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[A] years; 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;[B] and the same kindness which dictated the law of six years’ service for the Israelite, assigned as the 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 Stranger, 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 had become 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.]

[Footnote B:  The Stranger had the same inducements to prefer a long term of service that those have who cannot own land, to prefer a long lease.]