all family work, in offices of personal attendance, and in such mechanical labor, as was constantly required in every family, by increasing wants, and needed repairs.  On the other hand, the Jewish bought servants seem to have been almost exclusively agricultural.  Besides being better fitted for this by previous habits—­agriculture, and the tending of cattle, were regarded by the Israelites as the most honorable of all occupations; kings engaged in them.  After Saul was elected king, and escorted to Gibeah, the next report of him is, “And behold Saul came after the herd out of the field.”—­1 Sam. xi. 7.

Elisha “was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen” when Elijah threw his mantle upon him. 1 Kings xix. 19.  King Uzziah “loved husbandry.” 2 Chron. xxvi. 10.  Gideon, the deliverer of Israel, was “threshing wheat by the wine press” when called to lead the host against the Midianites.  Judges vi. 11.  The superior honorableness of agriculture, is shown by the fact, that it was protected and supported by the fundamental law of the theocracy—­God thus indicating it as the chief prop of the government, and putting upon it peculiar honor.  An inheritance of land seems to have filled out an Israelite’s idea of worldly furnishment.  They were like permanent fixtures on their soil, so did they cling to it.  To be agriculturalists on their own inheritances, was, in their notions, the basis of family consequence, and the grand claim to honorable estimation.  Agriculture being pre-eminently a Jewish employment, to assign a native Israelite to other employments as a business, was to break up his habits, do violence to cherished predilections, and put him to a kind of labor in which he had no skill, and which he deemed degrading.  In short, it was, in the earlier ages of the Mosaic system, practically to unjew him, a hardship and rigor grievous to be borne, as it annihilated a visible distinction between the descendants of Abraham and the Strangers—­a distinction vital to the system, and gloried in by every Jew.

To guard this and another fundamental distinction, God instituted the regulation contained in Leviticus xxv. 39, which stands at the head of this branch of our inquiry, “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 servants’ work—­to the business, and into the condition of domestics.

In the Persian version it is translated thus, “Thou shalt not assign to him the work of servitude,” (or menial labor.) In the Septuagint thus, “He shall not serve thee with the service of a domestic or household servant.”  In the Syriac thus, “Thou shalt not employ him after the manner of servants.”  In the Samaritan thus, “Thou shalt not require him to serve in the service of a servant.”  In the Targum of Onkelos thus, “He shall not serve thee with the service of a household servant.”  In the Targum of Jonathan thus, “Thou shalt not cause him to serve according to the usages of the servitude of servants[A].”  In fine, “thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant,” means, thou shalt not assign him to the same grade, nor put him to the same services, with permanent domestics.