ongue 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 _Ebed_
if they spoke of the slave of a heathen?" Answer. The servants of
individuals among the heathen are scarcely ever alluded to. _National_
servants or _tributaries_, are spoken of frequently, but so rarely are
their _domestic_ servants alluded to, 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 told their condition; so that in applying
to them the word _Ebed_, there would be no danger of being
misunderstood. But if the Israelites had not only _servants_, but
besides these, a multitude of _slaves_, a _word meaning slave_, would
have been indispensable for purposes of every day convenience. Further,
the laws of the Mosaic system were so many sentinels on every side, to
warn off foreign practices. The border ground of Canaan, was quarantine
ground, enforcing the strictest non-intercourse between the _without_
and the _within_, not of _persons_, but of _usages_. The fact that the
Hebrew language had no words corresponding to _slave_ and _slavery_,
though not a conclusive argument, is no slight corroborative.

II. "FOREVER."--"They shall be your bondmen _forever_." This is quoted
to prove that servants were to serve during their life time, and their
posterity, from generation to generation.

No such idea is contained in the passage. The word _forever_, instead of
defining the length of _individual_ service, proclaims the _permanence_
of the regulation laid down in the two verses preceding, namely, that
their _permanent domestics_ should be of the _Strangers_, and not of the
Israelites; and it declares the duration of that general provision. As
if God had said, "You shall _always_ get your _permanent_ laborers from
the nations round about you--your _servants_ shall always be of _that_
class of persons." As it stands in the original, it is plain--"_Forever
of them shall ye serve yourselves_." This is the literal rendering of
the Hebrew words, which, in our version, are translated, "_They shall be
your bondmen forever_."

This construction is in keeping with the whole of the passage. "Both thy
bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of th