The incessant pains taken in the Old Testament to separate human beings from brutes and things, shows God's regard for this, his own distinction. "In the beginning" he proclaimed it to the universe as it rose into being. Creation stood up at the instant of its birth, to do it homage. It paused in adoration while God ushered forth its crowning work. Why that dread pause and that creating arm held back in mid career and that high conference in the godhead? "Let us make man in OUR IMAGE after OUR LIKENESS, and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth." Then while every living thing, with land, and sea, and firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to swell the shout of morning stars—then God created man IN HIS OWN IMAGE; IN THE IMAGE OF GOD created he him." This solves the problem, IN THE IMAGE OF GOD, CREATED HE HIM. This distinction is often repeated and always with great solemnity. In Gen. i. 26-28, it is expressed in various forms. In Gen. v. 1, we find it again, "IN THE LIKENESS OF GOD MADE HE HIM." In Gen. ix. 6, again. After giving license to shed the blood of "every moving thing that liveth," it is added, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for IN THE IMAGE OF GOD MADE HE MAN." As though it had been said, "All these creatures are your property, designed for your use—they have the likeness of earth, and their spirits go downward; but this other being, MAN, has my own likeness: IN THE IMAGE OF GOD made I man; an intelligent, moral, immortal agent, invited to all that I can give and he can be. So in Lev. xxiv. 17, 18, 21, "He that killeth any MAN shall surely be put to death; and he that killeth a beast shall make it good, beast for beast; and he that killeth a MAN he shall be put to death." So in Ps. viii. 5, 6, we have an enumeration of particulars, each separating infinitely MEN from brutes and things! 1. "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels." Slavery drags him down among brutes. 2. "And hast crowned him with glory and honor." Slavery tears off his crown, and puts on a yoke. 3. "Thou madest him to have dominion[A] OVER the works of thy hands." Slavery breaks his sceptre, and cast him down among those works—yea, beneath them. 4. "Thou hast put all things under his feet." Slavery puts HIM under the feet of an "owner." Who, but an impious scorner, dare thus strive with his Maker, and mutilate HIS IMAGE, and blaspheme the Holy One, who saith, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto ME."
[A]: "Thou madest him to have dominion." In Gen. i. 28, God says to man, "Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth," thus vesting in every human being the right of ownership over the earth, its products and animal life, and in each human being the same right. By so doing God prohibited the exercise of ownership by man over man; for the grant to all men of equal ownership, for ever shut out the possibility of their exercising ownership over each other, as whoever is the owner of a man, is the owner of his right of property—in other words, when one man becomes the property of another his rights become such too, his right of property is transferred to his "owner," and thus as far as himself is concerned, is annihilated. Finally, by originally vesting all men with dominion or ownership over property, God proclaimed the right of all to exercise it, and pronounced every man who takes it away a robber of the highest grade. Such is every slaveholder.
In further prosecuting this inquiry, the Patriarchal and Mosaic systems will be considered together, as each reflects light upon the other, and as many regulations of the latter are mere legal forms of Divine institutions previously existing. As a system, the latter alone is of Divine authority. Whatever were the usages of the patriarchs God has not made them our exemplars.[B] The question to be settled by us, is not what were Jewish customs, but what were the rules that God gave for the regulation of those customs.
[B]: Those who insist that the patriarchs held slaves, and sit with such delight under their shadow, hymning the praises of "those good old slaveholders and patriarchs," might at small cost greatly augment their numbers. A single stanza celebrating patriarchal concubinage, winding off with a chorus in honor of patriarchal drunkenness, would be a trumpet-call, summoning from brothels, bush and brake, highway and hedge, and sheltering fence, a brotherhood of kindred affinities, each claiming Abraham or Noah as his patron saint, and shouting, "My name is legion." A myriad choir and thunderous song!
Before entering upon an analysis of the condition of servants under these two states of society, we will consider the import of certain terms which describe the mode of procuring them.
IMPORT OF "BUY," AND "BOUGHT WITH MONEY."
As the Israelites were commanded to "buy" their servants, and as Abraham had servants "bought with money," it is argued that servants were articles of property! The sole ground for this belief is the terms themselves! How much might be saved, if in discussion, the thing to be proved were always assumed! To beg the question in debate, is vast economy of midnight oil, and a wholesale forestaller of wrinkles and gray hairs. Instead of protracted investigation into Scripture usage, painfully collating passages, to settle the meaning of terms, let every man interpret the oldest book in the world by the usages of his own time and place, and the work is done. And then instead of one revelation, they might be multiplied as the drops of the morning, and every man have an infallible clue to the mind of the Spirit, in the dialect of his own neighborhood! What a Babel-jargon, to take it for granted that the sense in which words are now used, is the inspired sense. David says, "I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried." What, stop the earth in its revolution! Two hundred years ago, prevent was used in its strict Latin sense, to come before, or anticipate. It is always used in this sense in the Old and New Testaments. David's expression, in the English of the nineteenth century, would be "Before the dawning of the morning I cried." In almost every chapter of the Bible, words are used in a sense now nearly, or quite obsolete, and sometimes in a sense totally opposite to their present meaning. A few examples follow: "I purposed to come to you, but was let (hindered) hitherto." "And the four beasts (living ones) fell down and worshiped God,"—"Whosoever shall offend (cause to sin) one of these little ones,"—Go out into the highways and compel (urge) them to come in,"—Only let your conversation (habitual conduct) be as becometh the Gospel,"—"The Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick (living) and the dead,"—They that seek me early (earnestly) shall find me," So when tribulation or persecution ariseth by-and-by (immediately) they are offended." Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like bodies, are always throwing off some particles and absorbing others. So long as they are mere representatives, elected by the whims of universal suffrage, their meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it up for the next century is an employment sufficiently silly (to speak within bounds) for a modern Bible-Dictionary maker. There never was a shallower conceit than that of establishing the sense attached to a word centuries ago, by showing what it means now. Pity that fashionable mantuamakers were not a little quicker at taking hints from some Doctors of Divinity. How easily they might save their pious customers all qualms of conscience about the weekly shiftings of fashion, by proving that the last importation of Parisian indecency now "showing off" on promenade, was the very style of dress in which the modest and pious Sarah kneaded cakes for the angels. Since such a fashion flaunts along Broadway now, it must have trailed over Canaan four thousand years ago!
