service for others, and
that _merely to designate them as the performers of such service_,
whatever it might be, or whatever the ground on which it might be
rendered. To argue from the fact, of this word being used to designate
domestic servants, that they were made servants by _force_, worked
without pay, and held as articles of property, is such a gross
assumption and absurdity as to make formal refutation ridiculous. We
repeat what has been shown above, that the word rendered bondmen in Lev.
xxv. 44, is used to point out persons rendering service for others,
totally irrespective of the principle on which that service was
rendered; as is manifest from the fact that it is applied
indiscriminately to tributaries, to domestics, to all the subjects of
governments, to magistrates, to all governmental officers, to younger
sons--defining their relation to the first born, who is called _lord_
and _ruler_--to prophets, to kings, and to the Messiah. To argue from
the meaning of the word _ebedh_ as used in the Old Testament, that those
to whom it was applied rendered service against their will, and without
pay, does violence to the scripture use of the term, sets at nought all
rules of interpretation, and outrages common sense. If _any_ inference
as to the meaning of the term is to be drawn from the condition and
relations of the various classes of persons, to whom it is applied, the
only legitimate one would seem to be, that the term designates a person
who renders service to another in return for something of value received
from him. The same remark applies to the Hebrew verb _abadh_, to serve,
answering to the noun _ebedh_ (servant). It is used in the Old Testament
to describe the _serving_ of tributaries, of worshippers, of domestics,
of Levites, of sons to a father, of younger brothers to the elder, of
subjects to a ruler, of hirelings, of soldiers, of public officers to
the government, of a host to his guests, &c. Of these it is used to
describe the serving of _worshippers_ more than forty times, of
_tributaries_, about thirty five, and of servants or domestics, about
_ten_.

If the Israelites not only held slaves, but multitudes 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,