1. "BONDMEN." The fact that servants from the heathen are called "_bondmen_," while others are called "_servants_," is quoted as proof that the former were slaves. As the caprices of King James" translators were not inspired, we need stand in no special awe of them. The word here rendered bondmen is uniformly rendered servants elsewhere. The Hebrew word "_ebedh_," the plural of which is here translated "bondmen,"
is in Isa. xlii. 1, applied to Christ. "Behold my _servant_ (bondman, slave?) whom I have chosen." So Isa. lii. 13. "Behold my _servant_ (Christ) shall deal prudently." In 1 Kings xii. 6, 7, to _King Rehoboam_. "And they spake unto him, saying if thou wilt be a _servant_ unto this people, then they will be thy _servants_ forever." In 2 Chron.
xii. 7, 8, 9, 13, to the king and all the nation. In fine, the word is applied to _all_ persons doing service for others--to magistrates, to all governmental officers, to tributaries, to all the subjects of governments, to younger sons--defining their relation to the first born, who is called _Lord_ and _ruler_--to prophets, to kings, to the Messiah, and in respectful addresses not less than _fifty_ times in the Old Testament.
If the Israelites not only held slaves, but mult.i.tudes of them, if Abraham had thousands and if they _abounded_ under the Mosaic system, why had their language _no word_ that _meant slave_? That language must be wofully poverty-stricken, which has no signs to represent the most common and familiar objects and conditions. To represent by the same word, and without figure, property, and the owner of that property, is a solecism. Ziba was an "_ebedh_," yet he "_owned_" (!) twenty _ebedhs_!
In our language, we have both _servant_ and _slave_. Why? Because we have both the _things_ and need _signs_ for them. If the tongue had a sheath, as swords have scabbards, we should have some _name_ for it: but our dictionaries give us none. Why? Because there is no such _thing_.
But the objector asks, "Would not the Israelites use their word _ebedh_ if they spoke of the slave of a heathen?" Answer. Their _national_ servants or tributaries, are spoken of frequently, but domestic servants so rarely that no necessity existed, even if they were slaves, for coining a new word. Besides, the fact of their being domestics, under _heathen laws and usages_ proclaimed their _liabilities_, their _locality_ made a _specific_ term unnecessary. But if the Israelites had not only _servants_, but a mult.i.tude of _slaves_, a _word meaning slave_, would have been indispensable for every day convenience.
Further, the laws of the Mosaic system were so many sentinels on the outposts to warn off foreign practices. The border ground of Canaan, was quarantine ground, enforcing the strictest non-intercourse in usages between the without and the within.
2. "FOREVER." This is quoted to prove that servants were to serve during their life time, and their posterity from generation to generation. No such idea is contained in the pa.s.sage. The word "forever," instead of defining the length of _individual_ service, proclaims the permanence of the regulation laid down in the two verses preceding, namely, that their _permanent domestics_ should be of the Strangers, and not of the Israelites: it declares the duration of that general provision. As if G.o.d had said, "You shall _always_ get your _permanent_ laborers from the nations round about you--your servants shall always be of that cla.s.s of persons." As it stands in the original it is plain--"Forever of them shall ye serve yourselves." This is the literal rendering.
That "_forever_" refers to the permanent relations of a _community_, rather than to the services of _individuals_, is a fair inference from the form of the expression, "Both thy bondmen, &c., shall be of the _heathen_. Of THEM shall ye buy," &c. "THEY shall be your possession."
To say nothing of the uncertainty of _those individuals_ surviving those _after_ whom they are to live, the language used, applies more naturally to a _body_ of people, than to _individual_ servants. Besides _perpetual_ service cannot be argued from the term _forever_. The ninth and tenth verses of the same chapter, limit it absolutely by the jubilee. "Then thou shalt cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound * *
throughout ALL your land." "And ye shall proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto ALL the inhabitants thereof." It may be objected that "inhabitants" here means _Israelitish_ inhabitants alone. The command is, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto ALL _the inhabitants thereof_." Besides, in the sixth verse, there is an enumeration of the different cla.s.ses of the inhabitants, in which servants and Strangers are included; and in all the regulations of the jubilee, and the sabbatical year, the Strangers are included in the precepts, prohibitions, and promises. Again: the year of jubilee was ushered in, by the day of atonement. What did these inst.i.tutions show forth? The day of atonement prefigured the atonement of Christ, and the year of jubilee, the gospel jubilee. And did they prefigure an atonement and a jubilee to Jews only? Were they types of sins remitted, and of salvation proclaimed to the nation of Israel alone? Is there no redemption for us Gentiles in these ends of the earth, and is our hope presumption and impiety? Did that old part.i.tion wall survive the shock, that made earth quake, and hid the sun, burst graves and rocks, and rent the temple veil? and did the Gospel only rear it higher to thunder direr perdition from its frowning battlements on all without? No! The G.o.d of our salvation lives "Good tidings of great joy shall be to ALL people." One shout shall swell from all the ransomed, "Thou hast redeemed us unto G.o.d by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."
