their _poverty_,
they _chose_ to become servants to better their condition.

XII. INSTANCES OF VOLUNTARY SERVANTS. Mention is often made of persons
becoming servants who were manifestly VOLUNTARY. As the Prophet Elisha.
1 Kings xix. 21; 2 Kings iii. 11. Elijah was his _master_. 2 Kings ii.
5. The word translated master, is the same that is so rendered in almost
every instance where masters are spoken of under the Mosaic and
patriarchal systems. Moses was the servant of Jethro. Ex. iii. 1; iv.
10. Joshua was the servant of Moses. Ex. xxxiii. 11. Num. xi. 28. Jacob
was the servant of Laban. Gen. xxix. 18-27. See also the case of the
Gibeonites who _voluntarily_ became servants to the Israelites and
afterwards performed service for the "house of God" throughout the
subsequent Jewish history, were incorporate with the Israelites,
registered in the genealogies, and manifestly of their own accord
remained with them, and "_clave_" to them. Neh. x. 28, 29; xi. 3; Ez.
vii. 7.

Finally, in all the regulations respecting servants and their service,
no form of expression is employed from which it could be inferred, that
servants were made such, and held in that condition by force. Add to
this the entire absence of all the machinery, appurtenances and
incidents of _compulsion_.

Voluntary service on the part of servants would have been in keeping
with regulations which abounded in the Mosaic system and sustained by a
multitude of analogies. Compulsory service on the other hand, could have
harmonized with nothing, and would have been the solitary disturbing
force, marring its design, counteracting its tendencies, and confusing
and falsifying its types. The directions given to regulate the
performance of service for the _public_, lay great stress on the
_willingness_ of those employed to perform it. For the spirit and usages
that obtained under the Mosaic system in this respect, see 1 Chron.
xxviii. 21; Ex. xxxv. 5, 21, 22, 29; 1 Chron. xxix. 5, 6, 9, 14, 17; Ex.
xxv. 2; Judges v. 2; Lev. xxii. 29; 2 Chron. xxxv. 8; Ezra i. 6; Ex.
xxxv; Neh. xi. 2.[A]

[Footnote A: We should naturally infer that the directions which
regulated the rendering of service to individuals, would proceed upon
the same principle in this respect with those which regulated the
rendering of service to the _public_. Otherwise the Mosaic system,
instead of constituting in its different parts a harmonious _whole_,
would be divided against itself; its principles