on certain conditions, to pay for their support during the famine.  The idea attached by both parties to “buy us,” and “behold I have bought you,” was merely that of service voluntarily offered, and secured by contract, in return, for value received, and not at all that the Egyptians were bereft of their personal ownership, and made articles of property.  And this buying of services (in this case it was but one-fifth part) is called in Scripture usage, buying the persons.  This case claims special notice, as it is the only one where the whole transaction of buying servants is detailed—­the preliminaries, the process, the mutual acquiescence, and the permanent relation resulting therefrom.  In all other instances, the mere fact is stated without particulars.  In this case, the whole process is laid open. 1.  The persons “bought,” sold themselves, and of their own accord. 2.  Paying for the permanent service of persons, or even a portion of it, is called “buying” those persons; just as paying for the use of land or houses for a number of years in succession is called in Scripture usage buying them.  See Lev. xxv. 28, 33, and xxvii. 24.  The objector, at the outset, takes it for granted, that servants were bought of third persons; and thence infers that they were articles of property.  Both the alleged fact and the inference are sheer assumptions.  No instance is recorded, under the Mosaic system, in which a master sold his servant.

That servants who were “bought,” sold themselves, is a fair inference from various passages of Scripture.[A] In Leviticus xxv. 47, the case of the Israelite, who became the servant of the stranger, the words are, “If he SELL HIMSELF unto the stranger.”  Yet the 51st verse informs us that this servant was “BOUGHT” and that the price of his purchase was paid to himself.  The same word, and the same form of the word, which, in verse 47, is rendered sell himself, is in verse 39 of the same chapter, rendered be sold; in Deut. xxviii. 68, the same word is rendered “be sold.”  “And there ye shall BE SOLD unto your enemies for bond-men and bond-women and NO MAN SHALL BUY YOU.”  How could they “be sold” without being bought?  Our translation makes it nonsense.  The word Makar rendered “be sold” is used here in Hithpael conjugation, which is generally reflexive in its force, and like the middle voice in Greek, represents what an individual does for himself, and should manifestly have been rendered “ye shall offer yourselves for sale, and there shall be no purchaser.”  For a clue to Scripture usage on this point, see 1 Kings xxi. 20. 25.—­“Thou hast sold thyself to work evil.”  “There was none like unto Ahab which did sell himself to work wickedness.”—­2 Kings xvii. 17.  “They used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil.”—­Isa. l. 1.  “For your iniquities have ye sold