c
system! See also Deut. xxiv. 7[A].

[Footnote A: Jarchi, the most eminent of the Jewish writers, (if we
except perhaps the Egyptian Maimonides,) who wrote seven hundred years
ago, in his comment on this stealing and making merchandize of men,
gives the meaning thus:--"Using a man against his will, as a servant
lawfully purchased; yea though he should use his services ever so
little, only to the value of a farthing, or use but his arm to lean on
to support him, _if he be forced so to act as a servant_, the person
compelling him but once to do so shall die as a thief, whether he has
sold him or not."]

The Hebrew word, _Gaunab_, here rendered _stealeth_, means the taking
from another what _belongs_ to him, whether it be by violence or fraud;
the same word is used in the eighth commandment, and prohibits both
_robbery_ and theft.

The crime specified is that of _depriving_ SOMEBODY _of the ownership of
a man_. Is this somebody a master? and is the crime that of depriving a
_master_ of his _servant_? Then it would have been "he that stealeth" a
_servant, not_ "he that stealeth a _man_." If the crime had been the
taking of an individual from _another_, then the _term_ used would have
been _expressive of that relation_, and _most especially_ if it was the
relation of property and _proprietor_!

The crime, as stated in the passage, is three-fold--man _stealing_,
_selling_ and _holding_. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one
penalty--DEATH. This _somebody_ deprived of the ownership of man, is the
_man himself_, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said to the servants
of Pharoah, "Indeed I was _stolen_ away out of the land of the Hebrews."
Gen. xl. 15. How _stolen_? His brethren took him and sold him as an
_article of merchandize_. Contrast this penalty for _man_-stealing with
that for _property_-stealing. Exod. xxii. If a man stole an _ox_ and
killed or sold it, he was to restore five oxen; if he had neither sold
nor killed it, the penalty was two oxen. The selling or the killing
being virtually a deliberate repetition of the crime, the penalty was
more than doubled.

But in the case of stealing a _man_, the first act drew down the utmost
power of punishment; however often repeated, or however aggravated the
crime, human penalty could do no more. The fact that the penalty for
_man_-stealing was death, and the penalty for _property_-stealing, the
mere _restoration of double_, shows that the two cases were adjudi