Still earlier Abraham appears to have adopted a house-born slave, his faithful and devoted steward Eliezer, as a son (Gen. xv, 2) — a practice still very common in the East. A boy is often purchased young, adopted by his master, brought up in his faith, and ed- ucated as his son ; or if the owner has a daughter, he adopts him through a marriage with that daughter, and the family which springs from this union is count- ed as descended from him. But house-born slaves are usually preferred, as these have never had any home but their master's house, are considered mem- bers of his family, and are generally the most faithful of his adherents. This practice was very common among the Romans, and is more than once referred to by Paul (Rom. viii, 15; 1 Cor. ii, 12); the transition from the condition of a slave to that of a son, and the privilege of applying the tender name of "father" to the former " master," affording a beautiful illustra- tion of the change which takes place from the bond- age of the law to the freedom and privileges of the Christian state.
As in most cases the adopted son was considered dead to the family from which he sprung, the separa- tion of natural ties and connections was avoided by this preference of slaves, who were mostly foreigners or of foreign descent. For the same reason the Chi- nese make their adoptions from children in the hospi- tals who have been abandoned by their parents [Mem. sur les Chinois, vi, 325). The Tartars prefer to .adopt their near relatives — nephews or cousins, or, failing them, a Tartar of their own banner (ib. iv, 13G). In like manner Jacob adopted his own grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh to be counted as his sons (Gen. xlviii, 6). The object of this remarkable adoption was, that, whereas Joseph himself could only have one share of his father's heritage along with his brothers, the adop- tion of his two sons enabled Jacob, through them, to bestow two portions upon his favorite son. The adop- tion of Moses by Pharaoh's daughter (Exod. ii, 1-10) is an incident rather than a practice ; but it recalls what has just been stated respecting the adoption of outcast children by the Chinese.
A man who had only a daughter often married her to a freed slave, and the children were counted as those of the woman's father, or the husband himself is adopted as a son. Thus Sheshan, of the tribe of Ju- dah, gave his daughter to Jarha, an Egyptian slave
(whom, as the Targum premises, he no doubt liberated on that occasion) : the posterity of the marriage are not, however, reckoned to Jarha, the husband of the woman, but to her father, Sheshan, and as his descend- ants they take their heritage and station in Israel (1 Chron. ii, 34 sq.). So Machir (grandson of Joseph) gave his daughter in marriage to Hezron, of the tribe of Judah. She gave birth to Segub, who was the la- ther of Jair (q. v.). This Jair possessed twenty-three cities in the land of Gilead, which came to him in right of his grandmother, the daughter of Machir ; and he acquired other towns in the same quarter, which made up his possessions to threescore towns or vil- lages (1 Chron. ii, 21-24 ; Josh, xiii, 9 ; 1 Kings iv, 13). Now this Jair, though of the tribe of Judah by his grandfather, is, in Num. xxxii, 41, counted as of Manasseh, because through his grandmother he inher- ited the property, and was the lineal representative of Machir, the son of Manasseh. This case illustrates the difference between the pedigree of Christ as given by Matthew and that in Luke — the former being the pedigree through Joseph, his supposed father, and the latter through his mother, Mary. This opinion [see Genealogy] supposes that Mary was the daughter of Heli, and that Joseph is called his son (Luke iii, 23) becaiise he was adopted by Heli when he married his daughter, who was an heiress, as has been pre- sumed from the fact of her going to Bethlehem to be registered when in the last stage of pregnancy. Her heirship, however, is not essential to this relation, and her journey may rather have been in order to continue under the protection of her husband during such a pe- riod of suspicion.
By the time of Christ the Jews had, through various channels, become well acquainted with the more re- markable customs of the Greeks and Romans, as is ap- parent particularly from the epistles of Paul. In John viii, 3G, " If the son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed," is supposed by Grotius and other com- mentators to refer to a custom in some of the cities of Greece and elsewhere, called act\<po9t<jia, whereby the son and heir was permitted to adopt brothers and admit them to the same rights which he himself en- joyed. But it seems more likely that the reference was to the more familiar Roman custom, by which the son, after his father's death, often made free such as were born slaves in his house (Theophil. Antecensor, I nst it ut. Imp. Justinian, i, G, 5). In Rom. viii, 23, vio9taiav airtKpixoptvoi, " anxiously waiting for the adoption," the former word appears to be used in a sense different from that which it bears in ver. 15, and to signify the consummation of the act there mention- ed, in which point of view it is conceived to apply to the twofold ceremony among the Romans. The one was the private act between the parties ; and if the person to be adopted was not already the slave of the adopter, this private transaction involved the purchase of him from his parents when practicable. In this? manner Cains and Lucius were purchased from their father Agrippa before their adoption by Augustus. The other was the public acknowledgment of that act on the part of the adopter, when the adopted person was solemnly avowed and declared to be his son. The peculiar force and propriety of stub an allusion in an epistle to the Romans must be very evident. In Gal. iv, 5, G, there is a very clear allusion to the privilege (if adopted slaves to address their former master by the endearing title of Abba, or father. Seidell has shown that slaves were not allowed to use this word in addressing the master of the family to which they lie- longed, nor the corresponding title of Mama, mother, when speaking to the mistress of it (De Succ. in Bona Defunct, secund. Hebr. c. iv).— Kitto, s. v.