itance of his fathers, with the competence and respectful
consideration its possession secured to him, and to be indebted to a
neighbor for shelter, sustenance, and employment. So sad a reverse,
might well claim sympathy; but one consolation cheers him in the house
of his pilgrimage; he is an _Israelite--Abraham is his father_ and now
in his calamity he clings closer than ever, to the distinction conferred
by his birth-right. To rob him of this, were "the unkindest cut of all."
To have assigned him to a grade of service filled only by those whose
permanent business was serving, would have been to "rule over him with"
peculiar "rigor." "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a
bond-servant," or literally, _thou shalt not serve thyself with him,
with the service of a servant_, guaranties his political privileges, and
a kind and grade of service comporting with his character and relations
as an Israelite. And "as a _hired_ servant, and as a sojourner shall he
be with thee," secures to him his family organization, the respect and
authority due to its head, and the general consideration resulting from
such a station. Being already in possession of his inheritance, and the
head of a household, the law so arranged the conditions of his service
as to _alleviate_ as much as possible the calamity which had reduced him
from independence and authority, to penury and subjection. The import of
the command which concludes this topic in the forty-third verse, ("Thou
shalt not rule over him with rigor,") is manifestly this, you shall not
disregard those differences in previous associations, station,
authority, and political privileges, upon which this regulation is
based; for to hold this class of servants _irrespective_ of these
distinctions, and annihilating them, is to "rule with rigor." The same
command is repeated in the forty-sixth verse, and applied to the
distinction between servants of Jewish, and those of Gentile extraction,
and forbids the overlooking of distinctive Jewish peculiarities, the
disregard of which would be _rigorous_ in the extreme.[E] The
construction commonly put upon the phrase "rule with rigor," and the
inference drawn from it, have an air vastly oracular. It is interpreted
to mean, "you shall not make him a chattel, and strip him of legal
protection, nor force him to work without pay." The inference is like
unto it, viz., since the command forbade such outrages upon the
Israelites, it permitted and commissioned