2 Kings 4:1. The creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen.
The Mosaic law gave the creditor the right to claim the person and children of the debtor who could not pay that they, might serve him until the year of Jubilee, when they again became free. See Leviticus 25: 39-41. Reference is made to this custom in Nehemiah 5:5,8; Job 24:9; Isaiah 50:1.
There was a similar, though severer, law among other nations, who are supposed to have derived the idea from the Hebrews. See Matthew 18:25.