The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 2 — Section 159

EXPOSITION. CHAPTER X.X.I begin the world afresh. The hum11ne spirit of the legislation is strikingly marked in its THE Bool!. OF TOE Covn.ANT.-Conb'nued. very first enactment. l. /.,a~. OltflMC/«i witA tM righhi of per- Ver. 3.-If he oame in by hhuelt, etc. @011i ( ,·el'I!. 1-32 ). The regulations of this The fil"Bt clause of this verse is further section concern-I. Slavery (v8l'I!. 2--tl); 2. explained in the next; the second secured to the "l'lcife "l'l·ho went into slavery with her Murder and other kinds of homicide (verR. husband a participation in hie privilege of 12-15 and 20, 21); 3. Man-st.ealing (ver. release at the end of the sixth year. 16): 4. Striking or cursing of parents (verR. Ver. 4.-If hia muter have given him a 15, 17); 5. Assaults and injuries to the per- wife. If the slave was unmarried when he ~on not resulting in death (vtlrs. 18, 19, and went into serv:itude, or if his wife died, and bis master then gave him a wife from among 22-27), both in the case of free men and of his female slaves, the master was not to lose sla,-es : and 6. Injuries done by cattle both to his property in his female slave by reason of free men and to slaves (vers. 28-32). The hav:ing permitted the marriage. When the chief bodily injury whereto women are liable man claimed his freedom at the end of the is not mentioned. A later enactment (Dent. sixth year, he was to "go out" alone. Should children have been born, they were also to be xxii. 25-29) made it expiable by marriage, the property of the master and to -remain or else a capital offence. There are no other members of his household. No doubt these remarkable omissions. provisos, which cannot be regarded as unjust, had the effect of inducing many Hebrew Ver. 1. Theae are the juclgmenta. The slaves not to claim their release (vers. 5, 6) 'term " judgment" applies most properly to Vers. 5, 6.-I love my master, etc. Affec- the decisions of courts and the laws founded tion might grow up between the slave and 1 upon them. Ko doubt the laws contained in the master, if he were well treated. The the " Book of the Covenant " were to a large Hebrew form of 6lavery was altogether of 11 ""tent old hiws, which bed been often acted mild kind. MasterR are admonished to treat on ; but we should do wrong to suppose that their slaves " not as bond-servants, but as there was nothing new in the lcgisla.tion. hired servants or sojournerR," and ago.in " not The Hebrew mishpliat is used with some to rule over them with rigour " (Lev. xxv. VA,.,"11.Cness. 39, 40, 43). Even among the heathen, slaves often bore a true affection to their masters. Vers 2-11.-Slaoery. Ver. 2. If thou buy Or, the 6lave might be so attached to his wife an Hebrew servant. Slavery, it is clear, was and children as to be unwilling to separate a.n exming institution. The law oi Moses from them, and might prefer 6lavery with the did not ma.kc it, but found it, and by not for- solace of their society to freedom without it. l,idding, allowed it. The Divine legislator For such cases the provision was made, which is contained in ver. 6. On the slave declaring was content under the circumstances to intro- to his master his unwillingness to go free, the duce mitigations and allev:iatione into the master might take him before the judges, or slave condition. Hebrews commonly became magistrates (literally " gods ") DB witnesses, 6laves through poverty (Lev. xxv. 35, 39), and perhaps registrars of the man's declara- but sometimes through crime (eh. :uii. 3). tion, and might then reconduct him to his house, and by a significant ceremony mark In the aeventh he shall go out. Not in the him as his 6lave "for ever." The ceremony Sabbatical year, but at the coilllilencement of consisted in boring through one of his ears the seventh year after he became a slave. If with an awl, and driving the awl into the the jubilee year happened to occur, he might door or doorpost of the house, thereby attach- ue released liOoner (Lev. xxv. 40); but in any ing him physically to the dwelling of which ca.se his servitude must end when the sixth he became thenceforth a permanent inmate. vear of it was completed. This was an Al.most all commentators assert that some ;,normow; boon, and hod nothing, so far as is snch custom was common in the Eut in con- kuown, correspondent to it in the legi6lation nection with slavery, and refer to Xeu . .A.nab. of any other colllltry. Nor was this all. iii. 1, § 31; Plaut. Pamul. v. 2, 21; Juv. \\'hen he went ont free, his late master was Sat. i. 104 ; Plutarch. Vit. Cic. § 26, etc. But J,.,und to furnish him with provisions out of these passages merely show that the Orientals im flock, and ont of his threshing floor, and generally-not slaves in particular-bad their "ut or Ll,, wineprc•• '.lJcut. xv. 12--14), so e.ars bored for the purpose of wearing ear- that Le might h11\C ,,,welLiug- wherewit.h to rings, and indicate no usage at all cornparalile en. XXI, 7-14.] THE BOOK OF EXODUS. lGi