or it:
If he continued a day or two after being struck, to keep his bed in
consequence of any wound received, then his lost time was _not_ to be
paid for, because it was _not his own_, but his master's, who had
already paid him for it. The loss of his time was the _master's loss_,
and _not_ the servant's. This explanation is confirmed by the fact, that
the Hebrew word translated continue, means "to stand still;" _i.e._, to
be unable to go out about his master's work.
Here then we find this stronghold of slavery completely demolished.
Instead of its being a license to inflict such chastisement upon a
servant as to cause even death itself, it is in fact a law merely to
provide that a man should not be required to pay his servant twice over
for his time. It is altogether an unfounded assumption on the part of
the slaveholder, that this servant _died_ after a day or two; the text
does not say so, and I contend that he _got well_ after a day or two,
just as the man mentioned in the 19th verse recovered from the effects
of the blows he received. The cases are completely parallel, and the
first law throws great light on the second. This explanation is far more
consonant with the character of God, and were it not that our vision has
been so completely darkened by the existence of slavery in our country,
we never could so far have dishonored Him as to have supposed that He
sanctioned the murder of a servant; although slaveholding legislators
might legalize the killing of a slave in _four_ different
ways.--(_Stroud's Sketch of Slave Laws_.)
But I pass on now to the consideration of how the _female_ Jewish
servants were protected by _law_.
1. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then
shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto another nation he shall
have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.
2. If he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after
the manner of daughters.
3. If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of
marriage, shall he not diminish.
4. If he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out _free_
without money.
On these laws I will give you Calmet's remarks; "A father could not sell
his daughter as a slave, according to the Rabbins, until she was at the
age of puberty, and unless he were reduced to the utmost indigence.
Besides, when a master bought an Israelitish girl, it was _always_ with
the presumption that
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