None but the lowest class seem to have engaged as hired servants. No instance occurs in which they are assigned to business demanding much knowledge or skill. Various passages show the low repute and trifling character of the class from which they were hired. Judges ix. 4; 1 Sam. ii. 5.
The superior condition and privileges of bought servants, are manifested in the high trusts confided to them, and in the dignity and authority with which they were clothed in their master's household. But in no instance is a hired servant thus distinguished. In some cases, the bought servant is manifestly the master's representative in the family—with plenipotentiary powers over adult children, even negotiating marriage for them. Abraham besought Eliezer his servant, to take a solemn oath, that HE would not take a wife for Isaac of the daughters of the Canaanites, but from Abraham's kindred. The servant went accordingly, and himself selected the individual. Servants also exercised discretionary power in the management of their master's estate, "And the servant took ten camels, of the camels of his master, for all the goods of his master were under his hand." Gen. xxiv. 10. The reason assigned for taking them, is not that such was Abraham's direction, but that the servant had discretionary control. Servants had also discretionary power in the disposal of property. See Gen. xxiv. 22, 23, 53. The condition of Ziba in the house of Mephiboseth, is a case in point. So is Prov. xvii. 2. Distinct traces of this estimation are to be found in the New Testament, Math. xxiv. 45; Luke xii. 42, 44. So in the parable of the talents; the master seems to have set up each of his servants in trade with considerable capital. One of them could not have had less than eight thousand dollars. The parable of the unjust steward is another illustration. Luke xvi. 4, 8. He evidently was entrusted with large discretionary power, was "accused of wasting his master's goods." and manifestly regulated with his master's debtors, the terms of settlement. Such trusts were never reposed in hired servants.
The inferior condition of hired servants, is illustrated in the parable of the prodigal son. When the prodigal, perishing with hunger among the swine and husks, came to himself, his proud heart broke; "I will arise," he cried, "and go to my father." And then to assure his father of the depth of his humility, resolved to add imploringly, "Make me as one of thy hired servants." It need not be remarked, that if hired servants were the superior class; to apply for the situation, and press the suit, savored little of that sense of unworthiness that seeks the dust with hidden face, and cries "unclean." Unhumbled nature climbs; or if it falls, clings fast, where first it may. Humility sinks of its own weight, and in the lowest deep, digs lower. The design of the parable was to illustrate on the one hand, the joy of God, as he beholds afar off, the returning sinner "seeking an injured father's face" who runs to clasp and bless him with an unchiding welcome; and on the other, the contrition of the penitent, turning homeward with tears, from his wanderings, his stricken spirit breaking with its ill-desert, he sobs aloud, "The lowest place, the lowest place, I can abide no other." Or in those inimitable words, "Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy HIRED servants." The supposition that hired servants were the highest class, takes from the parable an element of winning beauty and pathos. It is manifest to every careful student of the Bible, that one class of servants, was on terms of equality with the children and other members of the family. (Hence the force of Paul's declaration, Gal. iv. 1, "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all.") If this were the hired class, the prodigal was a sorry specimen of humility. Would our Lord have put such language, into the lips of one held up by himself, as a model of gospel humility, to illustrate its lowliness, its conscious destitution of all merit, and deep sense of all ill desert? If this is humility, put it on stilts, and set it a strutting, while pride takes lessons, and blunders in apeing it.
Here let it be observed, that both Israelites and Strangers, belonged indiscriminately to each class of the servants, the bought and the hired. That those in the former class, whether Jews or Strangers, were in higher estimation, and rose to honors and authority in the family circle, which were not conferred on hired servants, has been already shown. It should be added, however, that in the enjoyment of privileges, merely political and national, the hired servants from the Israelites, were more favored than either the hired, or the bought servants from the Strangers. No one from the Strangers, however wealthy or highly endowed, was eligible to the highest office, nor could he own the soil. This last disability seems to have been one reason for the different periods of service required of the two classes of bought servants—the Israelites and the Strangers. The Israelite was to serve six years—the Stranger until the jubilee[A].
[A]: Both classes may with propriety be called permanent servants; even the bought Israelite, when his six-years' service is contrasted with the brief term of the hired servant.
