there can be little doubt that this degradation of the mass of the people must have aided the arms of the invader. The Hebrew nation was liable to the same evil. “Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead… and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen.”[1]
Now (1) as to war, we have seen that the Hebrew Lawgiver, without forbidding war, practically discouraged it; and that he almost prohibited conquest by prohibiting the means of it, forced service in war, and a standing army of chariots and horsemen:[2] (2) as to kidnapping, he enacts that not only the stealer of a man, but the receiver of a man who has been stolen, shall be punished with death:[3] (3) as to penal servitude, we have seen the single instance in
- ↑ 2 Kings iv. 1.
- ↑ That is, of course, when they had once conquered the land of Canaan. And, as the Canaanites were to be destroyed, this conquest would not be a source of slaves, like those of the Dorians and other tribes who reduced the old inhabitants of the conquered country to bondage. This is not the place to discuss the tremendous moral questions connected with the penal destruction of the Canaanites. But it may be remarked that had they been spared and reduced to slavery, the result, judging from analogy, would have been the deep corruption of the Chosen People. With abundance of slave labour, the Jews would not have taken to industry, nor have acquired the virtues which industry alone can produce and guard. Their fate would have been like that of the Turks and other conquering hordes of the East, which, the rush of conquest once over, not being forced to labour, have sunk into mere sloth and abject sensuality. And if the morals of the Canaanites are truly painted in the Pentateuch, the possession of such slaves would have been depraving in the highest degree.
- ↑ “And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.”—Exod. xxi. 16.