The inference that the word buy, used to describe the procuring of servants, means procuring them as chattels, seems based upon the fallacy, that whatever costs money is money; that whatever or whoever you pay money for, is an article of property, and the fact of your paying for it, proves it property. 1. The children of Israel were required to purchase their firstborn from under the obligations of the priesthood, Num. xviii. 15, 16; iii. 45-51; Ex. xiii. 13; xxxiv. 20. This custom still exists among the Jews, and the word buy is still used to describe the transaction. Does this prove that their firstborn were or are, held as property? They were bought as really as were servants. 2. The Israelites were required to pay money for their own souls. This is called sometimes a ransom, sometimes an atonement. Were their souls therefore marketable commodities? 3. When the Israelites set apart themselves or their children to the Lord by vow, for the performance of some service, an express statute provided that a price should be set upon the "persons," and it prescribed the manner and terms of the "estimation" or valuation, by the payment of which, the persons might be bought off from the service vowed. The price for males from one month old to five years, was five shekels, for females, three; from five years old to twenty, for males, twenty shekels, for females, ten; from twenty years old to sixty, for males, fifty shekels, for females, thirty; above sixty years old, for males, fifteen shekels, for females, ten, Lev. xxvii. 2-8. What egregious folly to contend that all these descriptions of persons were goods and chattels because they were bought and their prices regulated by law! 4. Bible saints bought their wives. Boaz bought Ruth. "Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased (bought) to be my wife." Ruth iv. 10.[A] Hosea bought his wife. "So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of Barley, and an half homer of barley." Hosea iii. 2. Jacob bought his wives Rachael and Leah, and not having money, paid for them in labor—seven years a piece. Gen. xxix. 15-23. Moses probably bought his wife in the same way, and paid for her by his labor, as the servant of her father.[B] Exod. ii. 21. Shechem, when negotiating with Jacob and his sons for Dinah, says, "Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me." Gen. xxxiv. 11, 12. David purchased Michael, and Othniel, Achsah, by performing perilous services for the fathers of the damsels. 1 Sam. xviii. 25-27; Judg. i. 12, 13. That the purchase of wives, either with money or by service, was the general practice, is plain from such passages as Ex. xxii. 17, and 1 Sam. xviii. 25. Among the modern Jews this usage exists, though now a mere form, there being no real purchase. Yet among their marriage ceremonies, is one called "marrying by the penny." The similarity in the methods of procuring wives and servants, in the terms employed in describing the transactions, and in the prices paid for each, are worthy of notice. The highest price of wives (virgins) and servants was the same. Comp. Deut, xxii. 28, 29, and Ex. xxii. 17, with Lev. xxvii. 2-8. The medium price of wives and servants was the same. Comp. Hos. iii. 2, with Ex. xxi. 32. Hosea seems to have paid one half in money and the other half in grain. Further, the Israelitish female bought-servants were wives, their husbands and masters being the same persons. Ex. xxi. 8, Judg. xix. 3, 27. If buying servants proves them property, buying wives proves them property. Why not contend that the wives of the ancient fathers of the faithful were their "chattels," and used as ready change at a pinch; and thence deduce the rights of modern husbands? Alas! Patriarchs and prophets are followed afar off! When will pious husbands live up to their Bible privileges, and become partakers with Old Testament worthies in the blessedness of a husband's rightful immunities! Refusing so to do, is questioning the morality of those "good old slaveholders and patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
[A]: In the verse preceding, Boaz says, "I have bought all that was Elimelech's * * * of the hand of Naomi." In the original, the same word (kānā) is used in both verses. In the 9th, "a parcel of land" is "bought," in the 10th a "wife" is "bought." If the Israelites had been as profound at inferences as our modern Commentators, they would have put such a fact as this to the rack till they had tortured out of it a divine warrant for holding their wives as property and speculating in the article whenever it happened to be scarce.
[B]: This custom still prevails in some eastern countries. The Crim Tartars, who are poor, serve an apprenticeship for their wives, during which they live under the same roof with them and at the close of it are adopted into the family.