To deny that the blessings of the jubilee extended to the servants from the _Gentiles_, makes Christianity _Judaism_. It not only eclipses the glory of the Gospel, but strikes out the sun. The refusal to release servants at the jubilee falsified and disannulled a grand leading type of the atonement, and was a libel on the doctrine of Christ"s redemption. Finally, even if _forever_ did refer to _individual_ service, we have ample precedents for limiting the term by the jubilee.
The same word defines the length of time which _Jewish_ servants served who did not go out in the _seventh_ year. And all admit that they went out at the jubilee. Ex. xxi. 2-6; Deut. xv. 12-17. The 23d verse of the same chapter is quoted to prove that "_forever_" in the 46th verse, extends beyond the jubilee. "The land shall not be sold FOREVER, for the land is mine"--since it would hardly be used in different senses in the same general connection. As _forever_, in the 46th verse, respects the _general arrangement_, and not _individual service_ the objection does not touch the argument. Besides in the 46th verse, the word used, is _Olam_, meaning _throughout the period_, whatever that may be. Whereas in the 23d verse, it is _Tsemithuth_, meaning, a _cutting off_.
3. "INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION," "Ye shall take them as an INHERITANCE for your children after you to inherit them for a possession." This refers to the _nations_, and not to the _individual_ servants, procured from these nations. We have already shown, that servants could not be held as a _property_-possession, and inheritance; that they became servants of their _own accord_, and were paid wages; that they were released by law from their regular labor nearly _half the days in each year_, and thoroughly _instructed_; that the servants were _protected_ in all their personal, social and religious rights, equally with their masters &c. All remaining, after these ample reservations, would be small temptation, either to the l.u.s.t of power or of lucre; a profitable "possession" and "inheritance," truly! What if our American slaves were all placed in _just such a condition_ Alas, for that soft, melodious circ.u.mlocution, "Our PECULIAR species of property!" Verily, emphasis would be cadence, and euphony and irony meet together! What eager s.n.a.t.c.hes at mere words, and bald technics, irrespective of connection, principles of construction, Bible usages, or limitations of meaning by other pa.s.sages--and all to eke out such a sense as sanctifies existing usages, thus making G.o.d pander for l.u.s.t. The words _nahal_ and _nahala_, inherit and inheritance by no means necessarily signify _articles of property_. "The people answered the king and said, we have none _inheritance_ in the son of Jesse." 2 Chron. x. 16. Did they moan gravely to disclaim the holding of their kin; as an article of _property_? "Children are an _heritage_ (inheritance) of the Lord." Ps.
cxxvii. 3. "Pardon our iniquity, and take us for thine _inheritance_."
Ex. x.x.xiv. 9. When G.o.d pardons his enemies, and adopts them as children, does he make them _articles of property_? Are forgiveness, and chattel-making, synonymes? "Thy testimonies have I taken as a _heritage_" (inheritance.) Ps. cxix. 111. "_I_ am their _inheritance_."
Ezek. xliv. 28. "I will give thee the heathen for thine _inheritance_."
Ps. ii. 8. "For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his _inheritance_." Ps. xciv 14. see also Deut. iv. 20; Josh.
xiii. 33; Ps. lx.x.xii. 8; lxxviii. 62, 71; Prov. xiv. 8. The question whether the servants were a PROPERTY-"_possession_," has been already discussed--pp. 37-46--we need add in this place but a word, _ahuzza_ rendered "_possession_." "And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a _possession_ in the land of Egypt." Gen. xlii. 11. In what sense was Goshen the _possession_ of the Israelites? Answer, in the sense of _having it to live in_. In what sense were the Israelites to _possess_ these nations, and _take them_ as an _inheritance for their children_? Answer, they possessed them as a permanent source of supply for domestic or household servants. And this relation to these nations was to go down to posterity as a standing regulation, having the certainty and regularity of a descent by inheritance. The sense of the whole regulation may be given thus: "Thy permanent domestics, which thou shalt have, shall be of the nations that are round about you, of _them_ shall ye get male and female domestics." "Moreover of the children of the foreigners that do sojourn among you, of _them_ shall ye get, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and _they_ shall be your permanent resource." "And ye shall take them as a _perpetual_ provision for your children after you, to hold as a _constant source of supply_. Always _of them_ shall ye serve yourselves." The design of the pa.s.sage is manifest from its structure.
It was to point out the _cla.s.s_ of persons from which they were to get their supply of servants, and the _way_ in which they were to get them.
