, "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 domestic 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 indispensable 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. "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: 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.

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, "Both thy bondmen, &c., shall be of the
_heathen_. Of THEM shall ye buy," &c. "THEY shall be your possession."
To say nothing of the uncertainty of _those individuals_ surviving those
_after_ whom they are to live, the language used, applies more naturally
to a _body_ of people, than to _individual_ servants. Besides
_perpetual_ service cannot be argued from the term _forever_. The ninth
and tenth verses of the same chapter, limit it absolutely by the
jubilee. "Then thou shalt cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound * *
throughout ALL your land." "And ye shall proclaim liberty throughout all
the land unto ALL the inhabitants thereof." It may be objected that
"inhabitants