If the Israelites not only held slaves, but multitudes of them, why had their language _no word_ that _meant slave_? If Abraham had thousands, and if they _abounded_ under the Mosaic system, why had they no such _word_ as slave or slavery? That language must be wofully poverty stricken, which has _no signs_ to represent the most _common_ and _familiar_ objects and conditions. To represent by the same word, and without figure, _property_, and the _owner_ of that property, is a solecism. Ziba was an "_Ebed_," yet he _"owned_" (!) twenty _Ebeds_. In _English_, we have both the words _servant_ and _slave_. Why? Because we have both the _things_, and need _signs_ for them. If the tongue had a sheath, as swords have scabbards, we should have some _name_ for it: but our dictionaries give us none. Why? because there is no such _thing_. But the objector asks, "Would not the Israelites use their word _Ebed_ if they spoke of the slave of a heathen?" Answer. The servants of individuals among the heathen are scarcely ever alluded to. _National_ servants or _tributaries_, are spoken of frequently, but so rarely are their _domestic_ servants alluded to, no necessity existed, even if they were slaves, for coining a new word. Besides, the fact of their being domestics, under _heathen laws and usages_, proclaimed their _liabilities_; their locality told their condition; so that in applying to them the word _Ebed_, there would be no danger of being misunderstood. But if the Israelites had not only _servants_, but besides these, a multitude of _slaves_, a _word meaning slave_, would have been indispensable for purposes of every day convenience. Further, the laws of the Mosaic system were so many sentinels on every side, to warn off foreign practices. The border ground of Canaan, was quarantine ground, enforcing the strictest non-intercourse between the _without_ and the _within_, not of _persons_, but of _usages_. The fact that the Hebrew language had no words corresponding to _slave_ and _slavery_, though not a conclusive argument, is no slight corroborative. II. "FOREVER."--"They shall be your bondmen _forever_." This is quoted to prove that servants were to serve during their life time, and their posterity, from generation to generation.