OBJECTION IV. "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a BOND-SERVANT, but as an HIRED-SERVANT, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee." Lev. xxv. 39, 40.
As only _one_ cla.s.s is called "_hired_," it is inferred that servants of the _other_ cla.s.s were _not paid_ for their labor. That G.o.d, with thundering anathemas against those who "used their neighbor"s service without wages," granted a special indulgence to his chosen people to force others to work, and rob them of earnings, provided always, in selecting their victims, they spared "the gentlemen of property and standing," and pounced only upon the strangers and the common people.
The inference that "_hired_" is synonymous with _paid_, and that those servants not _called_ "hired" were not _paid_ for their labor, is a mere a.s.sumption. The meaning of the English verb _to hire_, is to procure for a _temporary_ use at a certain price--to engage a person to temporary service for wages. That is also the meaning of the Hebrew word "_saukar_." It is not used when the procurement of _permanent_ service is spoken of. Now, we ask, would _permanent_ servants, those who const.i.tuted a stationary part of the family, have been designated by the same term that marks _temporary_ servants? The every-day distinction on this subject, are familiar as table-talk. In many families the domestics perform only the _regular_ work. Whatever is occasional merely, as the washing of a family, is done by persons hired expressly for the purpose.
The familiar distinction between the two cla.s.ses, is "servants," and "hired help," (not _paid_ help.) _Both cla.s.ses are paid_. One is permanent, the other occasional and temporary, and therefore in this case called "_hired_[A]."
[Footnote A: To suppose a servant robbed of his earnings because he is not called a _hired_ servant is profound induction! If I employ a man at twelve dollars a month to work my farm, he is my "_hired_" man, but if _I give him such a portion of the crop_, or in other words, if he works my farm "_on shares_," every farmer knows that he is no longer called my "_hired_" man. Yet he works the same farm, in the same way, at the same time, and with the same teams and tools; and does the same amount of work in the year, and perhaps earns twenty dollars a month, instead of twelve. Now as he is no longer called "_hired_," and as he still works my farm, suppose my neighbours sagely infer, that since he is not my "_hired_" laborer, I _rob_ him of his earnings and with all the gravity of owls, p.r.o.nounce the oracular decision, and hoot it abroad. My neighbors are deep divers!--like some theological professors, they not only go to the bottom but come up covered with the tokens.]
A variety of particulars are recorded distinguishing _hired_ from _bought_ servants. (1.) Hired servants were paid daily at the close of their work. Lev. xix 13; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15; Job. vii. 2; Matt. xx. 8.
"_Bought_" servants were paid in advance, (a reason for their being called _bought_,) and those that went out at the seventh year received a _gratuity_. Deut. xv. 12, 13. (2.) The "hired" were paid _in money_, the "bought" received their _gratuity_, at least, in grain, cattle, and the product of the vintage. Deut. xiv. 17. (3.) The "hired" _lived_ in their own families, the "bought" were part of their masters" families. (4.) The "hired" supported their families out of their wages: the "bought"
and their families were supported by the master _besides_ their wages.
The "bought" servants were, _as a cla.s.s, superior to the hired_--were more trust-worthy, had greater privileges, and occupied a higher station in society. (1.) They were intimately incorporated with the family of the masters, were guests at family festivals, and social solemnities, from which hired servants were excluded. Lev. xxii. 10; Ex. xii, 43, 45.
(2.) Their interests were far more identified with those of their masters" family. They were often, actually or prospectively, heirs of their masters" estates, as in the case of Eliezer, of Ziba, and the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah. When there were no sons, or when they were unworthy, bought servants were made heirs. Prov. xvii. 2. We find traces of this usage in the New Testament. "But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, this is the _heir_, come let us kill him, _that the inheritance may be ours._" Luke xx. 14. In no instance does a _hired_ servant inherit his master"s estate. (3.) Marriages took place between servants and their master"s daughters.
Sheshan had a _servant_, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to wife. 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35.
There is no instance of a _hired_ servant forming such an alliance. (4.) Bought servants and their descendants were treated with the same affection and respect as the other members of the family.[A]. The treatment of Abraham"s servants, Gen. xxv.--the intercourse between Gideon and his servant, Judg. vii. 10, 11; Saul and his servant, 1 Sam.
iv. 5, 22; Jonathan and his servant, 1 Sam. xiv. 1-14, and Elisha and his servant, are ill.u.s.trations. No such tie seems to have existed between _hired_ servants and their masters. Their untrustworthiness was proverbial. John ix. 12, 13. None but the _lowest cla.s.s_ engaged as hired servants, and the kinds of labor a.s.signed to them required little knowledge and skill. Various pa.s.sages show the low repute and trifling character of the cla.s.s from which they were hired. Judg. ix. 4; 1 Sam.