As the Strangers could not own the soil, nor even houses, except within walled towns, most of them would choose to attach themselves permanently to Israelitish families. Those Strangers who were wealthy, or skilled in manufactures, instead of becoming servants themselves, would need servants for their own use, and as inducements for the Strangers to become servants to the Israelites, were greater than persons of their own nation could hold out to them, these wealthy Strangers would naturally procure the poorer Israelites for servants. See Levit. xxv. 47. In a word, such was the political condition of the Strangers, the Jewish polity furnished a strong motive to them, to become servants, thus incorporating themselves with the nation, and procuring those social and religious privileges already enumerated, and for their children in the second generation, a permanent inheritance. (This last was a regulation of later date. Ezekiel xlvii. 21-23.) Indeed, the structure of the whole Mosaic polity, was a virtual bounty offered to those who would become permanent servants, and merge in the Jewish system their distinct nationality. None but the monied aristocracy among them, would be likely to decline such offers.
For various reasons, this class, (the servants bought from the Strangers,) would prefer a long service. They would thus more effectually become absorbed into the national circulation, and identify their interests with those in whose gift were all things desirable for themselves, and brighter prospects for their children. On the other hand, the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land being a sort of sacred possession, to hold it free of incumbrance, was, with every Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor and personal character. 1 Kings xxi. 3. Hence, to forego the possession of one's inheritance, after the division of the paternal domain, or to be restrained from its control, after having acceded to it, was a burden grievous to be borne. To mitigate, as much as possible, such a calamity, the law, instead of requiring the Israelite to continue a servant until the jubilee, released him at the end six years[A], as, during that time—if, of the first class—the partition of the patrimonial land might have taken place; or, if of the second, enough money might have been earned to disencumber his estate, and thus he might assume his station as a lord of the soil. If these contingencies had not occurred, then, at the end of another six years, the opportunity was again offered, and in the same manner until the jubilee. So while strong motives urged the Israelite, to discontinue his service as soon as the exigency had passed, which induced him to become a servant, every consideration impelled the Stranger to prolong his term of service; and the same kindness which dictated the law of six years' service for the Israelite, assigned as the general rule, a much longer period to the Gentile servant, who, instead of being tempted to a brief service, had every inducement to protract the term.
[A]: Another reason for protracting the service until the seventh year, seems to have been, its coincidence with other arrangements, and provisions, inseparable from the Jewish economy. That period was a favorite one in the Mosaic system. Its pecuniary responsibilities, social relations and general internal structure, if not graduated upon a septennial scale, were variously modified by the lapse of the period. Another reason doubtless was, that as those Israelites who became servants through poverty, would not sell themselves, except as a last resort when other expedients to recruit their finances had failed—(See Lev. xxv. 35)—their becoming servants proclaimed such a state of their affairs, as demanded the labor of a course of years fully to reinstate them.
It is important to a clear understanding of the whole subject, to keep in mind that adult Jews ordinarily became servants, only as a temporary expedient to relieve themselves from embarrassment, and ceased to be such when that object was effected. The poverty that forced them to it was a calamity, and their service was either a means of relief, or a measure of prevention. It was not pursued as a permanent business, but resorted to on emergencies—a sort of episode in the main scope of their lives. Whereas with the Strangers, it was a permanent employment, pursued not merely as a means of bettering their own condition, and prospectively that of their posterity, but also, as an end for its own sake, conferring on them privileges, and a social estimation not otherwise attainable.
We see from the foregoing, why servants purchased from the heathen, are called by way of distinction, the servants, (not bondmen, as our translators have it.) (1.) They followed it as a permanent business. (2.) Their term of service was much longer than that of the other class. (3.) As a class, they doubtless greatly outnumbered the Israelitish servants. (4.) All the Strangers that dwelt in the land, were tributaries to the Israelites—required to pay an annual tribute to the government, either in money, or in public service, which was called a "tribute of bond-service;" in other words, all the Strangers were national servants, to the Israelites, and the same Hebrew word which is used to designate individual servants, equally designates national servants or tributaries. 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6, 14. 2 Chron. viii. 7-9. Deut. xx. 11. 2 Sam. x. 19. 1 Kings ix. 21, 22. 1 Kings iv. 21. Gen. xxvii. 29. The same word is applied to the Israelites, when they paid tribute to other nations. See 2 Kings xvii. 3. Judges iii. 8, 14. Gen. xlix. 15. Another distinction between the Jewish and Gentile bought servants, claims notice. It was in the kinds of service assigned to each class. The servants from the Strangers, were properly the domestics, or household servants, employed in all family work, in offices of personal attendance, and in such mechanical labor, as was constantly required in every family, by increasing wants, and needed repairs. On the other hand, the Jewish bought servants seem to have been almost exclusively agricultural. Besides being better fitted for this by previous habits—agriculture, and the tending of cattle, were regarded by the Israelites as the most honorable of all occupations; kings engaged in them. After Saul was elected king, and escorted to Gibeah, the next report of him is, "And behold Saul came after the herd out of the field."—1 Sam. xi. 7.