“bought with his money,” as well as servants “born in his house.”
But the bondage of Abraham’s servants, whether born in his house or bought with his money, can scarcely be called slavery. It is domestic, not merely in the modern, but in the patriarchal sense of the term. In the lonely encampment the head of the tribe must live entirely with his servants. He has no other companions or friends. He is not a member of a class of freemen, nor are they members of a class of slaves: no feeling of contempt therefore can arise in his mind, nor of degradation in theirs. He and his children work as they do. Jacob seethes the pottage while Esau seeks food by hunting, and the patriarch feels it no disgrace to serve Laban as a common herdsman.
The son is a bondman as well as the servant. Under the family despotism of the Romans he could obtain his liberty only by thrice going through the form of being sold by his father as a slave; and then he ceased to be, in the fullest sense, a member of the family. The eldest son alone was distinguished above the rest of those “in the father’s hand,” by having the birthright and being the destined head of the tribe in his turn. And if there was no son, a bondman took the inheritance. “And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me Thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.”[1]
When the family rite of circumcision, the pledge of
