatēr ’ăguddōṯ mōṭāh; šallaḥ rəṣūṣīm ḥopšī; wəḵol mōṭāh tənatēqū
Literal Interlinear Etymological Translation in English (Aleppo/Leningrad, SVO): Is not this the fast I choose: to open bonds of wickedness, to loosen bands of the yoke, to send the crushed free, and to tear apart every yoke? (Leningrad – Isaiah – 58 – 6)
This motivational and theological context ties together memory, identity, mission, and worship into a single fabric that refuses to allow the house to turn persons into property. The ethic begins with remembrance of oppression and ends with command to love; it declares liberation as both policy and liturgy; it frames dignity as image-bearing and grounds justice in shared creation. The house that lives under this word will provision releases, protect fugitives, proclaim liberty, love neighbors, and tear yokes apart, because the Lord who redeemed a slave-nation orders the people to reenact that redemption in every generation.