ii. 5. The superior condition of bought servants is manifest in the high trusts confided to them, and in their dignity and authority in the household. In no instance is a _hired_ servant thus distinguished. The _bought_ servant is manifestly the master"s representative in the family--with plenipotentiary powers over adult children, even negotiating marriage for them. Abraham adjured his servant not to take a wife for Isaac of the daughters of the Canaanites. The servant himself selected the individual. Servants also exercised discretionary power in the management of their masters" estates, "And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, _for all the goods of his master were under his hand_." Gen. xxiv. 10. The reason a.s.signed for taking them, is not that such was Abraham"s direction, but that the servant had discretionary control. Servants had also discretionary power in the _disposal of property_. See Gen. xxiv. 22, 23, 53. The condition of Ziba in the house of Mephibosheth, is a case in point. So in Prov. xvii. 2.
Distinct traces of this estimation are to be found in the New Testament, Matt. xxiv. 45; Luke xii, 42, 44. So in the parable of the talents; the master seems to have set up each of his servants in trade with a large capital. The unjust steward had large _discretionary_ power, was "accused of wasting his master"s goods," and manifestly regulated with his debtors, the _terms_ of settlement. Luke xvi. 4-8. Such trusts were never reposed in _hired_ servants.
[Footnote A: "For the _purchased servant_ who is an Israelite, or proselyte, shall fare as his master. The master shall not eat fine bread, and his servant bread of bran. Nor yet drink old wine, and give his servant new; nor sleep on soft pillows, and bedding, and his servant on straw. I say unto you, that he that gets a _purchased_ servant does well to make him as his friend, or he will prove to his employer as if he got himself a master."--Maimonides, in Mishna Kiddushim. Chap. 1, Sec. 2.]
The inferior condition of _hired_ servants, is ill.u.s.trated in the parable of the prodigal son. When the prodigal, perishing with hunger among the swine and husks, came to himself, his proud heart broke; "I will arise," he cried, "and go to my father." And then to a.s.sure his father of the depth of his humility, resolved to add, "Make me as one of thy _hired_ servants." If _hired_ servants were the _superior_ cla.s.s--to apply for the situation, savored little of that sense of unworthiness that seeks the dust with hidden face, and cries "unclean." Unhumbled nature _climbs_; or if it falls, clings fast, where first it may.
Humility sinks of its own weight, and in the lowest deep, digs lower.
The design of the parable was to ill.u.s.trate on the one hand, the joy of G.o.d, as he beholds afar off, the returning sinner "seeking an injured father"s face" who runs to clasp and bless him with unchiding welcome; and on the other, the contrition of the penitent, turning homeward with tears from his wanderings, his stricken spirit breaking with its ill-desert he sobs aloud. "The lowest place, _the lowest place_, I can abide no other." Or in those inimitable words, "Father I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy HIRED servants." The supposition that _hired_ servants were the _highest_ cla.s.s, takes from the parable an element of winning beauty and pathos. It is manifest to every careful student of the Bible, that _one_ cla.s.s of servants, was on terms of equality with the children and other members of the family. (Hence the force of Paul"s declaration, Gal. iv. 1, "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all.") If this were the _hired_ cla.s.s, the prodigal was a sorry specimen of humility. Would our Lord have put such language upon the lips of one held up by himself, as a model of gospel humility, to ill.u.s.trate its deep sense of an ill-desert? If this is _humility_, put it on stilts, and set it a strutting, while pride takes lessons, and blunders in apeing it.
Israelites and Strangers, belonged indiscriminately to _each_ cla.s.s of the servants, the _bought_ and the _hired_. That those in the former cla.s.s, whether Jews or Strangers, rose to honors and authority in the family circle, which were not conferred on _hired_ servants, has been shown. It should be added, however, that in the enjoyment of privileges, merely _political_, the hired servants from the _Israelites_, were more favored than even the bought servants from the _Strangers_. No one from the Strangers, however wealthy or highly endowed, was eligible to the highest office, nor could he own the soil. This last disability seems to have been one reason for the different periods of service required of the two cla.s.ses of bought servants--the Israelites and the Strangers.
The Israelite was to serve six years--the Stranger until the jubilee. As the Strangers could not own the soil, nor even houses, except within walled towns, most would attach themselves to Israelitish families.
Those who were wealthy, or skilled in manufactures, instead of becoming servants would need servants for their own use, and as inducements for the Stranger"s to become servants to the Israelites, were greater than persons of their own nation could hold out to them, these wealthy Strangers would naturally procure the poorer Israelites for servants.
Lev. xxv. 47. In a word, such was the political condition of the Strangers, that the Jewish polity offered a virtual bounty, to such as would become permanent servants, and thus secure those privileges already enumerated, and for their children in the second generation a permanent inheritance. Ezek. xlvii. 21-23. None but the monied aristocracy would be likely to decline such offers. On the other hand, the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land being a sacred possession, to hold it free of inc.u.mbrance was with every Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor and personal character. 1 Kings xxi. 3. Hence, to forego the control of one"s inheritance, after the division of the paternal domain, or to be kept out of it after having acceded to it, was a burden grievous to be borne.
