[36] “Or _beside Me_” (R.V.) The preposition is so vague that either of our English words may suggest quite too definite a meaning, as when “before Me” is made to mean “in My angry eyes,” or “beside Me” is taken to hint at resentment for intrusion upon the same throne. [37] Gury, Compend., i., secs. 607, 623. CHAPTER XXI. _THE LESSER LAW (continued)._ PART II.—RIGHTS OF THE PERSON. xxi. 1–32. The first words of God from Sinai had declared that He was Jehovah Who brought them out of slavery. And in this remarkable code, the first person whose rights are dealt with is the slave. We saw that a denunciation of all slavery would have been premature, and therefore unwise; but assuredly the germs of emancipation were already planted by this giving of the foremost place to the rights of the least of all and the servant of all. As regards the Hebrew slave, the effect was to reduce his utmost bondage to a comparatively mild apprenticeship. At the worst he should go free in the seventh year; and if the year of jubilee intervened, it brought a still speedier emancipation. If his debt or misconduct had involved a family in his disgrace, they should also share his emancipation, but if while in bondage his master had provided for his marriage with a slave, then his family must await their own appointed period of release. It followed that if he had contracted a degrading alliance with a foreign slave, his freedom would inflict upon him the pang of final severance from his dear ones. He might, indeed, escape this pain, but only by a deliberate and humiliating act, by formally renouncing before the judges his liberty, the birthright of his nation (“they are My servants, whom I brought forth out of Egypt, they shall not be sold as bondservants”—Lev. xxv. 42), and submitting to have his ear pierced, at the doorpost of his master’s house, as if, like that, his body were become his master’s property. It is uncertain, after this decisive step, whether even the year of jubilee brought him release; and the contrary seems to be implied in his always bearing about in his body an indelible and degrading mark. It will be remembered that St. Paul rejoiced to think that his choice of Christ was practically beyond recall, for the scars on his body marked the tenacity of his decision (Gal. vi. 17). He wrote this to Gentiles, and used the Gentile phrase for the branding of a slave. But beyond question this Hebrew of Hebrews remembered, as he wrote, that one of his race could incur lifelong subjection only by a voluntary wound, endured because he loved his master, such as he had received for love of Jesus.