[Footnote A:  The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows—­“‘Thou shalt furnish him liberally,’ &c.  That is to say, ’Loading, ye shall load him,’ likewise every one of his family with as much as he can take with him—­abundant benefits.  And if it be avariciously asked, ‘How much must I give him?’ I say unto you, not less than thirty shekels, which is the valuation of a servant, as declared in Ex. xxi. 32.”—­Maimonides, Hilcoth Obedim, Chap. ii.  Sec. 3.]

VII.  SERVANTS WERE BOUGHT.  In other words, they received compensation in advance.[A] Having shown, under a previous head, that servants sold themselves, and of course received the compensation for themselves, except in cases where parents hired out the time of their children till they became of age,[B] a mere reference to the fact is all that is required for the purposes of this argument.  As all the strangers in the land were required to pay an annual tribute to the government, the Israelites might often “buy” them as family servants, by stipulating with them to pay their annual tribute.  This assumption of their obligations to the government might cover the whole of the servant’s time of service, or a part of it, at the pleasure of the parties.

[Footnote A:  But, says the objector, if servants received their pay in advance, and if the Israelites were forbidden to surrender the fugitive to his master, it would operate practically as a bounty offered to all servants who would leave their master’s service encouraging them to make contracts, get their pay in advance and then run away, thus cheating their masters out of their money as well as their own services.—­We answer, the prohibition, Deut xxiii. 15. 16, “Thou shalt not deliver unto his master,” &c., sets the servant free from his authority and of course, from all those liabilities of injury, to which as his servant, he was subjected, but not from the obligation of legal contracts.  If the servant had received pay in advance, and had not rendered an equivalent for this “value received,” he was not absolved from his obligation to do so, but he was absolved from all obligations to pay his master in that particular way, that is, by working for him as his servant.]

[Footnote B:  Among the Israelites, girls became of age at twelve, and boys at thirteen years.]

VIII.  THE RIGHT OF SERVANTS TO COMPENSATION IS RECOGNISED IN Ex. xxi. 27.  “And if he smite out his man-servant’s, or his maid-servant’s tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake.”  This regulation is manifestly based upon the right of the servant to the use of himself and all this powers, faculties and personal conveniences, and consequently his just claim for remuneration, upon him, who should however unintentionally, deprive him of the use even of the least of them.  If the servant had a right to his tooth and the use of it, upon the same principle, he had a right to the rest of his body and the use of it.  If he had a right to the fraction, and if it was his to hold, to use, and to have pay for; he had a right to the sum total, and it was his to hold, to use, and to have pay for.