The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 · Chapter 20Import of the Word "buy," and the Phrase "bought with Money."
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From the direction to the Israelites to "buy" their servants, and from the phrase "bought with money," applied to Abraham's servants, it is argued that they were articles of property. The sole ground for this belief is the terms "buy" and "bought with money," and such an import to these terms when applied to servants is assumed, not only in the absence of all proof, but in the face of evidence to the contrary. How much might be saved, if in discussion, the thing to be proved was always assumed. To beg the question in debate, what economy of midnight oil! what a forestaller of premature wrinkles, and grey hairs! Instead of protracted investigation into Scripture usage, and painful collating of passages, and cautiously tracing minute relations, to find the meaning of Scripture terms, let every man boldly resolve to interpret the language of the oldest book in the world, by the usages of his own time and place, and the work is done. And then what a march of mind! Instead of one revelation, they might be multiplied as the drops of the morning! Every man might take orders as an inspired interpreter, with an infallible clue to the mind of the Spirit, if he only understood the dialect of his own neighborhood! We repeat it, the only ground of proof that these terms are to be interpreted to mean, when applied to servants in the Bible, the same that they mean when applied to our slaves, is the terms themselves.
What a Babel-jargon it would make of the Bible to take it for granted that the sense in which words are now used is the inspired sense.
David says, "I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried." What a miracle-worker, to stop the earth in its revolution! Rather too fast. Two hundred years ago, prevent was used in the strict Latin sense to come before, or anticipate. It is always used in this sense in the Old and New Testaments. David's expression, in the English of the nineteenth century, is, "Before the dawning of the morning I cried," or, I began to cry before day-break. "So my prayer shall prevent thee." "Let us prevent his face with thanksgiving." "Mine eyes prevent the night watches." "We shall not prevent them that are asleep," &c. In almost every chapter of the Bible, words are used in a sense now nearly or quite obsolete, and sometimes in a sense totally opposite to their present meaning. A few examples follow: "Oftentimes I purposed to come to you, but was let (hindered) hitherto." "And the four beasts (living ones) fell down and worshipped God,"—Whosoever shall offend (cause to sin) one of these little ones,"—Go out into the high ways and compel (urge) them to come in,"—Only let your conversation (habitual conduct or course of life) be as becometh the Gospel,"—They that seek me early (earnestly) shall find me,—Give me by and by (now) in a charger, the head of John the Baptist,"—So when tribulation or persecution ariseth by-and-by (immediately) they are offended. Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like bodies, are continually throwing off particles and absorbing others. So long as they are mere representatives, elected by the whims of universal suffrage, their meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it up for the next century is an employment sufficiently silly, (to speak within bounds,) for a modern Bible dictionary maker. There never was a shallower conceit than that of establishing the sense attached to a word centuries ago, by showing what it means now. Pity that hyper-fashionable mantuamakers and milliners were not a little quicker at taking hints from some of our Doctors of Divinity. How easily they could save their pious customers all qualms of conscience about the weekly shiftings of fashion, by demonstrating that the last importation of Parisian indecency, just now flaunting here on promenade, was the identical style of dress in which the pious Sarah kneaded cakes for the angels, the modest Rebecca drew water for the camels of Abraham's servants. Since such fashions are rife in Chestnut-street and Broadway now, they must have been in Canaan and Pandanaram four thousand years ago!
II. 1. The inference that the word buy, used to describe the procuring of servants, means procuring them as chattels, seems based upon the fallacy—that whatever costs money is money; that whatever or whoever you pay money for, is an article of property, and the fact of your paying for it proves that it is property. The children of Israel were required to purchase their first-born out from under the obligations of the priesthood, Numb. xviii. 15, 16; Exod. xxxiv. 20. This custom is kept up to this day among the Jews, and the word buy is still used to describe the transaction. Does this prove that their first-born were, or are, held as property? They were bought as really as were servants. So the Israelites were required to pay money for their own souls. This is called sometimes a ransom, sometimes an atonement. Were their souls therefore marketable commodities?
