[Footnote B:  This eminent Hebrew scholar was invited to England to superintend the translation of the Bible into English, under the patronage of Henry the Eighth.  He had hardly commenced the work when he died.  This was nearly a century before the date of our present translation.]

II.  THE CONDITION AND SOCIAL ESTIMATION OF SERVANTS MAKE THE DOCTRINE THAT THEY WERE COMMODITIES, AN ABSURDITY.  As the head of a Jewish family possessed the same power over his wife, children, and grandchildren (if they were in his family) as over his servants, if the latter were articles of property, the former were equally such.  If there were nothing else in the Mosaic Institutes or history establishing the social equality of the servants with their masters and their master’s wives and children, those precepts which required that they should be guests at all the public feasts, and equal participants in the family and social rejoicings, would be quite sufficient to settle the question.  Deut. xii. 12, 18; xvi. 10, 11, 13, 14.  Ex. xii. 43, 44.  St. Paul’s testimony in Gal. iv. 1, shows the condition of servants:  “Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all.”  That the interests of Abraham’s servants were identified with those of their master’s family, and that the utmost confidence was reposed in them, is shown in their being armed.  Gen. xiv. 14, 15.  When Abraham’s servant went to Padanaram, the young Princess Rebecca did not disdain to say to him.  “Drink, MY LORD,” as “she hasted and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink.”  Laban, the brother of Rebecca, “ungirded his camels, and brought him water to wash his feet, and the men’s feet that were with him!” In the arrangements of Jacob’s household on his journey from Padanaram to Canaan, we find his two maid servants treated in the same manner and provided with the same accommodations as Rachel and Leah.  Each of them had a separate tent appropriated to her use.  Gen. xxxi. 33.  The social equality of servants with their masters and other members of their master’s families, is an obvious deduction from Ex. xxi. 7, 10, from which we learn that the sale of a young Jewish female as a servant, was also betrothed as a wife, either to her master, or to one of his sons.  In 1 Sam. ix. is an account of a festival in the city of Zuph, at which Samuel presided.  None but those bidden, sat down at the feast, and only “about thirty persons” were invited.  Quite a select party!—­the elite of the city.  Saul and his servant had just arrived at Zuph, and both of them, at Samuel’s solicitation, accompany him as invited guests.  “And Samuel took Saul and his SERVANT, and brought THEM into the PARLOR (!) and made THEM sit in the CHIEFEST SEATS among those that were bidden.”  A servant invited by the chief judge, ruler, and prophet in Israel, to dine publicly with a select party, in company with his master, who was at the same time anointed