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THE STATUS OF LABOR IN 
 ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 MAYER SULZBERGER, LL.D. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE DROPSIE (X)LLEGE EOR HEBREW 
 AND CXIGNATi: ElARNING 
 
 1923 
 
Printed at THE CONAT PRESS, Philadelphia, Penna., U.S.A. 
 
TO THE 
 
 HONORABLE ROBERT VON MOSCHZISKER, 
 CHIEF JUSTICE OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 THIS LITTLE WORK IS DEDICATED IN TOKEN 
 OF OUR ANCIENT AND AFFECTIONATE 
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 

THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL* 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The conclusions reached in the following four lectures 
 will scarcely meet with ready acquiescence, since they 
 depart from notions very generally entertained. 
 
 Their form too is not according to the conventional 
 standard. There has been no attempt at dogmatism and 
 no effort to achieve literary grace. 
 
 Their object was to attract the attention and arouse 
 the efforts of the students of the “Dropsie College for Hebrew 
 and Cognate Learning,” to follow the author’s procedure 
 in investigating the subject without preconceived opinions, 
 and to stimulate research in similar directions. 
 
 To accomplish this purpose, the author deemed it best 
 to cite at length the data on which he worked and to show 
 the process whereby he reached his conclusions. 
 
 Needless to say, the texts from which he worked, no¬ 
 where state, in so many words, the conclusions arrived at 
 by him. Half a century’s acquaintance with witnesses 
 and their testimony has convinced him that no narrative, 
 however sincere, ever tells the whole story. There appears 
 to be a feature of the human mind which is averse to stating 
 facts that are so familiar to the narrator, that he sub¬ 
 consciously assumes that everybody knows them as well 
 as himself, and that to repeat them would be absurd. 
 Hence the true meaning of a witness’ narrative is to be 
 found not only in what he expressly says, but also in what 
 
 *A course of four lectures read before the Dropsie College For Hebrew and 
 Cognate Learning, January 14, 16, 23 and February 4, 1923. 
 
 1 
 
2 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 he does not say, but which may be fairly implied from the 
 words used. 
 
 On this principle, the author has, on occasion, acted, 
 and hence are derived some conclusions which may, at first 
 sight, seem bizarre. 
 
 This method also involves the necessity, or at least the 
 desirability, of setting out texts in full wherever they are 
 made use of. It follows that some of them are stated more 
 than once, and that ungainliness in the presentation results. 
 
 The desire to make the lectures educative is the only 
 excuse for such defects. 
 
 The author hopes, however, that he has made at least 
 a beginning toward a better comprehension of the labor 
 question in ancient Israel. 
 
 I 
 
 The reader of the English versions of the Hebrew 
 Scriptures must have been struck by the frequency with 
 which he finds “the stranger, the fatherless and the widow” 
 mentioned together. The coupling of the rank outsider, 
 with those who apparently belong to the most intimate 
 circle of the insiders, arouses attention. 
 
 An easy explanation of the phenomenon is that these 
 classes are dependent upon the gracious kindness of the 
 community and that, in this respect, they stand on common 
 ground. This answer leaves us uninformed. 
 
 Why should every stranger, every fatherless child, 
 every widow be thrown on public charity? 
 
 No intelligent government would tolerate the influx 
 of large masses of aliens who could do nothing for the com¬ 
 munity but would be a mere burden. 
 
 Moreover, most fatherless children and most widows 
 would have family connections who would provide for them 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 3 
 
 and many must have had shares in estates which precluded 
 the necessity of public charity. 
 
 It is true that the common translation of these words, 
 gevj yatom and almanah by stranger, fatherless and widow 
 has much justification. Undoubtedly they all, on some 
 occasions, have these meanings. 
 
 We must, however, keep in mind, that in the Hebrew 
 as in all other languages, ancient and modern, there are 
 many words which have more than one meaning and that 
 these various meanings are sometimes conspicuously far 
 apart and often seem unrelated to each other. 
 