2. Bible saints bought their wives. Boaz bought Ruth. "So Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife." Ruth iv. 10. Hosea bought his wife. "So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley." Hosea iii. 2. Jacob bought his wives Rachel and Leah, and not having money, paid for them in labor—seven years a piece. Gen. xxix. 15-29. Moses probably bought his wife in the same way, and paid for her by his labor, as the servant of her father. Exod. ii. 21. Shechem, when negotiating with Jacob and his sons for Dinah, says, "What ye shall say unto me, I will give. Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me." Gen. xxxiv. 11, 12. David purchased Michal, Saul's daughter, and Othniel, Achsab, the daughter of Caleb, by performing perilous services for the benefit of their fathers-in-law. 1 Sam. xviii. 25-27; Judges i. 12, 13. That the purchase of wives, either with money or by service was the general practice, is plain from such passages as Exod. xxii. 17, and 1 Sam. xviii. 25. Among the Jews of the present day this usage exists, though it is now a mere form, there being no real purchase. Yet among their marriage ceremonies, is one called "marrying by the penny." The coincidences, not only in the methods of procuring wives and servants, and in the terms employed in describing the transactions, but in the prices paid for each, are worthy of notice. The highest price of wives (virgins) and servants was the same. Compare Deut. xxii. 28, 29, and Exod. xxii. 17, with Lev. xxvii. 2-8. The medium price of wives and servants was the same. Compare Hosea iii. 2, with Exod. xxi. 2. Hosea appears to have paid one half in money and the other in grain. Further, the Israelitish female bought-servants were wives, their husbands and their masters being the same persons. Exod. xxi. 8, and Judges xix. 3, 27. If buying servants among the Jews shows that they were property, then buying wives shows that they were property. The words in the original used to describe the one, describe the other. Why not contend that the wives of the ancient fathers of the faithful were their chattels, and used as ready change at a pinch? And thence deduce the rights of modern husbands. How far gone is the Church from primitive purity! How slow to emulate illustrious examples! Alas! Patriarchs and prophets are followed afar off! When will pious husbands live up to their Bible privileges, and become partakers with Old Testament worthies in the blessedness of a husband's rightful immunities! Surely professors of religion now, are bound to buy and hold their wives as property! Refusing so to do, is to question the morality of those "good old" wife-trading "patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," with the prophets, and a host of whom the world was not worthy.
The use of the word buy, to describe the procuring of wives, is not peculiar to the Hebrew. In the Syriac language, the common expression for "the married," or "the espoused," is "the bought." Even so late as the 16th century, the common record of marriages in the old German Chronicles was "A. BOUGHT B."
The Hebrew word translated buy, is, like other words, modified by the nature of the subject to which it is applied. Eve says, "I have gotten (bought) a man of the Lord." She named him Cain, that is, bought. "He that heareth reproof, getteth (buyeth) understanding", Prov. xv. 32. So in Isa. xi. 11. "The Lord shall set his hand again to recover (to buy) the remnant of his people." So Ps. lxxviii. 54. He brought them to this mountain which his right hand had purchased, i.e. gotten. Jer. xiii. 4. "Take the girdle that thou hast got" (bought.) Neh. v. 8. "We of our ability have redeemed (bought) our brethren that were sold to the heathen." Here "bought" is not applied to persons who were made slaves, but to those taken out of slavery. Prov. 8. 22. "The Lord possessed (bought) me in the beginning of his way before his works of old." Prov. xix. 8. "He that getteth (buyeth) wisdom loveth his own soul." Prov. xvi. 16. "How much better is it to get (buy) wisdom than gold?" Finally, to buy is a secondary meaning of the Hebrew word Kana.
4. Even at this day the word buy is used to describe the procuring of servants, where slavery is abolished. In the British West Indies, where slaves became apprentices in 1834, they are still "bought." This is now the current word in West India newspapers. So a few years since in New-York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and even now in New-Jersey servants are "bought" as really as in Virginia. And the different senses in which the same word is used in the two states, puts no man in a quandary, whose common sense amounts to a modicum.
