47.  In a word, such was the political condition of the Strangers, that the Jewish polity offered a virtual bounty, to such as would become permanent servants, and thus secure those privileges already enumerated, and for their children in the second generation a permanent inheritance.  Ezek. xlvii. 21-23.  None but the monied aristocracy would be likely to decline such offers.  On the other hand, the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land being a sacred possession, to hold it free of incumbrance was with every Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor and personal character. 1 Kings xxi. 3.  Hence, to forego the control of one’s inheritance, after the division of the paternal domain, or to be kept out of it after having acceded to it, was a burden grievous to be borne.  To mitigate as much as possible such a calamity, the law released the Israelitish servant at the end of six years[A]; as, during that time—­if of the first class—­the partition of the patrimonial land might have taken place; or, if of the second, enough money might have been earned to disencumber his estate, and thus he might assume his station as a lord of the soil.  If neither contingency had occurred, then after another six years the opportunity was again offered, and so on, until the jubilee.  So while strong motives urged the Israelite to discontinue his service as soon as the exigency had passed which made him a servant, every consideration impelled the Stranger to prolong his term of service; and the same kindness which dictated the law of six years’ service for the Israelite, assigned as a general rule, a much longer period to the Gentile servant, who had every inducement to protract the term.  It should be borne in mind, that adult Jews ordinarily became servants, only as a temporary expedient to relieve themselves from embarrassment, and ceased to be such when that object was effected.  The poverty that forced them to it was a calamity, and their service was either a means of relief, or a measure of prevention; not pursued as a permanent business, but resorted to on emergencies—­a sort of episode in the main scope of their lives.  Whereas with the Strangers, it was a permanent employment, pursued both as a means of bettering their own condition, and that of their posterity, and as an end for its own sake, conferring on them privileges, and a social estimation not otherwise attainable.

[Footnote A:  Another reason for protracting the service until the seventh year, seems to have been the coincidence of that period with other arrangements, in the Jewish economy.  Its pecuniary responsibilities, social relations, and general internal structure, were graduated upon a septennial scale.  Besides as those Israelites who became servants through poverty, would not sell themselves, till other expedients to recruit their finances had failed—­(Lev. xxv. 35)—­their becoming servants proclaimed such a state of their affairs, as demanded the labor of a course of years fully to reinstate them.]