Part 32 (1/2)
Thus it appears that those who continued servants during the period between the jubilees, were by law released from their labor, TWENTY-THREE YEARS AND SIXTY-FOUR DAYS, OUT OF FIFTY YEARS, and those who remained a less time, in nearly the same proportion. In this calculation, besides making a donation of all the _fractions_ to the objector, we have left out those numerous _local_ festivals to which frequent allusion is made, Judg. xxi. 19; 1 Sam. ix. 12. 22. etc., and the various _family_ festivals, such as at the weaning of children; at marriages; at sheep shearings; at circ.u.mcisions; at the making of covenants, &c., to which reference is often made, as in 1 Sam, xx. 6.
28, 29. Neither have we included the festivals inst.i.tuted at a later period of the Jewish history--the feast of Purim, Esth. ix. 28, 29; and of the Dedication, which lasted eight days. John x. 22; 1 Mac. iv. 59.
Finally, the Mosaic system secured to servants, an amount of time which, if distributed, would be almost ONE HALF OF THE DAYS IN EACH YEAR.
Meanwhile, they were supported, and furnished with opportunities of instruction. If this time were distributed over _every day_, the servants would have to themselves nearly _one half of each day_.
The service of those Strangers who were _national_ servants or tributaries, was regulated upon the same benevolent principle, and secured to them TWO-THIRDS of the whole year. ”A month they were in Lebanon, and two months they were at home.” 1 Kings, v. 13-15. Compared with 2 Chron. 11. 17-19, viii. 7-9; 1 Kings, ix 20. 22. The regulations under which the inhabitants of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth and Kirjath-jearim, (afterwards called _Nethinims_) performed service for the Israelites, must have secured to them nearly the whole of their time. If, as is probable, they served in courses corresponding to those of their priests whom they a.s.sisted, they were in actual service less than one month annually.
IX. THE SERVANT WAS PROTECTED BY LAW EQUALLY WITH THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY
Proof.--”Judge righteously between every man and his brother and THE STRANGER THAT IS WITH HIM.” ”Ye shall not RESPECT PERSONS in judgment, but ye shall hear the SMALL as well as the great.” Deut. i. 16, 19. Also Lev. xix. 15. xxiv. 22. ”Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the STRANGER, as for one of your own country.” So Num. xv. 29. ”Ye shall have ONE LAW for him that sinneth through ignorance, both for him that is born among the children of Israel and for the STRANGER that sojourneth among them.” Deut. xxvii. 19. ”Cursed be he that PERVERTETH THE JUDGMENT OF THE STRANGER.”[A] Deut. xxvii. 19.
[Footnote A: In a work ent.i.tled, ”Instruction in the Mosaic Religion” by Professor Jholson, of the Jewish seminary at Frankfort-on-the-Main, translated into English by Rabbi Leeser, we find the following.--Sec.
165. ”Question. Does holy writ any where make a difference between the Israelite and the other who is no Israelite, in those laws and prohibitions which forbid us the _committal of any thing against our fellow men?_”
”Answer. No where we do find a trace of such a difference. See Lev. xix.
33-36.”
”G.o.d says thou shalt not murder, _steal_, cheat, &c. In every place the action _itself_ is prohibited as being an abomination to G.o.d _without respect to the PERSONS against whom it is committed_.” ]
X. THE MOSAIC SYSTEM ENJOINED THE GREATEST AFFECTION AND KINDNESS TOWARDS SERVANTS, FOREIGN AS WELL AS JEWISH.
”The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself.” Lev. xix. 34. ”For the Lord your G.o.d * * REGARDETH NOT PERSONS. He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and LOVETH THE STRANGER, in giving him food and raiment, LOVE YE THEREFORE THE STRANGER.” Deut. x. 17, 19. ”Thou shalt neither vex a STRANGER nor oppress him.” Ex. xxii. 21. ”Thou shalt not oppress a STRANGER, for ye know the heart of a stranger.” Ex. xxiii. 9.
”If thy brother be waxen poor thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a STRANGER or a sojourner, that he may live with thee, take thou no usury of him or increase, but fear thy G.o.d.” Lev. xxv. 35, 36. Could this same stranger be taken by one that feared his G.o.d, and held as a slave, and robbed of time, earnings, and all his rights?
