Though servants were not bought of their masters, yet young females were bought of their fathers.  But their purchase as servants was their betrothal as wives.  Ex. xxi. 7, 8.  “If a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do.  If she please not her master WHO HATH BETROTHED HER TO HIMSELF, he shall let her be redeemed."[B]

[Footnote B:  The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows:  “A Hebrew handmaid might not be sold but to one who laid himself under obligations, to espouse her to himself or to his son, when she was fit to be betrothed.”—­Maimonides—­Hilcoth—­Obedim, Ch.  IV.  Sec.  XI.  Jarchi, on the same passage, says, “He is bound to espouse her and take her to be his wife, for the money of her purchase is the money of her espousal.”]

VII.  We infer that the Hebrew servant was voluntary in COMMENCING his service, because he was pre-eminently so IN CONTINUING it.  If, at the year of release, it was the servant’s choice to remain with his master, law required his ear to be bored by the judges of the land, thus making it impossible for him to be held against his will.  Yea more, his master was compelled to keep him, however much he might wish to get rid of him.

VIII.  The method prescribed for procuring servants, was an appeal to their choice.  The Israelites were commanded to offer them a suitable inducement, and then leave them to decide.  They might neither seize them by force, nor frighten them by threats, nor wheedle them by false pretences, nor borrow them, nor beg them; but they were commanded to buy them[A]; that is, they were to recognize the right of the individuals to dispose of their own services, and their right to refuse all offers, and thus oblige those who made them, to do their own work.  Suppose all, with one accord, had refused to become servants, what provision did the Mosaic law make for such an emergency?  NONE.

[Footnote A:  The case of thieves, whose services were sold until they had earned enough to make restitution to the person wronged, and to pay the legal penalty, stands by itself, and has nothing to do with the condition of servants.]

IX.  Various incidental expressions corroborate the idea that servants became such by their own contract.  Job xli. 4, is an illustration, “Will he (Leviathan) make a COVENANT with thee? wilt thou take him for a SERVANT forever?”

X. The transaction which made the Egyptians the SERVANTS OF PHARAOH was voluntary throughout.  See Gen. xlvii. 18-26.  Of their own accord they came to Joseph and said, “We have not aught left but our bodies and our lands; buy us;” then in the 25th verse, “we will be servants to Pharaoh.”

XI.  We infer the voluntariness of servants, from the fact that RICH Strangers did not become servants.  Indeed, so far were they from becoming servants themselves, that they bought and held Jewish servants.  Lev. xxv. 47.