To mitigate as much as possible such a calamity, the law released the Israelitish servant at the end of six years[A]; as, during that time--if of the first cla.s.s--the part.i.tion of the patrimonial land might have taken place; or, if of the second, enough money might have been earned to disenc.u.mber his estate, and thus he might a.s.sume his station as a lord of the soil. If neither contingency had occurred, then after another six years the opportunity was again offered, and so on, until the jubilee. So while strong motives urged the Israelite to discontinue his service as soon as the exigency had pa.s.sed which made him a servant, every consideration impelled the _Stranger_ to _prolong_ his term of service; and the same kindness which dictated the law of six years"
service for the Israelite, a.s.signed as a general rule, a much longer period to the Gentile servant, who had every inducement to protract the term. It should be borne in mind, that adult Jews ordinarily became servants, only as a temporary expedient to relieve themselves from embarra.s.sment, and ceased to be such when that object was effected. The poverty that forced them to it was a calamity, and their service was either a means of relief, or a measure of prevention; not pursued as a permanent business, but resorted to on emergencies--a sort of episode in the main scope of their lives. Whereas with the Strangers, it was a _permanent employment_, pursued both as a _means_ of bettering their own condition, and that of their posterity, and as an _end_ for its own sake, conferring on them privileges, and a social estimation not otherwise attainable.
[Footnote A: Another reason for protracting the service until the seventh year, seems to have been the coincidence of that period with other arrangements, in the Jewish economy. Its pecuniary responsibilities, social relations, and general internal structure, were _graduated_ upon a septennial scale. Besides as those Israelites who became servants through poverty, would not sell themselves, till other expedients to recruit their finances had failed--(Lev. xxv. 35)--their _becoming servants_ proclaimed such a state of their affairs, as demanded the labor of a _course of years_ fully to reinstate them.]
We see from the foregoing, why servants purchased from the heathen, are called by way of distinction, _the_ servants, (not _bondmen_,) (1.) They followed it as a _permanent business_. (2.) Their term of service was _much longer_ than that of the other cla.s.s. (3.) As a cla.s.s they doubtless greatly outnumbered the Israelitish servants. (4.) All the Strangers that dwelt in the land were _tributaries_, required to pay an annual tax to the government, either in money, or in public service, (called a "_tribute of land-service_;") in other words, all the Strangers were _national servants_ to the Israelites, and the same Hebrew word used to designate _individual_ servants, equally designates _national_ servants or tributaries. 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6, 14. 2 Chron.
viii. 7-9. Deut xx. 11. 2 Sam. x. 19. 1 Kings ix. 21, 22. 1 Kings iv.
21. Gen. xxvii. 29. The same word is applied to the Israelites, when they paid tribute to other nations. 2 Kings xvii. 3. Judg. iii. 8, 14.
Gen. xlix. 15. Another distinction between the Jewish and Gentile bought servants, was in their _kinds_ of service. The servants from the Strangers were properly the _domestics_, or household servants, employed in all family work, in offices of personal attendance, and in such mechanical labor, as was required by increasing wants, and needed repairs. The Jewish bought servants seem almost exclusively _agricultural_. Besides being better fitted for it by previous habits--agriculture, and the tending of cattle, were regarded by the Israelites as the most honorable of all occupations. After Saul was elected king, and escorted to Gibeah, the next report of him is, "_And behold Saul came after the herd out of the field_." 1 Sam. xi. 7. Elisha "was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen." 1 Kings xix. 19. King Uzziah "loved husbandry." 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. Gideon _was "threshing wheat_"
when called to lead the host against the Midianites. Judg. vi. 11. The superior honorableness of agriculture, is shown, in that it was protected and supported by the fundamental law of the theocracy--G.o.d indicating it as the chief prop of the government. The Israelites were like permanent fixtures on their soil, so did they cling to it. To be agriculturalists on their own inheritances, was with them the grand claim to honorable estimation. Agriculture being pre-eminently a _Jewish_ employment, to a.s.sign a native Israelite to other employments as a business, was to break up his habits, do violence to cherished predilections, and put him to a kind of labor in which he had no skill, and which he deemed degrading. In short, it was in the earlier ages of the Mosaic system, practically to _unjew_ him, a hardship and rigor grievous to be borne, as it annihilated a visible distinction between the descendants of Abraham and the Strangers.--_To guard this and another fundamental distinction_, G.o.d inst.i.tuted the regulation which stands at the head of this branch of our inquiry, "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant." In other words, thou shalt not put him to servant"s work--to the business, and into the condition of domestics. In the Persian version it is translated thus, "Thou shalt not a.s.sign to him the work of _servitude_." In the Septuagint, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a _domestic_." In the Syriac, "Thou shalt not employ him after the manner of servants." In the Samaritan, "Thou shalt not require him to serve in the service of a servant." In the Targum of Onkelos, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a household servant." In the Targum of Jonathan, "Thou shalt not cause him to serve according to the usages of the servitude of servants."[A] The meaning of the pa.s.sage is, _thou shalt not a.s.sign him to the same grade, nor put him to the same service, with permanent domestics._ The remainder of the regulation is,--"_But as an hired servant and as a sojourner shall he be with thee._" Hired servants were not incorporated into the families of their masters: they still retained their own family organization, without the surrender of any domestic privilege, honor, or authority; and this even though they resided under the same roof with their master. While bought servants were a.s.sociated with their master"s families at meals, at the Pa.s.sover, and at other family festivals, hired servants and sojourners were not. Ex. xii. 44, 45; Lev. xxii. 10, 11.