 Take as an example, this very word stranger in our 
 own language. Murray’s Dictionary (volume 9, pp. 1079- 
 1081) lists twenty-five meanings for it, covering as might 
 be expected, a wide range of thought. That it stands for 
 “one who belongs to another country”, everybody knows, 
 but that on certain occasions it means the British coin 
 called “the guinea”, few would guess, though, on reflection, 
 many of us will realize that here at home, five-dollar gold 
 pieces may fairly be called “strangers” by the most of us. 
 
 The moral is that times, circumstances, even caprices 
 cause the attribution of new meanings to well-known words, 
 and that such new meanings become at times general and 
 at times merely narrow and technical. 
 
 If we then find that the general meanings of ger, 
 yatom and almanah in the Biblical versions leave us 
 puzzled in the endeavor to discover why this stranger 
 should be thrust into the very heart of the national house¬ 
 hold, and why orphanage and widowhood should be con¬ 
 stantly subject to attacks which must be fended off, it will 
 be reasonable to seek for an explanation in any direction 
 which may give us light. 
 
 Acting on this hint we may fairly inquire whether the 
 
4 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 words in question have not other meanings than those 
 accepted by the versions. 
 
 As the word ger starts the puzzle, we may begin with 
 it. That it means stranger by the rules of etymology is 
 true. Etymology is, however, not the sole or final deter¬ 
 mining cause of all the meanings of words as historically 
 developed. 
 
 There are other Hebrew words that are also translated 
 “stranger”: nokri {hen nekar), zar, toshaby sakir. An 
 analysis of the passages in which these words are used, shows 
 that at a stage of Hebrew history, as early at least as the 
 reign of David, and probably earlier, the Hebrews had 
 divided these foreigners into two great classes, the one 
 characterized by unmitigated foreignness, while the foreign¬ 
 ness of the other class was modified by closer social relations. 
 The first class—the absolute foreigners—were the zar and 
 the nokri. The second class—relative foreigners—were the 
 gery the toshab and the sakir. 
 
 It may be noted that in the progress of time, some of 
 these words underwent startling changes of meaning. 
 
 Zar, for instance, from being practically synonymous 
 with nokriy^ came in time to include a non-member of any 
 particular body, in which sense it is found applied even to 
 Hebrews standing outside of an intimate circle.* 
 
 Nokriy is applied in general to the unmitigated, the hostile 
 alien. But in his case there is one important exception, to 
 wit, the nokri slave, the 'ebed. 
 
 While it is true that the word that interests us par¬ 
 ticularly is gery it is necessary in order to understand it 
 fully that we should comprehend what the nokri was and 
 ascertain whether the ger was like him, or if he was not, 
 
 iDeut. 32.16; Isa. 1.7; 43.12; 61.5; Jer. 5.19; 51.2; Ezek. 11.9; 28.7, 10; 30.12; 
 31.12; Hosea 7.9; 8.7, 12; Psalm 44.21; 81.10; Job 19.15. 
 
 sExod. 29.33; 30.33; Lev. 22.10, 12, 13; Num. 1.51; 3.10, 38; 17.5; 18.4, 7;Deut. 
 25 . 5 . 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 5 
 
 we should determine in what respect they differed. 
 
 Initially, it is well to dispose of the slaves. ^ 
 
 Among the ancient nations in general slavery was an 
 important institution. It represented the great labor 
 force._ While the masters were continually ready for war 
 or actually waging it, the slaves did the bulk of the peace¬ 
 ful work necessary for the community. 
 
 With the Hebrews it was otherwise. 
 
 Their position in Egypt was not such as enabled them 
 to acquire or to hold others in slavery. When, soon after 
 the Exodus, the invasion of Canaan was begun, the tribes 
 Reuben and Gad (later joined by the half-tribe of Man- 
 asseh) elected to remain in the land East of Jordan and the 
 Dead Sea, because they judged it to be a good place for 
 cattle-raising.3 Being a pastoral people, by inheritance, 
 the sight of the goodly land took away their ambition to 
 become agriculturists in the Westland. Moses acquiesced 
 in their decision, stipulating however that their soldiers 
 should accompany the other tribes in the war against 
 Canaan. They were to leave “their wives, their little ones 
 and their cattle” in the land beyond Jordan to await the 
 return of the menfolk from the war. If there had been any 
 considerable number of slaves, there would, in that connec¬ 
 tion, have been some mention of them. At most there could 
 have been but few and in this respect the other tribes were, 
 without doubt, in like condition. 
 
