and who could, consequently, afterwards have no claim for anything more. We have already illustrated this distinction in the consideration of Job 7: 2, where the servant, the , who had already received his money for his time and services, beforehand, according to the ordinary six years' contract, earnestly desireth the shadow, but the hired servant, the

, looks for his wages, desires his wages, which are the result of his accomplishing as an hireling his day. No servant, or, served without payment for his work; but the ordinary had received his payment beforehand, or when the contract was made, and the distinctive meaning of that word excluded the idea of periodical wages after the work was done.

Once more, we must remark on this clause the provision in regard to the Hebrew servant, for himself and his children. It presents a case in which, being hired until the Jubilee, he might have children born to him during his period of service as contracted for. These children were born in his master's house, in his master's family, but they belonged to himself, not to his master. They were not slaves, and could not be, any more than himself. Yet they were examples of then, the born in the house, as in Abraham's family, and the trained ones, as in his household, and , the sons of the house, as in Eccles. 2: 7. They were not bondmen, and could not be made such, or held as such, but by law were free. The fact of their being born in the house of their master, while their father was in his service, did not give the master the least claim upon them as his servants, without a separate voluntary contract, or payment for their services. All were born free, and their freedom could not be taken from them, neither could they be made servants at the will of the master alone, nor could the father sell them, though he might apprentice them for a season, yet never beyond the period assigned by law.

This being the case, it is greatly to be regretted that our translators, for want of an English word which would express the difference between a hired servant, the, and an apprenticed servant of all work, the , and also for

want of a word answering to the extremest meaning of the same word, which never meant, among the Hebrews, a slave, should have taken the words bond-servant and bondman, as well as the word servant, to translate the same Hebrew word for servant, giving it thus a meaning which it cannot bear in the original, and at different times meanings directly opposite. We have before noted some of the reasons why they took this course; as, for example, because the unpaid servitude into which the Hebrews were compelled in Egypt is designated by, and it is said, Remember that thou wast an in Egypt. Our translators said, Remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt; but truly the word would have been more fully rendered by the phrase an oppressed servant, because, as we have seen, the Hebrews were not slaves in Egypt, were not held as such; a fact which makes God's prohibiting of the Hebrews from laying the same oppressive servitude upon others much more significant. This bond-service they were forbidden by law from imposing upon their own servants, who never were, and never could be, what in common usage we understand by the word bondmen. But, seeing the word repeatedly used to describe a class of servants among the Hebrews, what other conclusion can the mere English reader adopt, unless he goes into a very critical comparison of passages, than that such servants were slaves? Yet the very word thus translated is the word used for native Hebrew servants, who sometimes, as this law of Jubilee under consideration proves, were held in servitude just as long as any servants of the heathen or of strangers could be, that is, until the Jubilee, but could not, under any circumstances, be slaves. We have sometimes admitted the word bondman as the translation of 7, in our argument, to describe the rigorous rule which the Hebrews were forbidden from using in regard to their servants; but it is inapplicable as the true translation of that word, whether the servants designated are Hebrew, or adopted heathen.

We might suppose that our translators had followed the Septuagint translation; but the Septuagint frequently uses Taîs where the English version uses bondman, for the same

word; as, for example, Deut. 28: 68, Ye shall be sold for bondmen and bondwomen, Sept. Taîdas xai Taidiokas, Heb. im. In Deut. 23: 15, Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant that hath escaped, the English version and the Sept. agree, and the word is translated servant and Taîda, for the Hebrew. But in Deut. 15: 15, "Remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt," the same Hebrew word is translated bondman, and Sept. oixérns. The same in Deut. 6: 21. But now in Lev. 25: 55, the same Hebrew word is translated by the Septuagint, in the same verse, both oixéraι, and waîdes, but in our English version, servants, not bondmen. Singular then it is, that in Lev. 25: 44, Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, 1, is translated by the Septuagint Καὶ παῖς καὶ παιδίσκη, and precisely the same words at the close of the same verse are translated Sovλov καὶ δούλην.

Clause Second, of Personal Liberty.

