What is an inhabitant, but one who dwells, or resides in the
place mentioned? “All inhabiting it” is the exact form of expression in
the original. The persons of whom we are speaking inhabited some country,
they dwelt somewhere. It was not in Syria, Arabia, or Egypt, or any other spot
on earth than the land of the Hebrews. Besides for whom was the proclamation of
liberty so obviously necessary. The Hebrew people generally, could not be in
bondage; the hired servants like hired men now, were at liberty to make
their own contracts, and on performing them to go where they pleased. The
Hebrew servants who had been sold to their brethren for debts, could not at the
longest be detained over six years, without their own consent. For whom then,
especially, was the great release, on the return of every fiftieth year from its
first celebration, provided? Was it not for those who of all men most needed
it; for those who otherwise must have remained in bondage until death, leaving
their children and children's children after them, to inherit the same destiny?
Of this sort were Hebrew servants who on the expiration of six years, had
chosen to have their ears pierced in token of perpetual bondage, because they
did not like to be separated from their families, and the foreign servants who
had been bought with money. That the former of these classes were inhabitants
of the land we suppose no one will dispute. Why were not the latter in every
proper sense of the term, as really so? The seal of the Jewish nation, and of
her covenant with God, had been by their priests set upon their flesh. Their
children who had never been in any other land, were like themselves consecrated
to Israel's God. They all, in common with the native Hebrews, were required to
share in the rest and join in the holy employments of the Sabbath; were
admitted to all the solemn feasts, in which strangers had no right to partake;
and shared equally with their masters in all the benefits of the Sabbatical
year, during the whole of which they enjoyed exemption, as well as Hebrew
servants, from labor. Who then will say that when the great circle, or seven
times seven years have revolved, and the loud and joyful trumpets of jubilee
were proclaiming liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants
thereof, that proclamation, so welcome, so full of good tidings to others,
brought to these no blessing whatever; nothing but death to their hopes, and
bitter aggravation to their lot? This would, indeed, make the similarity
between the Hebrew servitude and American slavery more close and striking, in
this land, on the day set apart for the celebration of our national
independence, while the noble declaration is sounded through the land, that
“all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” while
smooth-tongued orators grow eloquent in extolling our land as eminently the
land of liberty, and an asylum for the oppressed; and general rejoicing in the
ringing of bells and roaring of cannon is heard through the land, nearly three
millions of the inhabitants, for no crime, despoiled of liberty, mingle their
sighs with our national rejoicings. Can we believe it was so on the occasion of
the jubilee which was designed to prefigure affectingly, the universal and
unrivalled blessings of the Gospel in the future reign of the Messiah? It is
astonishing indeed that the biblical scholar, in disregard of such a mass of
evidence to the contrary, could ever come to the conclusion that the bought
servants of Gentile extraction were not to be set free. On what is it founded?
Simply on the declaration that the bought servants should be bond men and bond
maids forever, when they all admit that this same term forever when
used in the same way in reference to the Hebrew servant whose ear was pierced
with the awl, only means that he should remain permanently while he
lived, or until the year when the jubilee should set him free. In this
case they are undoubtedly right, but in the other wrong. The perponderance [sic] of evidence in favor of the
complete release of all the bought servants, as well as others, on every
occasion of Jubilee, is in our view decisive. The learned author of the
Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge has well said in regard to this matter, “All the slaves were set free. The
political design of the law of jubilee was to prevent the too great oppression
of the poor as well as their being liable to perpetual slavery.” Their
servitude then, was entirely different from modern slavery in this highly important
respect, that it could in no case continue, in regard to any one person, over
forty nine years, and in most cases only for a much shorter period; a period
continually diminishing as the great year of universal release drew nigh. When
released they were politically situated as are now the colored people in the
British West Indies; and left free to make such arrangements in regard to the
future as they might consider for their interest and happiness.
_______________
Continued from: Reverend
Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839
SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A
Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of
Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 60-4
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