 The slave was called 'ehed. If he was bought, this 
 term was supplemented by the words miknat kesef (bought 
 for money). If he was born of slave parentage in the house¬ 
 hold, he was called ben-bayit (son of the house), or yelid 
 bayit (born in the house), or ben-amah (son of the hand¬ 
 maid), these three terms being nearly or quite synonymous. ^ 
 
 Something, by the way, should be said concerning 
 
 »Num. 32.1-42. 
 
6 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 the mode in which these words have been rendered by the 
 translators. They are all compound nouns, and should be 
 so treated. The versions, however, analyze the expressions 
 and translate the component elements separately. For 
 instance, in Genesis 15.3 Abraham complains to God: ‘T 
 am childless and my hen~hayit will be my heir.” This, in 
 effect, characterizes the relation as being a kind of qualified 
 adoption. The versions render “one born in my house is 
 to be mine heir,” ignoring the fact that a man’s own son 
 is usually born in his house. The rendering should have 
 been: “I am childless and my house-born slave will be my 
 heir.” The word is used in this sense in Ecclesiastes 2.7. 
 
 And so with yelid-hayit. 
 
 In Genesis 14.14 when Abraham enters into a campaign 
 to release Lot who had been captured, he armed his trained 
 home-born slaves {hanikaw yelide heto ), pursued and 
 defeated the ravishers. The versions again seem to miss 
 the point, though A. V. senses it. 
 
 So too in the 17th chapter of Genesis where the cove¬ 
 nant of Abraham is established. The 12th and 13th verses 
 are careful to enforce the obligation to perform the rite 
 on slaves, whether miknat kesef or yelid hayit. The words 
 are used in the same sense in Leviticus 22.11 and in Jere¬ 
 miah 2.14. 
 
 In considering the position of the slave we must always 
 keep in mind that the Hebrews had a rooted aversion to 
 the system. To them it seemed an institution “accursed”^ 
 and this attitude made the lot of their slave essentially 
 different from his condition among other nations and from 
 forms of slavery persisting to our own time. 
 
 The conspicuous feature that contributed to his 
 betterment was his admission to participation in the family 
 worship. 
 
 <Gen. 9.25; Josh. 9.23. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 7 
 
 Tradition refers this custom to the most ancient times. ( 
 The covenant of Abraham was to be entered into not only ' 
 by every male of the immediate family, but the master’s ) 
 obligation was to enter every male slave.^ 
 
 The female slave (the amah) was even in more intimate 
 relationship. She was often the daughter of Hebrew 
 parents. Occasionally the master bought her either to 
 make her his own wife^ or the wife of his son.^ The posi¬ 
 tion of the Hebrew slave was not one of misery or degrada¬ 
 tion. Eliezer, the 'ehed of Abraham, is called the ruler 
 {moshel) of Abraham’s possessions.^ He it is who is en¬ 
 trusted bv his master with the all-important mission of 
 selecting and procuring a fitting wife for Isaac, and when 
 he has found her, he presents her with rare jewels and 
 raiment which he had brought.^ He is treated with the 
 consideration of an equal not only by Abraham but by 
 Laban. 
 
 Eliezer was one of Abraham’s home-born slaves, a 
 hen-bayitd° 
 
 An example equally striking is found in 1 Chronicles 
 2.34, 35. Sheshan, a Judean magnate, gives his daughter in 
 marriage to his Egyptian ‘ebed Yarha. Of course, as an 
 *ebed, he had been naturalized, but he was an ‘ebed none 
 the less. 
 
 The Book of Proverbs (17.2) lays it down that a wise 
 slave {‘ebed maskil) shall not only be preferred to a profligate 
 son {ben mebish), but shall take the latter’s share in the 
 father’s estate with the upright brothers. These are not 
 mere instances of individual kindliness. They are the 
 expression of rooted national convictions. 
 