So under the system of legal indenture in Illinois, servants now are "bought."A A short time since, hundreds of foreigners who came to this country were "bought" annually. By voluntary contract they engaged to work for their purchasers a given time to pay for their passage. This class of persons called "redemptioners," consisted at one time of thousands. Multitudes are bought out of slavery by themselves or others, and remove into free states. Under the same roof with the writer is a "servant bought with money." A few weeks since, she was a slave. As soon as "bought," she was a slave no longer. Alas! for our leading politicians if "buying" men makes them "chattels." The Whigs say that Benton and Rives were "bought" by the administration with the surplus revenue; and the other party, that Clay and Webster were "bought" by the Bank. The histories of the revolution tell us that Benedict Arnold was "bought" by British gold. Did that make him an article of property? When a northern clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country gossip hits off the indecency with this current phrase, "The cotton bags bought him." When Robert Walpole said, "Every man has his price, and whoever will pay it can buy him," and when John Randolph said, while the Missouri question was pending, "The northern delegation is in the market; give me money enough, and I can buy them," they both meant just what they said. When the temperance publications tell us that candidates for office buy men with whiskey; and the oracles of street tattle, that the court, district attorney, and jury, in the late trial of Robinson were bought, we have no floating visions of "chattels personal," man auctions, or coffles.
A: The following statute is now in force in the state of Illinois—"No negro, mulatto, or Indian, shall at any time purchase any servant other than of their own complexion: and if any of the persons aforesaid shall presume to purchase a white servant, such servant shall immediately become free, and shall be so held, deemed, and taken."
The transaction between Joseph and the Egyptians gives a clue to the meaning attached to "buy" and "bought with money." See Gen. xlvii. 18-26. The Egyptians proposed to Joseph to become servants, and that he should buy them. When the bargain was closed, Joseph said, "Behold I have bought you this day," and yet it is plain that neither of the parties dreamed that the persons bought were in any sense articles of property, but merely that they became thereby obligated to labor for the government on certain conditions, as a compensation for the entire support of themselves and families during the famine. And that the idea attached to "buy us," and "behold I have bought you," was merely the procuring of services voluntarily offered, and secured by contract, as a return for value received, and not at all that the Egyptians were bereft of their personal ownership, and made articles of property. And this buying of services (they were to give one-fifth part of their crops to Pharaoh) is called in Scripture usage, buying the persons. This case deserves special notice, as it is the only one where the whole transaction of buying servants is detailed—the preliminaries, the process, the mutual acquiescence, and the permanent relation resulting therefrom. In all other instances, the mere fact is stated without entering into particulars. In this case, the whole process is laid open.
1. The persons "bought," sold themselves, and of their own accord.
2. Obtaining permanently the services of persons, or even a portion of them, is called "buying" those persons. The objector, at the outset, assumes that servants were bought of third persons; and thence infers that they were articles of property. This is sheer assumption. Not a single instance is recorded, of a servant being sold by any one but himself; not a case, either under the patriarchal, or the Mosaic systems, in which a master sold his servant. That the servants who were "bought" sold themselves, is a fair inference from various passages of Scripture.
In Leviticus xxv. 47, the case of the Israelite, who became the servant of the stranger, the words are, "If he SELL HIMSELF unto the stranger." The same word, and the same form of the word, which, in the 47th verse, is rendered sell himself, is in the 39th verse of the same chapter, rendered be sold; in Deut. xxviii. 68, the same word is rendered "be sold." Here it is the Hithpael conjugation, which is reflexive in its force, and, like the middle voice in Greek, represents what an individual does for himself; or in his own concerns; and should manifestly have been rendered, ye shall offer yourselves for sale. For a clue to Scripture usage on this point, see 1 Kings xxi. 20, 25—"Thou hast sold thyself to work evil." "There was none like to Ahab that sold himself to work wickedness."—2 Kings xvii. 17. "They used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil."—Isa. l. 1. "For your iniquities have ye sold yourselves." Isa. lii. 3, "Ye have sold yourselves FOR NOUGHT, and ye shall be redeemed without money." See also, Jeremiah xxxiv. 14—Romans vii. 14, and vi. 16—John viii. 34, and the case of Joseph and the Egyptians, already quoted.
Again, if servants were bought of third persons, where are the instances? In the purchase of wives, though spoken of rarely, it is generally stated that they were bought of third persons. Is it not a fair inference, if servants were bought of third persons, that there would sometimes have been such an intimation?