Jeremiah prophesied in the 6th Century BCE, around the time of the destruction of the first temple. He implored the people to follow God's ways. At this time, Zedekiah was the King of Judah. He would be the final king, ending his reign when the temple was destroyed in 586 BCE. In 589 BCE, when the Babylonians invaded Jerusalem, the Israelites decided to release their Hebrew slaves, hoping that this would bring out God's merciful side and spare them from a far worse fate.
(ח) הַדָּבָ֛ר אֲשֶׁר־הָיָ֥ה אֶֽל־יִרְמְיָ֖הוּ מֵאֵ֣ת יְהֹוָ֑ה אַחֲרֵ֡י כְּרֹת֩ הַמֶּ֨לֶךְ צִדְקִיָּ֜הוּ בְּרִ֗ית אֶת־כׇּל־הָעָם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בִּירוּשָׁלַ֔͏ִם לִקְרֹ֥א לָהֶ֖ם דְּרֽוֹר׃
(י) וְקִדַּשְׁתֶּ֗ם אֵ֣ת שְׁנַ֤ת הַחֲמִשִּׁים֙ שָׁנָ֔ה וּקְרָאתֶ֥ם דְּר֛וֹר בָּאָ֖רֶץ לְכׇל־יֹשְׁבֶ֑יהָ יוֹבֵ֥ל הִוא֙ תִּהְיֶ֣ה לָכֶ֔ם וְשַׁבְתֶּ֗ם אִ֚ישׁ אֶל־אֲחֻזָּת֔וֹ וְאִ֥ישׁ אֶל־מִשְׁפַּחְתּ֖וֹ תָּשֻֽׁבוּ׃
Rabbi Lori Cohen, "Haftarat Mishpatim" in The Women's Haftarah Commentary, Turner Publishing.
The Hebrew word for freedom, d’ror, means an abundant flowing of liquid, which can refer to milk or tears.2 An outpouring of milk represents our responsibility to feed and care for the hungry; feminine imagery of nursing and nourishment. An outpouring of tears is the empathy that is felt when we understand the plight of the weak and downtrodden in our society.
(1) These are the rules that you shall set before them: (2) When you acquire a Hebrew slave, that person shall serve six years—and shall go free in the seventh year, without payment. (3) If [a male slave] came single, he shall leave single; if he had a wife, his wife shall leave with him. (4) If his master gave him a wife, and she has borne him children, the wife and her children shall belong to the master, and he shall leave alone. (5) But if the slave declares, “I love my master, and my wife and children: I do not wish to go free,” (6) his master shall take him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall then remain his master’s slave for life.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Every seventh day, slaves were granted rest and a taste of freedom. In the seventh year Israelite slaves were set free. If they chose otherwise they were released in the Jubilee year. During their years of service they were to be treated like employees. They were not to be subjected to back-breaking or spirit-crushing labour. Everything dehumanizing about slavery was forbidden. Yet slavery itself was not banned. Why not? If it was wrong, it should have been annulled. Why did the Torah allow a fundamentally flawed institution to continue?
It was Moses Maimonides in The Guide for the Perplexed who explained the need for time in social transformation. All processes in nature, he argued, are gradual.... It is impossible to go suddenly from one extreme to the other. It is therefore, according to the nature of man, impossible for him suddenly to discontinue everything to which he has been accustomed.
Accordingly, G-d did not ask of the Israelites that they suddenly abandon everything they had become used to in Egypt. “G-d refrained from prescribing what the people by their natural disposition would be incapable of obeying.” But surely G-d can do anything, including changing human nature. Why then did He not simply transform the Israelites, making them capable immediately of the highest virtue? Maimonides’ answer is simple:
I do not say this because I believe that it is difficult for G-d to change the nature of every individual person. On the contrary, it is possible and it is in His power . . . but it has never been His will to do it, and it never will be. If it were part of His will to change the nature of any person, the mission of the prophets and the giving of the Torah would have been superfluous.
In miracles, G-d changes nature but never human nature. Were He to do so, the entire project of the Torah – the free worship of free human beings – would have been rendered null and void. There is no greatness in programming a million computers to obey instructions. G-d’s greatness lay in taking the risk of creating a being, homo sapiens, capable of choice and responsibility – of obeying G-d freely.
G-d wanted mankind to abolish slavery but by their own choice, and that takes time. Ancient economies were dependent on slavery.... The challenge to which Torah legislation was an answer is: how can one create a social structure in which, of their own accord, people will eventually come to see slavery as wrong and freely choose to abandon it? ...The Torah did not abolish slavery but it set in motion a process that would lead people to come of their own accord to the conclusion that it was wrong.
(13) Thus said the LORD, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage, saying: (14) “In the seventh year each of you must let go any fellow Hebrew who may be sold-e to you; when he has served you six years, you must set him free.” But your fathers would not obey Me or give ear. (15) Lately you turned about and did what is proper in My sight, and each of you proclaimed a release to his countrymen; and you made a covenant accordingly before Me in the House which bears My name. (16) But now you have turned back and have profaned My name; each of you has brought back the men and women whom you had given their freedom, and forced them to be your slaves again.
Michael Fishbane, The JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot, p.115
"The haftarah focuses on three "covenants": a "covenant" (berit) made between the people and Zedekiah in the present, dealing with the release of Hebrew slaves, a "covenant" (berit) made between God and Israel at Sinai, after they were delivered from Egyptian bondage, stipulating the periodic manumission of slaves; and God's "covenant" (berit) with "day and night," in token with which He promises never to reject the offspring of Jacob. The triad comprises the present, past, and future of Israel. In theological terms, the haftarah invokes creation, revelation, and redemption. Revelation and its consequences stand at the center (Jeremiah 34:8-22), while creation and redemption are the two poles of the coda that concludes the recitation (Jeremiah 33:25-26).