more trust-worthy, were held in higher estimation, had greater
privileges, and occupied a more elevated station in society. 1. They
were intimately incorporated with the family of the master, were guests
at family festivals, and social solemnities, from which hired servants
were excluded. Lev. xxii. 10, 11; 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. xxiv. and xviii. 1-7; the intercourse between Gideon and Phurah
Judg. vii. 10, 11; Saul and his servant, 1 Sam. ix. 5, 22; Jonathan and
his servant, 1 Sam. xiv. 1-14, and Elisha and Gehazi are illustrations.
The tenderness exercised towards home-born servants or the children of
_handmaids_, and the strength of the tie that bound them to the family,
are employed by the Psalmist to illustrate the regard of God for him,
his care over him, and his own endearing relation to him, when in the
last extremity he prays, "Save the son of thy _handmaid_." Ps. lxxxvi.
16. So also in Ps. cxvi. 16. Oh Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy
servant, and the son of thy _handmaid_. Also, Jer. ii. 14. Is Israel a
servant? Is he a _home-born_?[B] WHY IS HE SPOILED? No such tie seems to
have existed between _hired_ servants and their masters. Their
untrustworthiness was proverbial. John x. 12, 13. They were reckoned at
but half the value of bought servants. Deut. xv. 18. None but the
_lowest class_ of the people engaged as hired servants, and the kinds of
labor assigned to them required little knowledge and skill. No persons
seem to have become hired servants except such as were forced to it from
extreme poverty. The hired servant is called "poor and needy," and the
reason assigned by God why he should be paid as soon as he had finished
his work is, "For _he is poor_, and setteth his heart upon it." Deut.
xxiv. 14, 15. See also, 1 Sam. ii. 5. Various passages show the low
repute and trifling character of the class from which they were hired.
Judg. ix. 4; 1 Sam. ii. 5. The superior condition of bought servants is
manifest in the high trust 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, sometimes 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
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 in his hand_." Gen. xxiv. 10. The
reason assigned 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_. Gen. xxiv. 22, 30, 53. The condition of
Ziba in the house of Mephibosheth, is a case in point. So is 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.]
[Footnote B: Our translators in rendering it "Is he a home-born SLAVE,"
were wise beyond what is written.]
The inferior condition of _hired_ servants, is illustrated in the
parable of the prodigal son. When he came to himself, the memory of his
home, and of the abundance enjoyed by even the _lowest_ class of
servants in his father's household, while he was perishing with hunger
among the swine and husks, so filled him with anguish at the contrast,
that he exclaimed, "How many _hired_ servants of my father, have bread
enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger." His proud heart broke.
"I will arise," he cried, "and go to my father;" and then to assure 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_ class--to
bespeak 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 illustrate on the one hand, the joy of God, as he
beholds afar off, the returning sinner "seeking an injured father's
face," who runs to clasp and bless him with an 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_ class, takes from the parable an element of
winning beauty and pathos.
It is manifest to every careful student of the Bible, that _one_ class
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_ class, 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 illustrate its deep sense of
all ill-desert? If this is _humility_, put it on stilts, and set it a
strutting, while pride takes lessons, and blunders in aping it.
Israelites and Strangers belonged indiscriminately to _each_ class of
the servants, the _bought_ and the _hired_. That those in the former
class, 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 classes of bought servants. The Israelite was to serve six
years--the Stranger until the jubilee. As the Strangers could not own
the soil, nor houses, except within walled towns, they would naturally
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 Strangers 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
incumbrance 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[A] years; as,
during that time--if of the first class--the partition of the
patrimonial land might have taken place or, if of the second, enough
money might have been earned to disencumber his estate, and thus he
might assume 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 passed
which made him a servant, every consideration impelled the _Stranger_ to
_prolong_ his term of service;[B] and the same kindness which dictated
the law of six years' service for the Israelite, assigned as the 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 embarrassment, 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 Stranger, 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
had become 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.]
[Footnote B: The Stranger had the same inducements to prefer a long term
of service that those have who cannot own land, to prefer a long
_lease_.]
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 class. 3. As a class, 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 bond-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. 5. 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--God 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 agriculturists on
their own patrimonial inheritances, was with them the grand claim to
honorable estimation. When Ahab proposed to Naboth that he should sell
him his vineyard, king though he was, he might well have anticipated
from an Israelitish freeholder, just such an indignant burst as that
which his proposal drew forth, "And Naboth said to Ahab, the Lord forbid
it me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee." 1
Kings xxi. 2, 3. Agriculture being pre-eminently a _Jewish_ employment,
to assign 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.[C] In short, it was in the earlier ages of the Mosaic system,
practically to _unjew_ him, a hardship and a 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_, God instituted the regulation, "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, "Thou shalt not
assign 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."[D] The
meaning of the passage is, _thou shalt not assign 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. The same substantially may be said of the sojourner though
he was not the owner of the land which he cultivated, and of course had
not the control of an inheritance, yet he was not in a condition that
implied subjection to him whose land he tilled, or that demanded the
surrender of any _right_, or exacted from him any homage, or stamped him
with any inferiority; unless, it be supposed that a degree of
inferiority would naturally attach to a state of _dependence_ however
qualified. While bought servants were associated with their master's
families at meals, at the Passover, 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, nor 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 _assignment_ of his inheritance,
but was working off from it an incumbrance, 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 assigned 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 associations, station,
authority, and political privileges, upon which this regulation is
based; for to hold this class 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.[E] 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 shall 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 assigning the former to the same grade of service, for the
same term of time and under the same political disabilities as the
latter.
[Footnote C: The Babylonish captivity seems to have greatly modified
Jewish usage in this respect. Before that event, their cities were
comparatively small, and few were engaged in mechanical or mercantile
employments. Afterward their cities enlarged apace and trades
multiplied.]
[Footnote D: Jarchi's comment on "Thou shalt 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 hands and feet, 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 E: The disabilities of the Strangers, which were distinctions,
based on a different national descent, and important to the preservation
of nation 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 classes of servants, with the modifications peculiar to each.
In the possession of all fundamental rights, all classes 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 one
half of the days in each year; all were furnished with stated
instruction; none in either class 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_ classes of servants
among the Israelites, formed but ONE CLASS. The _different_ classes, and
the differences in _each_ class, were, 1. _Hired Servants_. This class
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 class
also, consisted of Israelites and Strangers, the same difference in
their kinds of employment as noticed before. Both were paid in
advance,[A] and neither was temporary. The Israelitish servant, with the
exception of the _freeholder_, completed his term in six years. The
Stranger was a permanent servant, continuing until the jubilee. A marked
distinction obtained also between different classes 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 an exception;
his family relations and authority remained unaffected, nor was he
subjected as an inferior to the control of his master, though dependent
on 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 assuming all the risks of life, and health for labor; at the
expiration of the six years' 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 assigned 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. This gratuity at the close of the service shews the _principle_ of
the relation; _equivalent_ for value received. ]