o forbade such treatment of the stranger, who
_voluntarily_ came into the land, sanction the _same_ treatment of the
_same person_, provided in _addition_ to this last outrage, the
_previous_ one had been committed of forcing him into the nation against
his will? To commit violence on the free choice of a _foreign_ servant
is forsooth a horrible enormity, PROVIDED you _begin_ the violence
_after_ he has come among you. But if you commit the _first act_ on the
_other side of the line_; if you begin the outrage by buying him from a
third person against his will, and then tear him from home, drag him
across the line into the land of Israel, and hold him as a slave--ah!
that alters the case, and you may perpetrate the violence now with
impunity! Would _greater_ favor have been shown to this new comer than
to the old residents--those who had been servants in Jewish families
perhaps for a generation? Were the Israelites commanded to exercise
toward _him_, uncircumcised and out of the covenant, a justice and
kindness denied to the multitudes who _were_ circumcised, and _within_
the covenant? But, the objector finds small gain to his argument on the
supposition that the covenant respected merely the fugitives from the
surrounding nations, while it left the servants of the Israelites in a
condition against their wills. In that case, the surrounding nations
would adopt retaliatory measures, and become so many asylums for Jewish
fugitives. As these nations were not only on every side of them, but in
their midst, such a proclamation would have been an effectual lure to
men whose condition was a constant counteraction of will. Besides the
same command which protected the servant from the power of his foreign
_master_, protected him equally from the power of an _Israelite_. It was
not, "Thou shalt not deliver him unto his _master_," but "he shall dwell
with thee, in that place which _he shall choose_ in one of thy gates
where it liketh _him_ best." Every Israelite was forbidden to put him in
any condition _against his will_. What was this but a proclamation, that
all who _chose_ to live in the land and obey the laws, were left to
their own free will, to dispose of their services at such a rate, to
such persons and in such places as they pleased? Besides, grant that
this command prohibited the sending back of _foreign_ servants merely,
there was no law requiring the return of servants who had escaped from
the _Israelites_. _Property_ lo