led in manufactures, instead of becoming
servants would need servants for their own use, and as inducements for
the Stranger's to become servants to the Israelites, were greater than
persons of their own nation could hold out to them, these wealthy
Strangers would naturally procure the poorer Israelites for servants.
Lev. xxv. 47. In a word, such was the political condition of the
Strangers, that the Jewish polity offered a virtual bounty, to such as
would become permanent servants, and thus secure those privileges
already enumerated, and for their children in the second generation a
permanent inheritance. Ezek. xlvii. 21-23. None but the monied
aristocracy would be likely to decline such offers. On the other hand,
the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land being a
sacred possession, to hold it free of incumbrance was with every
Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor and personal
character. 1 Kings xxi. 3. Hence, to forego the control of one's
inheritance, after the division of the paternal domain, or to be kept
out of it after having acceded to it, was a burden grievous to be borne.
To mitigate as much as possible such a calamity, the law released the
Israelitish servant at the end of six years[A]; as, during that time--if
of the first class--the partition of the patrimonial land might have
taken place; or, if of the second, enough money might have been earned
to disencumber his estate, and thus he might assume his station as a
lord of the soil. If neither contingency had occurred, then after
another six years the opportunity was again offered, and so on, until
the jubilee. So while strong motives urged the Israelite to discontinue
his service as soon as the exigency had passed which made him a servant,
every consideration impelled the _Stranger_ to _prolong_ his term of
service; and the same kindness which dictated the 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