Again.  The Israelites often hired servants from the strangers.  Deut. xxiv. 17.

Since then it is certain that they gave wages to a part of their Canaanitish servants, thus recognizing their right to a reward for their labor, we infer that they did not rob the rest of their earnings.

If God gave them a license to make the strangers work for them without pay—­if this was good and acceptable in His sight, and right and just in itself, they must have been great fools to have wasted their money by paying wages when they could have saved it, by making the strangers do all their work for nothing!  Besides, by refusing to avail themselves of this “Divine license,” they despised the blessing and cast contempt on the giver!  But far be it from us to do the Israelites injustice; perhaps they seized all the Canaanites they could lay their hands on, and forced them to work without pay, but not being able to catch enough to do their work, were obliged to offer wages in order to eke out the supply!

The parable of our Lord, contained in Mat. xviii. 23-34, not only derives its significance from the fact, that servants can both own and owe and earn property, over which they had the control, but would be made a medley of contradictions on any other supposition.—­1.  Their lord at a set time proceeded to “take account” and “reckon” with his servants; the phraseology itself showing that the relations between the parties, were those of debt and credit. 2.  As the reckoning went on, one of his servants was found to owe him ten thousand talents.  From the fact that the servant owed this to his master, we naturally infer, that he must have been at some time, and in some way, the responsible owner of that amount, or of its substantial equivalent.  Not that he had had that amount put into his hands to invest, or disburse, in his master’s name, merely as his agent, for in that case no claim of debt for value received would lie, but, that having sustained the responsibilities of legal proprietorship, he was under the liabilities resulting therefrom. 3.  Not having on hand wherewith to pay, he says to his master “have patience with me and I will pay thee all.”  If the servant had been his master’s property, his time and earnings belonged to the master as a matter of course, hence the promise to earn and pay over that amount, was virtually saying to his master, “I will take money out of your pocket with which to pay my debt to you,” thus adding insult to injury.  The promise of the servant to pay the debt on condition that the time for payment should be postponed, not only proceeds upon the fact that his time was his own, that he was constantly earning property or in circumstances that enabled him to earn it, and that he was the proprietor of his earnings, but that his master had full knowledge of that fact.—­In a word, the supposition that the