 Among the Hebrews the slave was not obliged to / 
 struggle for recognition as a human being. They held in 
 abhorrence the views of other nations, like the Babylonian, 
 
 ‘Gen. 17.9, 11, 12, 13. «Exod. 21.8. ’Exod. 21.9. 
 
 ‘Gen. 24.2. »Gen. 24.53. loGen. 15.3. 
 
8 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 as expressed or implied in the Hammurabi code, under 
 which the slave was a mere chattel, whose owner could 
 kill him without responsibility because he was merely 
 destroying a piece of his property, the loss of which was 
 his own and concerned no one else. 
 
 Far other views were reflected in the Hebrew laws. 
 
 Personal injuries to a slave were crimes punishable 
 by the State. If a master maim his slave so that he or 
 she loses a tooth or an eye, the slave goes free.” 
 
 On the subject of the slave’s status in the Hebrew 
 household, it may not be amiss to quote a few passages 
 from the admirable Hebrdische Archdologie of Professor 
 Benzinger.” The translation is ours: 
 
 “The slaves were also part of the family. In passing 
 judgment on Israelitish slavery, one may not start with the 
 prepossessions derived from contemplating modern slavery 
 among Christian peoples. . . . There is practically 
 
 not enough difference between the position of the slaves 
 and that of the other members of the household to warrant 
 us in expending compassion upon them as if they were 
 miserable and unfortunate. ... In the cultural state ' 
 of the times, Hebrew slavery was a blessing for both master | 
 and servant.” 
 
 “We learn that the slaves were uniformly treated as 
 members of the family, for whose well-being the master 
 cared as for that of his children. They were not mere 
 dumb slaves, but were often asked for their opinion and 
 advice (1 Sam. 9.6ff; 25.14ff).” 
 
 “As member of the family, the slave was admitted to 
 the family worship, wherefore he had to be circumcised. 
 Thereby, too, he became competent to carry on and to 
 inherit the family worship. By reason of this religious 
 
 iiExod. 21.26, 27. 
 
 ^^Hebrdische Archdologie von Dr. J. Benzinger (Freiburg i. B. und Leipzig, 1894) 
 pp. 159-162. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 9 
 
 association, he received kindly and fatherly treatment just 
 as do to-day the slaves in Islam. The ‘brotherly feeling’ 
 among members of the religion has never been whittled 
 down to a mere phrase, as in the Christian world, but is a 
 very real power.” Thus far Benzinger. 
 
 This favorable view of the condition of the Hebrew 
 slave is, however, not universal. The dissenting opinion 
 seems to be based on one striking text, which has in it a 
 phrase singularly like the Babylonian principle. It is 
 Exodus 21.20, 21 and reads: “If a man smite his bond- 
 man {'ehed) or his bondwoman {amah) with a rod and he 
 die under his hand, he shall surely be punished {nakom 
 yinnakem). Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, 
 he shall not be punished {lo yukkam ); for he is his money.” 
 
 From this last phrase, some have drawn the conclusion 
 that a slave was looked upon as a mere piece of property 
 and not as a fellow-being. Such a view totally ignores the 
 legal provisions above cited and counts them as naught. 
 The cruel words ” he is his money” are accepted as over¬ 
 riding the whole course of the legislation. 
 
 These critics have overlooked the well-known fact 
 that speech and writing exhibit an extraordinary servility 
 to familiar words and phrases. Laws and customs of pre¬ 
 historic ages were contemporaneously summarized in 
 pithy sayings and though such laws and customs were 
 from time to time changed and ultimately discarded, the 
 popular phrase enjoyed and enjoys a stupid immortality. 
 
 ‘‘He is his money,” when it was first uttered at a primi¬ 
 tive period anterior to the Pentateuchal legislation, was, 
 probably, a fairly correct statement of this particular social 
 relation. In the lapse of time, the relation underwent a 
 profound change, but the phrase lived on and even now 
 survives in the text, as a pregnant reminder of archaic 
 history. 
 
