it was in the earlier ages of the Mosaic system, practically
to unjew him, a hardship and a rigor grievous
to be borne, as it annihilated a visible distinction
between the descendants of Abraham and the Strangers.
To guard this and another fundamental distinction,
God instituted the regulation, “If thy brother
that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto
thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant.”
In other words, thou shalt not put him to servant’s
work—to the business, and into the condition
of domestics. In the Persian version it is translated,
“Thou shalt not assign to him the work of servitude.”
In the Septuagint, “He shall not serve thee
with the service of a domestic.”
In the Syriac, “Thou shalt not employ him after
the manner of servants.” In the Samaritan,
“Thou shalt not require him to serve in the
service of a servant.” In the Targum of
Onkelos, “He shall not serve thee with the service
of a household servant.” In the Targum
of Jonathan, “Thou shalt not cause him to serve
according to the usages of the servitude of servants."[D]
The meaning of the passage is, thou shalt not assign
him to the same grade, nor put him to the same service,
with permanent domestics. The remainder of the
regulation is—"But as an hired servant
and as a sojourner shall he be with thee." Hired
servants were not incorporated into the families of
their masters; they still retained their own family
organization, without the surrender of any domestic
privilege, honor, or authority; and this, even though
they resided under the same roof with their master.
The same substantially may be said of the sojourner
though he was not the owner of the land which he cultivated,
and of course had not the control of an inheritance,
yet he was not in a condition that implied subjection
to him whose land he tilled, or that demanded the
surrender of any right, or exacted from him
any homage, or stamped him with any inferiority; unless,
it be supposed that a degree of inferiority would
naturally attach to a state of dependence however
qualified. While bought servants were associated
with their master’s families at meals, at the
Passover, and at other family festivals, hired servants
and sojourners were not. Ex. xii. 44, 45; Lev.
xxii. 10, 11. Hired servants were not subject
to the authority of their masters in any such sense
as the master’s wife, children, and bought servants.
Hence the only form of oppressing hired servants spoken
of in the Scriptures as practicable to masters, is
that of keeping back their wages. To have taken
away such privileges in the case under consideration,
would have been pre-eminent “rigor;”
for it was not a servant born in the house of a master,
nor a minor, whose minority had been sold by the father,
neither was it one who had not yet acceded to his inheritance,
nor finally, one who had received the assignment
of his inheritance, but was working off from it an