But let us inquire whether the words rendered “inherit” and “inheritance,” when used in the Old Testament, necessarily point out the things inherited and possessed as articles of property. Nahal and Nahala—­inherit and inheritance.  See 2 Chronicles x. 16.  “The people answered the king and said, What portion have we in David, and we have none inheritance in the son of Jesse.”  Did they mean gravely to disclaim the holding of their king as an article of property? Psalms cxxvii. 3—­“Lo, children are an heritage (inheritance) of the Lord.”  Exodus xxxiv. 9—­“Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.”  When God pardons his enemies, and adopts them as his children, does he make them articles of property? Are forgiveness, and chattel-making, synonymes?  Psalms cxix. 111—­“Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage (inheritance) forever.”  Ezekiel xliv. 27, 28—­“And in the day that he goeth into the sanctuary, unto the inner court to minister in the sanctuary, he shall offer his sin-offering, saith the Lord God.  And it shall be unto them for an inheritance; I am their inheritance.”  Psalms ii. 8—­“Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance.”  Psalms xciv. 14—­“For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.”  See also Deuteronomy iv. 20; Joshua xiii. 33; Chronicles x. 16; Psalms lxxxii. 8, and lxxviii. 62, 71; Proverbs xiv. 8.

The question whether the servants were a PROPERTY—­“possession,” has been already discussed—­(See p. 36)—­we need add in this place but a word. Ahusa rendered “possession.”  Genesis xlii. 11—­“And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.”

In what sense was the land of Goshen the possession of the Israelites?  Answer, In the sense of, having it to live in.  In what sense were the Israelites to possess these nations, and take them as an inheritance for their children? We answer, They possessed them as a permanent source of supply for domestic or household servants.  And this relation to these nations was to go down to posterity as a standing regulation—­a national usage respecting them, having the certainty and regularity of a descent by inheritance.  The sense of the whole regulation may be given thus:  “Thy permanent domestics, both male and female, which thou shalt have, shall be of the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye get male and female domestics.”  “Moreover of the children of the foreigners that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye get, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your permanent resource,” (for household servants.) “And ye shall take them as a perpetual provision for your children after you, to hold as a constant source of supply.  ALWAYS of them shall ye serve yourselves.”