This verse (v. 44) constitutes the second clause, as to personal liberty, in the law of Jubilee. The English translation is, Both thy bondmen and thy bond maids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. We must compare this with the Hebrew in full, and the Hebrew with the Septuagint, and we shall see an important difference from the true meaning of the original. The Hebrew is as follows: 77777

literally, And thy man-servants and thy maid-servants, which shall be to you from among the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye obtain man-servant and maid-servant.

The meaning of this, at first sight, would seem to be: he shall be permitted to obtain (or purchase, according to the Hebrew idiom for a contract made with a servant), from as many servants as may be with you, from among the nations round about you, men-servants and maid-servants, or, the man-servant and the maid-servant. The Hebrew construction does not read, that "ye shall purchase of the nations

that are round about you," but, "of the servants that have come to you from among those nations." Ye may take such as your servants, making with them such contracts of service as you choose. But, this being a proviso under the law of Jubilee, the reference naturally is to contracts of service until the year of Jubilee. It might possibly have been argued or imagined, from such laws as that in Deut. 23: 15, 16, concerning servants that had escaped from their masters, that it was not permitted to take the heathen servants for apprentices, or to put them under contract until the year of Jubilee. This law gives such a permission. It cannot mean that your men-servants and your maid-servants thus legally bound, shall be only of the heathen; for the preceding clause is an enactment respecting the treatment of Hebrew servants so bound; nor is it imperative, as if it had been said, " Of them only, ye shall buy bondmen and bondmaids,” or, "Ye shall have your bondmen and bondmaids (using our version) only from the heathen." But the statute is permissive,― ye may; it is allowed you by law to make what contracts of service ye please, with servants from the heathen, or the nations round about you, limited only by the law of Jubilee. Now, that this is the meaning of this clause, is rendered somewhat clearer by the Sept. translation of this 44th verse: Καὶ παῖς καὶ παιδίσκη ὅσοι ἂν γένωνταί σοι, ἀπὸ τῶν ἐθνῶν ὅσοι κύκλῳ σου εἰσὶν ἀπ' αὐτῶν κτήσεσθε δοῦλον καὶ δούλην, literally, "And servant, and maidservant, as many as there may be to you from the nations round about you, from them shall ye procure bondman and bondwoman." We use the words bondman and bondwoman, not because doûλov and Souλnu necessarily mean that and that only, but to preserve the contrast manifest in the Sept. translation of this verse. Now it seems clear that the Sept. translators have conveyed the literal construction of the Hebrew, except only in the use of these latter words, more truly than our English translators. But we do not insist upon this, as if it were in the least degree essential to the argument; for it makes very little difference whether the law says, " Ye may procure from the nations round about you, servants and men-servants," or,

"Ye may procure from as many servants as may come to your country from the nations, your men-servants and maidservants." The contract in either case was of voluntary service, and not involuntary servitude or slavery. This law gave no Hebrew citizen the power or the privilege (even if it could have been considered a privilege, which it was not), of going forth into a heathen country and buying slaves, or of laying hold on any heathen servants and compelling them to pass from heathen into Hebrew bondage. But it did give permission to obtain servants, on a fair and voluntary contract, from among them, limiting, at the same time, the longest term of such service by the recurrence of the Jubilee. Such permission by statute was not only expedient, and for the sake of the heathen, benevolent, but circumstances made it necessary.

The heathen round about Judea were idolatrous nations. Now the Hebrews were so defended and forbidden by law from entering, with the Canaanitish tribes especially, into any treaties of fellowship and commerce, of relationship and intercourse, socially or otherwise, that there seemed a necessity of inserting this article in regard to servants, as an exception. The Hebrews might obtain servants of the heathen, might employ them as servants of all work, and by the longest contract. They were thus prepared for freedom, and made free. But as to making slaves of them, there could be no such thing; there was no such sufferance or permission. There were no slave-marts in Israel, nor any slave-traders, nor slave-procurers, nor go-betweens of traffic in human flesh. The land of Canaan itself was given to the Hebrews for a possession, but never the inhabitants, nor the inhabitants of heathen nations round about them.

How then should Hebrew householders or families get possession of heathen servants as slaves? Who, at liberty to choose, would bind himself and his posterity to interminable slavery? Even supposing it possible for Hebrew masters to make such a foray into a heathen neighborhood, and bind a heathen bondman as their slave, and bring him into Judea for that purpose; at the moment of his transfer into VOL. XIII. No. 51.

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