'For they are My servants, which I brought forth out
of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as bondmen.'
--LEV. xxv. 42.
This is the basis of the Mosaic legislation as to slavery. It did not
suppress but regulated that accursed system. Certainly Hebrew slavery
was a very different thing from that of other nations. In the first
place, no Jew was to be a slave. To that broad principle there were
exceptions, such as the case of the man who voluntarily gave himself up
to his creditor. But even he was not to be treated as a slave, but as a
'hired servant,' and at the jubilee was to be set free. There were also
other regulations of various kinds in other circumstances on which we
do not need to dwell. The slaves of alien blood were owned and used,
but under great mitigations and restrictions.
Of course we have here an instance of the incompleteness of the Mosaic
law,--or rather we may more truly say of its completeness, regard being
had to the state of the world at the time. All social change hangs
together. Institutions cannot be altered at a blow, without altering
the stage of civilisation, of which they are the expression. 'Raw
haste' is 'half-sister to delay.' What is good and necessary for one
era is out of place in another. So God works slowly, and lets bad
things die out, by changing the atmosphere in which they flourish.
All servitude to men was an infraction of God's rights over Israel. God
was the Israelites' 'Master'; they were His 'slaves.' He was so,
because He had 'broken the bands of their yoke, and set them free.'
There is, then, here--