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[A] years;
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;[B] and the same
kindness which dictated the law of six years’
service for the Israelite, assigned as the 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 the
main scope of their lives. Whereas with the Stranger,
it was a
permanent employment, pursued both
as a
means of bettering their own condition,
and that of their posterity, and as an
end
for its own sake, conferring on them privileges, and
a social estimation not otherwise attainable.
[Footnote A: Another reason for protracting the
service until the seventh year, seems to have been
the coincidence of that period with other arrangements,
in the Jewish economy. Its pecuniary responsibilities,
social relations, and general internal structure, were
graduated upon a septennial scale. Besides,
as those Israelites who had become servants through
poverty, would not sell themselves, till other expedients
to recruit their finances had failed—(Lev.
xxv. 35)—their becoming servants
proclaimed such a state of their affairs, as demanded
the labor of a course of years fully to reinstate
them.]
[Footnote B: The Stranger had the same inducements
to prefer a long term of service that those have who
cannot own land, to prefer a long lease.]