XI. SERVANTS WERE PLACED UPON A LEVEL WITH THEIR MASTERS IN ALL CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS RIGHTS. Num. xv. 15, 16, 29; ix. 14; Deut. i. 16, 17; Lev.
xxiv. 22. To these may be added that numerous cla.s.s of pa.s.sages which represents G.o.d as regarding _alike_ the natural rights of _all_ men, and making for all an _equal_ provision. Such as, 2 Chron. xix. 7; Prov.
xxiv. 23, xxviii. 21; Job. x.x.xiv. 19, 2 Sam. xiv. 14; Acts x. 35; Eph.
vi. 9.
Finally--With such watchful jealousy did the Mosaic Inst.i.tutes guard the _rights_ of servants, as to make the mere fact of a servant's escape from his master presumptive evidence that his master had _oppressed_ him; and on that presumption, annulled his master's authority over him, gave him license to go wherever he pleased, and commanded all to protect him. Deut. xxiii. 15, 16. As this regulation will be examined under a subsequent head, where its full discussion more appropriately belongs, we notice it here merely to point out its bearings on the topic under consideration.
THESE ARE REGULATIONS OF THAT MOSAIC SYSTEM WHICH IS CLAIMED BY SLAVEHOLDERS AS THE PROTOTYPE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.
II. WERE PERSONS MADE SERVANTS AGAINST THEIR WILLS?
We argue that they became servants of _their own accord,_ because,
I. TO BECOME A SERVANT WAS TO BECOME A PROSELYTE. Whoever of the strangers became a servant, he was required to abjure idolatry, to enter into covenant with G.o.d[A], be circ.u.mcised in token of it, be bound to keep the Sabbath, the Pa.s.sover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, and to receive instruction in the moral and ceremonial law.
Were the servants _forced_ through all these processes? Was the renunciation of idolatry _compulsory_? Were they _dragged_ into covenant with G.o.d? Were they seized and circ.u.mcised by _main strength_? Were they _compelled_ mechanically to chew and swallow the flesh of the Paschal lamb, while they abhorred the inst.i.tution, spurned the laws that enjoined it, detested its author and its executors, and instead of rejoicing in the deliverance which it commemorated, bewailed it as a calamity, and cursed the day of its consummation? Were they _driven_ from all parts of the land three times in the year to the annual festivals? Were they drugged with instruction which they nauseated? Were they goaded through a round of ceremonies, to them senseless and disgusting mummeries; and drilled into the tactics of a creed rank with loathed abominations? We repeat it, to become a _servant_, was to become a _proselyte_. Did G.o.d authorize his people to make proselytes at the point of the bayonet? by the terror of pains and penalties? by converting men into _merchandise?_ Were _proselyte and chattel_ synonymes in the Divine vocabulary? Must a man be sunk to a _thing_ before taken into covenant with G.o.d? Was this the stipulated condition of adoption? the sure and sacred pa.s.sport to the communion of the saints?
[Footnote A: Maimonides, a contemporary with Jarchi, and who stands with him at the head of Jewish writers, gives the following testimony on this point: ”Whether a servant be born in the power of an Israelite, or whether he be purchased from the heathen, the master is to bring them both into the covenant.
”But he that is in the _house_ is entered on the eighth day, and he that is bought with money, on the day on which his master receives him, unless the slave be _unwilling_. For if the master receive a grown slave, and he be _unwilling_, his master is to bear with him, to seek to win him over by instruction, and by love and kindness, for one year.
After which, should he _refuse_ so long, it is forbidden to keep him longer than a year. And the master must send him back to the strangers from whence he came. For the G.o.d of Jacob will not accept any other than the wors.h.i.+p of a _willing_ heart.”--Maimon, Hilcoth Miloth, Chap. 1, Sec. 8.
The ancient Jewish Doctors a.s.sert that the servant from the Strangers who at the close of his probationary year, refused to adopt the Jewish religion and was on that account sent back to his own people, received a _full compensation_ for his services, besides the payment of his expenses. But that _postponement_ of the circ.u.mcision of the foreign servant for a year (_or even at all_ after he had entered the family of an Israelite) of which the Mishnic doctors speak, seems to have been _a mere usage_. We find nothing of it in the regulations of the Mosaic system. Circ.u.mcision was manifestly a rite strictly _initiatory_.
Whether it was a rite merely _national_ or _spiritual_, or _both_, comes not within the scope of this inquiry. ]
II. THE SURRENDER OF FUGITIVE SERVANTS TO THEIR MASTERS WAS PROHIBITED.