10 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 This is, by no means, the only instance in the Penta¬ 
 teuch of adherence to dead words and sayings. The legal' 
 conception that a man violating the law should be ade¬ 
 quately punished, was, in pre-historic times, when the 
 law of retaliation represented the stage of development 
 which had then been reached, formulated in the maxim: 
 “Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand,, 
 foot for foot.” This became a current phrase and was 
 transmitted from age to age. Needless to say, it is not a 
 statement of Pentateuchal law, and yet, in one form or 
 another, it occurs three times in the Pentateuch.In each 
 of the cases where it is used, punishment of offences is 
 provided for, but not the punishment that would be required 
 by the maxim.u 
 
 This maxim was, among the Hebrews of three thousand 
 years ago, a mere phrase and yet it is to-day frequently 
 quoted as a summary of Hebrew criminal law. 
 
 There is, of course, a real difficulty in understanding 
 the text, a difficulty which no translation that I know of 
 has overcome. 
 
 The words nakom yinnakem are generally translated 
 “shall surely be punished.” Such an expression would be 
 without any definite or practical meaning. It specifies 
 neither the kind nor the quantum of punishment and gives 
 no clue as to who is to administer it. The probability i& 
 that the words constitute a technical law-term. Rashi 
 understands it to mean “he shall die by the sword, 
 relying on the law of Num. 35.18: “If he smote him with 
 a hand-weapon of wood whereby a man may die, and he 
 died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to 
 death.” He opines, however, that when death is thus 
 instantaneously produced by the master’s chastisement of 
 
 «Exod. 21.23, 24, 25; Lev. 24.20; Deut. 19.21. 
 
 i^See my Ancient Hebrew Law of Homicide, pp. 119-125. 
 
 '^The expression hereb nokemet (the avenging sword) is found in Lev. 26.25. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 11 
 
 the slave, there must have been something more than the 
 customary rod wherewith masters were entitled to punish 
 slaves, something answering to the expression in the Num¬ 
 bers text, something which added a deadly quality to the 
 rod. The fair inference from the text is that when death 
 resulted immediately, the law presumed that this deadly 
 quality was present and this presumption was not to be 
 contradicted. If, however, the slave did not die on the 
 same day, the presumption did not hold and therefore the 
 master was not guilty of murder, he having exercised the 
 ordinary right of corporeally chastising his slave, and the 
 fact that by the slave’s death the master lost a valuable 
 piece of property, heightened the presumption of his 
 innocence of murder when death did not immediately 
 follow. 
 
 Under all the circumstances we need not hesitate to 
 accept Professor Benzinger’s view, which is strikingly 
 fortified by Kent and Bailey in their excellent one-volume 
 ‘‘History of the Hebrew Commonwealth.” These are 
 their words: “The chief claim of the Hebrew world to our 
 regard lies in the fact that the ideals of democracy which 
 to-day are winning acceptance among all civilized races 
 first developed within this area. . . “It was in 
 
 the soil of the barren steppe lands that encircle Palestine 
 and among the nomadic tribes of the wilderness that the 
 seeds of democracy first took root”. . . . “Their ideas 
 
 regarding the fundamental rights of man and his duties to 
 his fellow were expressed in definite laws,and all later demo¬ 
 cratic legislation is largely an unfolding of what is there 
 set forth in principle. 
 
 “From Israel has come a moral code based on the 
 Ten Commandments, which expresses, as well as mere 
 laws can, the fundamental duties of man to God and to 
 
 ^Hlislory of the Hebrew Commonwealth by Albert Edward Bailey and Charles 
 Foster Kent, New York, 1920, pp. 13 and 14. 
 
12 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 his fellow-man. It sprang from an instinct for freedom 
 and brotherhood, perhaps the earliest and certainly the 
 most persistent manifestation of that instinct among the 
 ancient peoples of the world. It is this code that is the 
 basis not only of the constitutions but also of the every¬ 
 day life of all the great democracies of the present day.”*^ 
 
 The most persuasive evidence of the Hebrews’ aversion 
 to slavery is that there is no mention anywhere that in the 
 course of the conquest of Canaan, they reduced or en¬ 
 deavored to reduce any of the native peoples to slavery. 
 It is true their lands were taken from them by the con¬ 
 querors, but they were neither exterminated nor driven out 
 nor enslaved. 
 
