BOOK I.
[Page 4].—Emancipation of servants.] The Mosaic law did not prohibit domestic slavery, which, being universal in the ancient world, it would have been impossible to banish from among any single people;—it only endeavoured to mitigate those evils which slavery must bring with it, especially among a people little softened by civilisation. In particular, its regulations were directed to prevent the mischiefs which resulted in other countries from the hostility against their master, which is engendered in the minds of slaves, who see no prospect of any termination to their miseries but that of their lives. Foreign slaves might be purchased and retained during their whole lifetime in slavery; (Lev. xxv. 45, 46.) but if a native Israelite had been reduced to servitude by poverty, Josephus (Ant. iii. 12. xvi. 1.) adds, by crime, he was to be set free at the end of seven years, or in the year of Jubilee, if this occurred before his seven years of service had expired. (Exod. xxi. 2-6. Lev. xxv. 39. Deut. xv. 12-18.) It would, however, frequently happen that a servant would have formed an attachment to his master’s house, which would make him unwilling to leave it, especially as the children, who might have been born to him by a female slave in the family, continued the property of his master. (Exod. xxi. 4.) In this case he was allowed to bind himself to his service for ever: the compact, to prevent false claims on the master’s part, taking place in the presence of witnesses, with the ceremonies described in the text. Josephus (Ant. iv. 8. 28.) appears to suppose, that even then he was released in the fiftieth year. The time immediately preceding the Passover is said to have been usually chosen for the manumission of those who were to receive their freedom. (Reland, Ant. Sacr. Heb. 452. Michaelis, Mos. Law, § 122-127.)
[Page 6].—Thavech.] היך (τὸ μεσὸν, Luke v. 19.) is a Hebrew word denoting the midst, and applied to the court which formed the centre of the buildings of the house. See Shaw’s Travels, p. 208.
[Page 6].—Presents for the host.] “It is counted uncivil to visit in this country without a gift in the hand. All great men expect it, as a kind of tribute due to their character and authority, and look upon themselves as affronted, and indeed defrauded, when this compliment is omitted. Even in familiar visits amongst inferior people you shall seldom have them come, without bringing a flower, or an orange, or some other such token of their respect to the person visited: the Turks in this respect keeping up the ancient oriental custom hinted at, (1 Sam. ix. 7.) ‘If we go, what shall we bring the man of God? there is not a present to bring to the man of God—what have we?’ which words are questionless to be understood as relating to a token of respect, and not a price of divination,”—Maundrell’s Travels, p. 26.
[Page 7].—Respecting the construction of the better kind of houses in the east, the variegated marble pavements, the fountain with its cypress or palm-trees, the awning stretched over it, &c. see Harmer’s Observations on Scripture, i. 195. Ed. 1776. Russell’s Aleppo, i. 29. Shaw’s Travels, 207.
[Page 8].—Nard.] The costly liquid perfume, called nardus by the ancients, was obtained from the flowers of the Indian plant Valeriana Jatamensi. (Roxburgh, As. Res. iv. No. 33.) From the resemblance of the grains, with which the lower part of the stem is covered, to an ear of corn, it obtained the name of νάρδου στάχυς, spikenard. (Mark xiv. 3. John xii. 3.) When pure, a small quantity of it, such as could be enclosed in a vase of onyx, was esteemed of great value.—Hor. Od. iv. 12.
Sed pressum Calibus ducere Liberum,
Si gestis, juvenum nobilium cliens,
Nardo vina merebere,