Chapter XII: INSTANCES OF VOLUNTARY SERVANTS. Mention is often made of persons

becoming servants who were manifestly VOLUNTARY. As the Prophet Elisha. 1 Kings xix. 21; 2 Kings iii. 11. Elijah was his _master_. 2 Kings ii. 5. The word translated master, is the same that is so rendered in almost every instance where masters are spoken of under the Mosaic and patriarchal systems. Moses was the servant of Jethro. Ex. iii. 1; iv. 10. Joshua was the servant of Moses. Ex. xxxiii. 11. Num. xi. 28. Jacob was the servant of Laban. Gen. xxix. 18-27. See also the case of the Gibeonites who _voluntarily_ became servants to the Israelites and afterwards performed service for the "house of God" throughout the subsequent Jewish history, were incorporate with the Israelites, registered in the genealogies, and manifestly of their own accord remained with them, and "_clave_" to them. Neh. x. 28, 29; xi. 3; Ez. vii. 7.

Finally, in all the regulations respecting servants and their service, no form of expression is employed from which it could be inferred, that servants were made such, and held in that condition by force. Add to this the entire absence of all the machinery, appurtenances and incidents of _compulsion_.

Voluntary service on the part of servants would have been in keeping with regulations which abounded in the Mosaic system and sustained by a multitude of analogies. Compulsory service on the other hand, could have harmonized with nothing, and would have been the solitary disturbing force, marring its design, counteracting its tendencies, and confusing and falsifying its types. The directions given to regulate the performance of service for the _public_, lay great stress on the _willingness_ of those employed to perform it. For the spirit and usages that obtained under the Mosaic system in this respect, see 1 Chron. xxviii. 21; Ex. xxxv. 5, 21, 22, 29; 1 Chron. xxix. 5, 6, 9, 14, 17; Ex. xxv. 2; Judges v. 2; Lev. xxii. 29; 2 Chron. xxxv. 8; Ezra i. 6; Ex. xxxv; Neh. xi. 2.[A]

[Footnote A: We should naturally infer that the directions which regulated the rendering of service to individuals, would proceed upon the same principle in this respect with those which regulated the rendering of service to the _public_. Otherwise the Mosaic system, instead of constituting in its different parts a harmonious _whole_, would be divided against itself; its principles counteracting and nullifying each other.]

Again, the voluntariness of servants is a natural inference from the fact that the Hebrew word _ebedh,_ uniformly rendered _servant_, is applied to a great variety of classes and descriptions of persons under the patriarchal and Jewish dispensations, _all of whom_ were voluntary and most of them eminently so. For instance, it is applied to persons rendering acts of _worship_ about seventy times, whereas it is applied to _servants_ not more than half that number of times.

To this we may add, that the illustrations drawn from the condition and service of _servants_ and the ideas which the term servant is employed to convey when applied figuratively to moral subjects would, in most instances, lose all their force, and often become absurdities if the will of the servant _resisted_ his service, and he performed it only by _compulsion_. Many passages will at once occur to those who are familiar with the Bible. We give a single example. "_To whom YE YIELD YOURSELVES servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey._" Rom. vi. 16. It would hardly be possible to assert the voluntariness of servants more strongly in a direct proposition than it is here asserted by implication.