e law of six years'
service for the Israelite, assigned as a 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 Strangers, 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
became 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.]

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 land-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.
Ge