In the Samaritan, "Thou
shalt not require him to serve in the service of a servant." In the
Targum of Onkelos, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a
household servant." In the Targum of Jonathan, "Thou shalt not cause him
to serve according to the usages of the servitude of servants."[A] The
meaning of the passage is, _thou shalt not assign him to the same grade,
nor put him to the same service, with permanent domestics._ The
remainder of the regulation is,--"_But as an hired servant and as a
sojourner shall he be with thee._" Hired servants were not incorporated
into the families of their masters: they still retained their own family
organization, without the surrender of any domestic privilege, honor, or
authority; and this even though they resided under the same roof with
their master. While bought servants were associated with their master's
families at meals, at the Passover, and at other family festivals, hired
servants and sojourners were not. Ex. xii. 44, 45; Lev. xxii. 10, 11.
Hired servants were not subject to the authority of their masters in any
such sense as the master's wife, children, and bought servants. Hence
the only form of oppressing hired servants spoken of in the Scriptures
as practicable to masters, is that _of keeping back their wages_. To
have taken away such privileges in the case under consideration, would
have been pre-eminent "_rigor_," for it was not a servant born in the
house of a master, not a minor, whose minority had been sold by the
father, neither was it one who had not yet acceded to his inheritance:
nor finally, one who had received the _assignment_ of his inheritance,
but was working off from it an incumbrance, before entering upon its
possession and control. But it was that of _the head of a family_, who
had known better days, now reduced to poverty, forced to relinquish the
loved inheritance of his fathers, with the competence and respectful
consideration its possession secured to him, and to be indebted to a
neighbor for shelter, sustenance, and employment. So sad a reverse,
might well claim sympathy; but one consolation cheers him in the house
of his pilgrimage; he is an _Israelite--Abraham is his father_, and now
in his calamity he clings closer than ever, to the distinction conferred
by his birth-right. To rob him of this, were "the unkindest cut of all."
To have assigned him to a grade of service filled only by those whose
permanent business was serving, would have b