stics, 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 the
_heathen_ (the nations) that are round about you. OF THEM shall ye buy
bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do
sojourn among you, OF THEM shall ye buy," &c. The design of this passage
is manifest from its structure. It was to point out the _class_ of
persons from which they were to get their supply of servants, and the
_way_ in which they were to get them. That "_forever_" refers to the
permanent relations of a _community_, rather than to the services of
_individuals_, is a fair inference from the form of the expression,
"THEY shall be your