That the patriarchal state of servitude which existed in the time of Abraham was a very different thing from American slavery, a few graphic incidents in the scripture narrative show; for we read that when the angels came to visit Abraham, although he had three hundred servants born in his house, it is said that Abraham hasted, and took a calf, and killed it, and gave it to a young man to dress; and that he told Sarah to take three measures of meal and knead it into cakes; and that, when all was done, he himself set it before his guests.
From various other incidents which appear in the patriarchal narrative, it would seem that these servants bore more the relation of the members of a Scotch clan to their feudal lord than that of an American slave to his master;—thus it seems that if Abraham had died without children, his head servant would have been his heir.—Gen. 15:3.
Of what species, then, was the slavery which God permitted among the Hebrews? By what laws was it regulated?
In the New Testament the whole Hebrew system of administration is spoken of as a relatively imperfect one, and as superseded by the Christian dispensation.—Heb. 8:13.
We are taught thus to regard the Hebrew system as an educational system, by which a debased, half-civilized race, which had been degraded by slavery in its worst form among the Egyptians, was gradually elevated to refinement and humanity.
As they went from the land of Egypt, it would appear that the most disgusting personal habits, the most unheard-of and unnatural impurities, prevailed among them; so that it was necessary to make laws with relation to things of which Christianity has banished the very name from the earth.
Beside all this, polygamy, war and slavery, were the universal custom of nations.
It is represented in the New Testament that God, in educating this people, proceeded in the same gradual manner in which a wise father would proceed with a family of children.
He selected a few of the most vital points of evil practice, and forbade them by positive statute, under rigorous penalties.
The worship of any other god was, by the Jewish law, constituted high treason, and rigorously punished with death.