[Footnote A:  Jarchi, the most eminent of the Jewish Commentators, who wrote seven hundred years ago, in his comment on this stealing and making merchandize of men, gives the meaning thus:—­“Using a man against his will, as a servant lawfully purchased; yea, though he should use his services ever so little, only to the value of a farthing, or use but his arm to lean on to support him, if he be forced so to act as a servant, the person compelling him but once to do so, shall die as a thief, whether he has sold him or not.”]

The word Ganabh here rendered stealeth, means, the taking of what belongs to another, whether by violence or fraud; the same word is used in the eight commandment, and prohibits both robbery and theft.

The crime specified, is that of depriving SOMEBODY of the ownership of a man.  Is this somebody a master? and is the crime that of depriving a master of his servant?  Then it would have been “he that stealeth” a servant, not “he that stealeth a man.”  If the crime had been the taking of an individual from another, then the term used would have been expressive of that relation, and most especially if it was the relation of property and proprietor!

The crime is stated in a three-fold form—­man stealing, selling, and holding.  All are put on a level, and whelmed under one penalty—­DEATH[A].  This somebody deprived of the ownership of a man, is the man himself, robbed of personal ownership.  Joseph said, “Indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews.”  Gen. xl. 15.  How stolen? His brethren sold him as an article of merchandize.  Contrast this penalty for man-stealing with that for property-stealing, Ex. xxii. 14.  If a man had stolen an ox and killed or sold it, he was to restore five oxen; if he had neither sold nor killed it, two oxen.  But in the case of stealing a man, the first act drew down the utmost power of punishment; however often repeated or aggravated the crime, human penalty could do no more.  The fact that the penalty for man-stealing was death, and the penalty for property-stealing, the mere restoration of double, shows that the two cases were adjudicated on totally different principles.  The man stolen might be diseased or totally past labor, consequently instead of being profitable to the thief, he would be a tax upon him, yet death was still the penalty, though not a cent’s worth of property-value was taken.  The penalty for stealing property was a mere property-penalty.  However large the theft, the payment of double wiped out the score.  It might have a greater money value than a thousand men, yet death was not the penalty, nor maiming, nor braiding, nor even stripes, but double of the same kind.  Why was not the rule uniform?  When a man was stolen why was not the thief required to restore