rvants_, 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