+284. Slavery amongst Jews.+ The Jewish law had a provision like that in the law of Hammurabi, except that the limit was six years instead of three. A debtor was not to be a slave, but to give service until the year of jubilee.[731] In 2 Kings iv. 1 the widow tells Elisha that her husband's creditors will come and take her two sons to be bondmen. The creditors of some of the Jews who returned from exile threatened to make them debtor slaves. Nehemiah appealed to them not to do so.[732] In Matt. xviii. 25 the man who could not pay was to be sold with his wife and children. Kidnapping was punishable by death.[733] In Job xxxi. 15 we find the ultimate philosophico-religious reason for repudiating slavery: "Has not He who made me made him [the slave] also in his mother's womb?" The laws of the "Book of Covenants" begin with laws about slaves.[734] A male slave, with his wife, is to be freed in the seventh year, unless he prefers to remain a slave. A man may sell his daughter into slavery, i.e. to be a concubine. There was no difference in principle between a daughter given to wife and one sold to be a concubine. In Deut. xv. 12 the female slave is also set free in the seventh year, and persons so freed are to be given gifts when they depart. The slaves were war captives, or bought persons, or criminals.[735] The lot of slaves was not hard. The owners had not the power of life and death. The slave could acquire property.[736] If the slave was an Israelite he was protected by especial restrictions on the master in behalf of fellow-countrymen.[737]