and without figure, property, and the owner of that property, is a
solecism. Ziba was an "_ebedh_," yet he "_owned_" (!) twenty _ebedhs_!
In our language, we have both _servant_ and _slave_. Why? Because we
have both the _things_, and need _signs_ for them. If the tongue had a
sheath, as swords have scabbards, we should have some _name_ for it: but
our dictionaries give us none. Why? Because there is no such _thing_.
But the objector asks, "Would not the Israelites use their word _ebedh_
if they spoke of the slave of a heathen?" Answer. Their _national_
servants or tributaries, are spoken of frequently, but domestics
servants so rarely, that no necessity existed, even if they were slaves,
for coining a new word. Besides, the fact of their being domestics,
under _heathen laws and usages_, proclaimed their liabilities; their
_locality_ made a _specific_ term unnecessary. But if the Israelites had
not only _servants_, but a multitude of _slaves_, a _word meaning
slave_, would have been indispensible for every day convenience.
Further, the laws of the Mosaic system were so many sentinels on the
outposts to warn off foreign practices. The border ground of Canaan, was
quarantine ground, enforcing the strictest non-intercourse in usages
between the without and the within.

2. "BUY." The _buying_ of servants, is discussed at length. pp. 17-23.
To that discussion the reader is referred. We will add in this place but
a single consideration. This regulation requiring the Israelites to
_"buy"_ servants of the heathen, prohibited their taking them without
buying. _Buying_ supposes two parties: a _price_ demanded by one and
paid by the other, and consequently, the _consent_ of both buyer and
seller, to the transaction. Of course the command to the Israelites to
_buy_ servants of the heathen, prohibited their getting them unless they
first got _somebody's_ consent to the transaction, and paid to
_somebody_ a fair equivalent. Now, who were these _somebodies_? This at
least is plain, they were not _Israelites_, but heathen. "Of _them_
shall ye buy." Who then were these _somebodies_, whose right was so
paramount, that _their_ consent must be got and the price paid must go
into _their_ pockets? Were they the persons themselves who became
servants, or some _other_ persons. "Some _other_ persons to be sure,"
says the objector, "the countrymen or the neighbors of those who become
servants." Ah! this then is the import of the Divine command to