Hired servants were not subject to the authority of their masters in any such sense as the master"s wife, children, and bought servants. Hence the only form of oppressing hired servants spoken of in the Scriptures as practicable to masters, is that _of keeping back their wages_. To have taken away such privileges in the case under consideration, would have been pre-eminent "_rigor_," for it was not a servant born in the house of a master, not a minor, whose minority had been sold by the father, neither was it one who had not yet acceded to his inheritance: nor finally, one who had received the _a.s.signment_ of his inheritance, but was working off from it an inc.u.mbrance, before entering upon its possession and control. But it was that of _the head of a family_, who had known better days, now reduced to poverty, forced to relinquish the loved inheritance of his fathers, with the competence and respectful consideration its possession secured to him, and to be indebted to a neighbor for shelter, sustenance, and employment. So sad a reverse, might well claim sympathy; but one consolation cheers him in the house of his pilgrimage; he is an _Israelite--Abraham is his father_, and now in his calamity he clings closer than ever, to the distinction conferred by his birth-right. To rob him of this, were "the unkindest cut of all."
To have a.s.signed him to a grade of service filled only by those whose permanent business was serving, would have been to "rule over him with"
peculiar "rigor." "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant," or literally, _thou shalt not serve thyself with him, with the service of a servant_, guaranties his political privileges, and a kind and grade of service, comporting with his character and relations as an Israelite. And "as a _hired_ servant, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee," secures to him his family organization, the respect and authority due to its head, and the general consideration resulting from such a station. Being already in possession of his inheritance, and the head of a household, the law so arranged the conditions of his service as to _alleviate_ as much as possible the calamity, which had reduced him from independence and authority, to penury and subjection. The import of the command which concludes this topic in the forty-third verse, ("Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor,") is manifestly this, you shall not disregard those differences in previous a.s.sociations, station, authority, and political privileges, upon which this regulation is based; for to hold this cla.s.s of servants _irrespective_ of these distinctions, and annihilating them, is to "rule with rigor." The same command is repeated in the forty-sixth verse, and applied to the distinction between servants of Jewish, and those of Gentile extraction, and forbids the overlooking of distinctive Jewish peculiarities, the disregard of which would be _rigorous_ in the extreme[B]. The construction commonly put upon the phrase "rule with rigor," and the inference drawn from it, have an air vastly oracular. It is interpreted to mean, "you shall not make him a chattel, and strip him of legal protection, nor force him to work without pay." The inference is like unto it, viz., since the command forbade such outrages upon the Israelites, it permitted and commissioned their infliction upon the Strangers. Such impious and shallow smattering captivates scoffers and libertines; its flippancy and blasphemy, and the strong scent of its loose-reined license works like a charm upon them. What boots it to reason against such rampant affinities! In Ex. i. 13, it is said that the Egyptians "made the children of Israel to _serve_ with rigor." This rigor is affirmed of the _amount of labor_ extorted and the _mode_ of the exaction. The expression, "serve with rigor," is never applied to the service of servants under the Mosaic system. The phrase, "thou shalt not RULE over him with rigor," does not prohibit unreasonable exactions of labor, nor inflictions of cruelty. Such were provided against otherwise. But it forbids confounding the distinctions between a Jew and a Stranger, by a.s.signing the former to the same grade of service, for the same term of time, and under the same political disabilities as the latter.
[Footnote A: Jarchi"s comment on "Thou shall not compel him to serve as a bond-servant" is, "The Hebrew servant is not to be required to do any thing which is accounted degrading--such as all offices of personal attendance, as loosing his master"s shoe-latchet, bringing him water to wash his feet and hands, waiting on him at table, dressing him, carrying things to and from the bath. The Hebrew servant is to work with his master as a son or brother, in the business of his farm, or other labor, until his legal release."]
