language. These translations into
the Chaldee, the language which they acquired in Babylon, were thus
called for by the necessity of the case.]

[Footnote B: This eminent Hebrew scholar was invited to England to
superintend the translation of the Bible into English, under the
patronage of Henry the Eighth. He had hardly commenced the work when he
died. This was nearly a century before the date of our present
translation.]

II. THE CONDITION AND SOCIAL ESTIMATION OF SERVANTS MAKE THE DOCTRINE
THAT THEY WERE COMMODITIES, AN ABSURDITY. As the head of a Jewish family
possessed the same power over his wife, children, and grandchildren (if
they were in his family) as over his servants, if the latter were
articles of property, the former were equally such. If there were
nothing else in the Mosaic Institutes or history establishing the social
equality of the servants with their masters and their master's wives and
children, those precepts which required that they should be guests at
all the public feasts, and equal participants in the family and social
rejoicings, would be quite sufficient to settle the question. Deut. xii.
12, 18; xvi. 10, 11, 13, 14. Ex. xii. 43, 44. St. Paul's testimony in
Gal. iv. 1, shows the condition of servants: "Now I say unto you, that
the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT,
though he be lord of all." That the interests of Abraham's servants were
identified with those of their master's family, and that the utmost
confidence was reposed in them, is shown in their being armed. Gen. xiv.
14, 15. When Abraham's servant went to Padanaram, the young Princess
Rebecca did not disdain to say to him. "Drink, MY LORD," as "she hasted
and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink." Laban, the
brother of Rebecca, "ungirded his camels, and brought him water to wash
his feet, and the men's feet that were with him!" In the arrangements of
Jacob's household on his journey from Padanaram to Canaan, we find his
two maid servants treated in the same manner and provided with the same
accommodations as Rachel and Leah. Each of them had a separate tent
appropriated to her use. Gen. xxxi. 33. The social equality of servants
with their masters and other members of their master's families, is an
obvious deduction from Ex. xxi. 7, 10, from which we learn that the sale
of a young Jewish female as a servant, was also _betrothed as a wife_,
either to her master, or to one of his sons.