Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their SUBSTANCE that they had gathered; and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan.”  Gen. xii. 5.  Many will have it, that these souls were a part of Abraham’s substance (notwithstanding the pains here taken to separate them from it)—­that they were slaves taken with him in his migration as a part of his family effects.  Who but slaveholders, either actually or in heart, would torture into the principle and practice of slavery, such a harmless phrase as “the souls that they had gotten?” Until the African slave trade breathed its haze into the eyes of the church and smote her with palsy and decay, commentators saw no slavery in, “The souls that they had gotten.”  In the Targum of Onkelos[A] it is rendered, “The souls whom they had brought to obey the law in Haran.”  In the Targum of Jonathan, “The souls whom they had made proselytes in Haran.”  In the Targum of Jerusalem, “The souls proselyted in Haran.”  Jarchi, the prince of Jewish commentators, “The souls whom they had brought under the Divine wings.”  Jerome, one of the most learned of the Christian fathers, “The persons whom they had proselyted.”  The Persian version, the Vulgate, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Samaritan all render it, “All the wealth which they had gathered, and the souls which they had made in Haran.”  Menochius, a commentator who wrote before our present translation of the Bible, renders it, “Quas de idolatraria converterant.”  “Those whom they had converted from idolatry.”  Paulus Fagius,[B] “Quas instituerant in religione.”  “Those whom they had established in religion.”  Luke Francke, a German commentator who lived two centuries ago, “Quas legi subjicerant.”—­“Those whom they had brought to obey the law.”  The same distinction is made between persons and property, in the enumeration of Esau’s household and the inventory of his effects.  “And Esau took his wives and his sons and his daughters, and all the persons of his house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his substance which he had got in the land of Canaan, and went into the country from the face of his brother Jacob.  For their riches were more than that they might dwell together; and the land could not bear them because of their cattle.”  Gen. xxxvi. 6, 7.

[Footnote A:  The Targums are Chaldee paraphrases of parts of the Old Testament.  The Targum of Onkelos is, for the most part, a very accurate and faithful translation of the original, and was probably made at about the commencement of the Christian era.  The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, bears about the same date.  The Targum of Jerusalem was probably about five hundred years later.  The Israelites, during their captivity in Babylon, lost, as a body, their own language.  These translations into the Chaldee, the language which they acquired in Babylon, were thus called for by the necessity of the case.]