[Footnote B: The disabilities of the Strangers, which were distinctions, based on a different national descent, and important to the preservation of national characteristics, and a national worship, did not at all affect their _social_ estimation. They were regarded according to their character, and worth as _persons_, irrespective of their foreign origin, employments, and political condition.]
We are now prepared to review at a glance, the condition of the different cla.s.ses of servants, with the modifications peculiar to each cla.s.s. In the possession of all fundamental rights, all cla.s.ses of servants were on an absolute equality, all were equally protected by law in their persons, character, property and social relations; all were voluntary, all were compensated for their labor, and released from it nearly half of the days in each year; all were furnished with stated instruction: none in either cla.s.s were in any sense articles of property, all were regarded as _men_, with the rights, interests, hopes and destinies of _men_. In all these respects, _all_ cla.s.ses of servants among the Israelites, formed but ONE CLa.s.s. The _different_ cla.s.ses and the differences in _each_ cla.s.s, were, (1.) _Hired Servants._ This cla.s.s consisted both of Israelites and Strangers. Their employments were different. The _Israelite_ was an agricultural servant. The Stranger was a _domestic_ and _personal_ servant, and in some instances _mechanical_; both were occasional and temporary. Both lived in their own families, their wages were _money_, and they were paid when their work was done.
(2.) _Bought Servants_, (including those "born in the house.") This cla.s.s also, consisted of Israelites and Strangers, the same difference in their kinds of employments noticed before. Both were paid in advance[A], and neither was temporary. The Israelitish servant, with the exception of the _freeholders_ was released after six years. The stranger was a permanent servant, continuing until the jubilee. A marked distinction obtained also between different cla.s.ses of _Jewish_ bought servants. Ordinarily, they were merged in their master"s family, and, like his wife and children, subject to his authority; (and, like them, protected by law from its abuse.) But the _freeholder_ was a marked exception: his family relations, and authority remained unaffected, nor was he subjected as an inferior to the control of his master, though dependent upon him for employment.
[Footnote A: The payment _in advance_, doubtless lessened the price of the purchase; the servant thus having the use of the money, and the master a.s.suming all the risks of life and health for labor: at the expiration of the six year"s contract, the master having suffered no loss from the risk incurred at the making of it, was obliged by law to release the servant with a liberal gratuity. The reason a.s.signed for this is, "he hath been worth a double hired servant unto thee in serving thee six years," as if it had been said, as you have experienced no loss from the risks of life, and ability to labor, incurred in the purchase, and which lessened the price, and as, by being your servant for six years, he has saved you the time and trouble of looking up and hiring laborers on emergencies, therefore, "thou shalt furnish him liberally,"
&c.]
It should be kept in mind, that _both_ cla.s.ses of servants, the Israelite and the Stranger, not only enjoyed _equal natural and religious rights_, but _all the civil and political privileges_ enjoyed by those of their own people who were _not_ servants. They also shared in common with them the political disabilities which appertained to all Strangers, whether the servants of Jewish masters, or the masters of Jewish servants. Further, the disabilities of the servants from the Strangers were exclusively _political_ and _national._ (1.) They, in common with all Strangers, could not own the soil. (2.) They were ineligible to civil offices. (3.) They were a.s.signed to employments less honorable than those in which Israelitish servants engaged; agriculture being regarded as fundamental to the existence of the state, other employments were in less repute, and deemed _unjewish._
Finally, the Strangers, whether servants or masters, were all protected equally with the descendants of Abraham. In respect to political privileges, their condition was much like that of naturalized foreigners in the United States; whatever their wealth or intelligence, or moral principle, or love for our inst.i.tutions, they can neither go to the ballot-box, nor own the soil, nor be eligible to office. Let a native American, be suddenly bereft of these privilege, and loaded with the disabilities of an alien, and what to the foreigner would be a light matter, to _him_, would be the severity of _rigor_. The recent condition of the Jews and Catholics in England, is another ill.u.s.tration.
Rothschild, the late banker, though the richest private citizen in the world, and perhaps master of scores of English servants, who sued for the smallest crumbs of his favor, was, as a subject of the government, inferior to the lowest among them. Suppose an Englishman of the Established Church, were by law deprived of power to own the soil, of eligibility to office and of the electoral franchise, would Englishmen think it a misapplication of language, if it were said, the government "rules over him with rigor?" And yet his person, property, reputation, conscience, all his social relations, the disposal of his time, the right of locomotion at pleasure, and of natural liberty in all respects, are just as much protected by law as the Lord Chancellor"s.
