Finally, in all the regulations respecting servants and their service, no form of expression is employed from which it could be inferred, that servants were made such, and held in that condition by force.  Add to this the entire absence of all the machinery, appurtenances and incidents of compulsion.

Voluntary service on the part of servants would have been in keeping with regulations which abounded in the Mosaic system and sustained by a multitude of analogies.  Compulsory service on the other hand, could have harmonized with nothing, and would have been the solitary disturbing force, marring its design, counteracting its tendencies, and confusing and falsifying its types.  The directions given to regulate the performance of service for the public, lay great stress on the willingness of those employed to perform it.  For the spirit and usages that obtained under the Mosaic system in this respect, see 1 Chron. xxviii. 21; Ex. xxxv. 5, 21, 22, 29; 1 Chron. xxix. 5, 6, 9, 14, 17; Ex. xxv. 2; Judges v. 2; Lev. xxii. 29; 2 Chron. xxxv. 8; Ezra i. 6; Ex. xxxv; Neh. xi. 2.[A]

[Footnote A:  We should naturally infer that the directions which regulated the rendering of service to individuals, would proceed upon the same principle in this respect with those which regulated the rendering of service to the public.  Otherwise the Mosaic system, instead of constituting in its different parts a harmonious whole, would be divided against itself; its principles counteracting and nullifying each other.]

Again, the voluntariness of servants is a natural inference from the fact that the Hebrew word ebedh, uniformly rendered servant, is applied to a great variety of classes and descriptions of persons under the patriarchal and Jewish dispensations, all of whom were voluntary and most of them eminently so.  For instance, it is applied to persons rendering acts of worship about seventy times, whereas it is applied to servants not more than half that number of times.

To this we may add, that the illustrations drawn from the condition and service of servants and the ideas which the term servant is employed to convey when applied figuratively to moral subjects would, in most instances, lose all their force, and often become absurdities if the will of the servant resisted his service, and he performed it only by compulsion.  Many passages will at once occur to those who are familiar with the Bible.  We give a single example. “To whom YE YIELD YOURSELVES servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey.” Rom. vi. 16.  It would hardly be possible to assert the voluntariness of servants more strongly in a direct proposition than it is here asserted by implication.

III.  WERE SERVANTS FORCED TO WORK WITHOUT PAY

As the servants became and continued such of their own accord, it would be no small marvel if they chose to work without pay.  Their becoming servants, pre-supposes compensation as a motive.  That they were paid for their labor, we argue.