rong 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 se