FINALLY,--As the Mosaic system was a great compound type, rife with meaning in doctrine and duty; the practical power of the whole, depended upon the exact observance of those distinctions and relations which const.i.tuted its significancy. Hence, the care to preserve serve inviolate the distinction between a _descendant of Abraham_ and a _Stranger_, even when the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone through the initiatory ordinances, entered the congregation, and become incorporated with the Israelites by family alliance. The regulation laid down in Ex.
xxi. 2-6, is an ill.u.s.tration. In this case, the Israelitish servant, whose term expired in six years, married one of his master"s _permanent female domestics_; but her marriage, did not release her master from _his_ part of the contract for her whole term of service, nor from his legal obligation to support and educate her children. Neither did it do away that distinction, which marked her national descent by a specific _grade_ and _term_ of service, nor impair her obligation to fulfill _her_ part of the contract. Her relations as a permanent domestic grew out of a distinction guarded with great care throughout the Mosaic system. To render it void, would have been to divide the system against itself. This G.o.d would not tolerate. Nor, on the other hand, would he permit the master, to throw off the responsibility of instructing her children, nor the care and expense of their helpless infancy and rearing. He was bound to support and educate them, and all her children born afterwards during her term of service. The whole arrangement beautifully ill.u.s.trates that wise and tender regard for the interests of all the parties concerned, which arrays the Mosaic system in robes of glory, and causes it to shine as the sun in the kingdom of our Father.
By this law, the children had secured to them a mother"s tender care. If the husband loved his wife and children, he could compel his master to keep him, whether he had any occasion for his services or not. If he did not love them, to be rid of him was a blessing; and in that case, the regulation would prove an act for the relief of an afflicted family. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the release of the servant in the seventh year, either absolved him from the obligations of marriage, or shut him out from the society of his family. He could doubtless procure a service at no great distance from them, and might often do it, to get higher wages, or a kind of employment better suited to his taste and skill. The great number of days on which the law released servants from regular labor, would enable him to spend much more time with his family, than can be spent by most of the agents of our benevolent societies with _their_ families, or by many merchants, editors, artists &c., whose daily business is in New York, while their families reside from ten to one hundred miles in the country.
We conclude this Inquiry by touching briefly upon an objection, which, though not formally stated, has been already set aside by the whole tenor of the foregoing argument. It is this,--"The slavery of the Canaanites by the Israelites, was appointed by G.o.d as a commutation of the punishment of death denounced against them for their sins." If the absurdity of a sentence consigning persons to _death_, and at the same time to perpetual _slavery_, did not sufficiently laugh at itself, it would be small self-denial, in a case so tempting, to make up the deficiency by a general contribution. For, _be it remembered_, only _one_ statute was ever given respecting the disposition to be made of the inhabitants of Canaan. If the sentence of death was p.r.o.nounced against them, and afterwards _commuted_, when? where? by whom? and in what terms was the commutation, and where is it recorded? Grant, for argument"s sake, that all the Canaanites were sentenced to unconditional extermination; as there was no reversal of the sentence, how can a right to _enslave_ them, be drawn from such premises? The punishment of death is one of the highest recognitions of man"s moral nature possible. It proclaims him _man_--rational, accountable, guilty, deserving death for having done his utmost to cheapen human life, when the proof of its priceless worth lived in his own nature. But to make him a _slave_, cheapens to nothing _universal human nature_, and instead of healing a wound, gives a death-stab. What! repair an injury to rational being in the robbery of _one_ of its rights, by robbing it of _all_, and annihilating their _foundation_--the everlasting distinction between persons and things? To make a man a chattel, is not the _punishment_, but the _annihilation_ of a _human_ being, and, so far as it goes, of _all_ human beings. This commutation of the punishment of death, into perpetual slavery, what a fortunate discovery! Alas! for the honor of Deity, if commentators had not manned the forlorn hope, and by a timely movement rescued the Divine character, at the very crisis of its fate, from the perilous position in which inspiration had carelessly left it!
Here a question arises of sufficient importance for a separate dissertation; but must for the present be disposed of in a few paragraphs. WERE THE CANAANITES SENTENCED BY G.o.d TO INDIVIDUAL AND UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMINATION? As the limits of this inquiry forbid our giving all the grounds of dissent from commonly received opinions, the suggestions made, will be thrown out merely as QUERIES, rather than laid down as _doctrines_. The directions as to the disposal of the Canaanites, are mainly in the following pa.s.sages: Ex. xxiii. 23-33; x.x.xiv. 11; Deut. vii. 16-25; ix. 3; x.x.xi. 3-5. In these verses, the Israelites are commanded to "destroy the Canaanites," "drive out,"
"consume," "utterly overthrow," "put out," "dispossess them," &c. Did these commands enjoin the unconditional and universal destruction of the _inhabitants_ or merely of the _body politic?_ The word _haram_, to destroy, signifies _national_, as well as individual destruction, the destruction of _political_ existence, equally with _personal_; of governmental organization, equally with the lives of the subjects.