The case of _foreign servants_ demands yet a few more words of explication. It can not be denied that the spirit of the Hebrew law favored the choice of foreigners for servants, and the increase of this class of population. This is plainly the doctrine of the passage Lev. 25: 44–46.――――In connection with this we may profitably study the law of the Passover in its relation to servants (Ex. 12: 43–49). “There shall no stranger eat thereof, but every man’s servant that is bought for money, _when thou hast circumcised him_, then shall he eat thereof.”――――That this law contemplated Gentile servants is clear on two grounds:――――(a.) Only such would need circumcision――all Hebrews being circumcised when eight days old.――――(b.) The law (Lev. 25: 44) required them to take their servants from the heathen, and authorized them to “_buy_” such. The buying of a Hebrew servant was a very different thing. The poor Hebrew _sold himself_――_i. e._ _his services_, and took pay in advance of doing the work. Selling himself is precisely the sense of the Hebrew in Lev. 25: 39, 47, though in the former case (v. 39) our translators made it “be sold” and in the latter “sell himself.” The Hebrew verb is equally reflexive in both verses.――――Moreover, no man might steal a Hebrew and sell him on pain of death. It does not appear that Hebrew fathers sold their sons. When they took pay for a daughter, it came under the usage of paying for wives. She was betrothed to her purchaser (Ex. 21: 7–11) and of course had the rights of a wife. Hence this “buying a servant for money” (Ex. 12: 44) contemplates a foreigner.――――The law proceeds to say――“A foreigner (one not a servant) and a hired servant shall not eat thereof.”――――Furthermore, circumcision was naturalization; it brought the servant within the pale of the Hebrew community. For this law of the Passover declares that “when a stranger sojourning with thee, _i. e._ in thy land, desires to keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; _and he shall be as one that is born in the land_;” _i. e._ his circumcision is equivalent in force to being born in the land; it secures his naturalization. Hence the buying of foreign servants would be a perpetual process of naturalizing them, and bringing them into the Hebrew community. They came to the Passover and were entitled to all the religious privileges of the children of Israel. Abraham himself circumcised, not his sons alone, but “all that were born in his house or bought with money of the stranger” (Gen. 17: 23, 27).――――Thus the system reached forth its arms, gathered to its genial bosom and blest with religious nurture thousands of alien birth, some of whom attained renown among the servants of the God of Israel. We have the history of Rahab and Ruth, and to name no more of “Uriah the Hittite,” and of “Ittai the Gittite” [of Gath]. VIII. _Judicial Procedure._