head
that servants were always invited guests at public and social festivals,
is in perfect keeping with the foregoing exemplifications of the
prevalent estimation in which servants were held by the Israelites.

Probably no one of the Old Testament patriarchs had more servants than
Job; "This man was the greatest man of all the men of the east." Job, i.
3. We are not left in the dark as to the condition of his servants.
After asserting his integrity, his strict justice, honesty, and equity,
in his dealings with his fellow men, and declaring "I delivered the
poor," "I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame," "I was a
father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out," * *
* he says "If I did despise the cause of my man-servant or my
maid-servant when they CONTENDED with me * * * then let mine arm fall
from the shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone." Job.
xxix. 12, 15, 16; xxxi. 13, 22. The language employed in this passage is
the phraseology applied in judicial proceedings to those who implead one
another, and whether it be understood literally or figuratively, shows
that whatever difference existed between Job and his servants in other
respects, so far as _rights_ are concerned, they were on equal ground
with him, and that in the matter of daily intercourse, there was not the
least restraint on their _free speech_ in calling in question all his
transactions with them, and that the relations and claims of both
parties were adjudicated on the principles of equity and reciprocal
right. "If I _despised_ the cause of my man-servant," &c. In other
words, if I treated it lightly, as though servants were not men, had not
rights, and had not a claim for just dues and just estimation as human
beings. "When they _contended_ with me," that is, when they plead their
rights, claimed what was due to them, or questioned the justice of any
of my dealings with them.

In the context Job virtually affirms as the ground of his just and
equitable treatment of his servants, that they had the same rights as he
had, and were, as human beings, entitled to equal consideration with
himself. By what language could he more forcibly utter his conviction of
the oneness of their common origin and of the identity of their common
nature, necessities, attribute and rights? As soon as he has said, "If I
did despise the cause of my man-servant," &c., he follows it up with
"What then shall I do when God raiseth up? a