both were occasional and temporary.  Both lived in their own families, their wages were money, and they were paid when their work was done. 2. Bought Servants, (including those “born in the house.”) This class also, consisted of Israelites and Strangers, the same difference in their kinds of employment as noticed before.  Both were paid in advance,[A] and neither was temporary.  The Israelitish servant, with the exception of the freeholder, completed his term in six years.  The Stranger was a permanent servant, continuing until the jubilee.  A marked distinction obtained also between different classes of Jewish bought servants.  Ordinarily, they were merged in their master’s family, and, like his wife and children, subject to his authority; (and, like them, protected by law from its abuse.) But the freeholder was an exception; his family relations and authority remained unaffected, nor was he subjected as an inferior to the control of his master, though dependent on him for employment.

[Footnote A:  The payment in advance, doubtless lessened the price of the purchase; the servant thus having the use of the money, and the master assuming all the risks of life, and health for labor; at the expiration of the six years’ contract, the master having suffered no loss from the risk incurred at the making of it, was obliged by law to release the servant with a liberal gratuity.  The reason assigned for this is, “he hath been worth a double hired servant unto thee in serving thee six years,” as if it had been said, as you have experienced no loss from the risks of life, and ability to labor, incurred in the purchase, and which lessened the price, and as, by being your servant for six years, he has saved you the time and trouble of looking up and hiring laborers on emergencies, therefore, “thou shalt furnish him liberally,” &c.  This gratuity at the close of the service shews the principle of the relation; equivalent for value received. ]

It should be kept in mind, that both classes of servants, the Israelite and the Stranger, not only enjoyed equal, natural and religious rights, but all the civil and political privileges enjoyed by those of their own people who were not servants.  They also shared in common with them the political disabilities which appertained to all Strangers, whether servants of Jewish masters, or masters of Jewish servants.  Further, the disabilities of the servants from the Strangers were exclusively political and national. 1.  They, in common with all Strangers, could not own the soil. 2.  They were ineligible to civil offices. 3.  They were assigned to employments less honorable than those in which Israelitish servants engaged; agriculture being regarded as fundamental to the existence of the state, other employments were in less repute, and deemed unjewish.