 To understand the situation it is necessary to get a 
 correct view of the Hebrew invasion of Canaan. We have 
 already mentioned that the movement began not by march¬ 
 ing in a direct line for the coveted land, but to take as the 
 proper starting-point, the land east of the Dead Sea and 
 Jordan. The inhabitants of that section were overcome 
 and the Hebrews had thus acquired their base of operations. 
 In consequence of the action of the tribes of Reuben and 
 Gad (later joined by the half-tribe of Manasseh) in waiving 
 all claim to a share of Canaan, that coveted area was to 
 be divided among a smaller number of tribes than had been 
 originally intended. The two tribes Simeon and Levi 
 were also excluded, and had no part, as tribes, in the war 
 against Canaan or in the division of the conquered land. 
 
 The ancient poem called ‘‘the Blessing of Jacob” 
 seems to point to the exclusion of these two tribes from the 
 fellowship of the others, by reason of reprehensible conduct. 
 Their doom is pronounced in these words: ‘‘I will divide 
 them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. 
 
 While we have no authentic details of the fate of the 
 
 i*Gen. 49.7. 
 
 ^Ubid., p. 355. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 13 
 
 Simeon tribe, the great probability is that it was disinte¬ 
 grated and that its members attached themselves to any 
 of the other tribes that they preferred or that were willing 
 to receive them. 
 
 Levi too ceased to exist as a tribe, though it finally 
 achieved a re-integration of a kind. It had not a tribal 
 territory of its own, but its members obtained slices in 
 sections of the other tribes. It regained too a tribal con¬ 
 sciousness and reached a position of dignity as guardian 
 of the law and of the sanctuary. 
 
 In the narratives of the war neither Simeon nor Levi 
 is mentioned. Levi, however, obtains a favorable notice, 
 in accordance with events that happened long after. The 
 reason for its non-participation is stated to be that it was 
 “to bear the ark of the covenant” and that “the Lord is 
 his inheritance. 
 
 There were thus left but nine tribes that were to 
 share the land of Canaan among them. The military 
 authorities evidently made a theoretical plan of the coun¬ 
 try, dividing it into nine districts, to the conquest of each 
 one of which a particular tribe was assigned. Naturally 
 the conquering tribe was to be settled on the territory it 
 had acquired. 
 
 For the great enterprise which they were about to 
 undertake, the Hebrews had certain qualifications and per¬ 
 haps greater disadvantages. Their experience in agricul¬ 
 ture was in effect characterized as inadequate. “The land 
 whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land ot 
 Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou didst sow 
 thy seed, and didst water it with thy foot, as a garden of 
 herbs; but the land whither ye go to possess it, is a land ot 
 hills and valleys, and drinketh water as the rain of heaven 
 cometh down.”^° 
 
 «Deut. 10.8, 9. 
 
 20Deut. 11.10, 11. 
 
14 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 And the contingency is foreshadowed “that there shall 
 be no rain, and the ground shall not yield her fruit; and 
 ye perish. . Moreover in the many arts and industries 
 of Egypt they had not had a large share. They had, 
 naturally viewed and admired the great works scattered 
 through that country, but their part in adding to them, 
 was, according to our accounts, humble. “They (the 
 Egyptians) did set over them (the Hebrews) taskmasters 
 to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for 
 Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Raamses.” “And they 
 (the Egyptians) made their (the Hebrews’) lives bitter 
 with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner 
 of service in the field. . . 
 
 Nevertheless, the prospect was one of great hopeful¬ 
 ness. Canaan loomed before them as a land containing 
 “great and goodly cities which thou didst not build and 
 houses full of all good things which thou didst not fill, and 
 cisterns hewn out which thou didst not hew, vineyards 
 and olive-trees which thou didst not plant.” “A good 
 land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths 
 springing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and 
 barley and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates; a land of 
 olive-trees and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread 
 (lehem) without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything 
 in it; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills 
 thou mayest dig brass. 
 
 And they were to be the owners of this land wherein 
 they would prosper not only in agriculture but in the arts 
 and in commerce. Visions of imitating the glories of 
 Memphis and Thebes in a capital city of their own also 
 floated before their minds. 
 
 Confident of easy victory they gave little thought to 
 the natives whose lands they were to take. They would 
 
 2iDeut. 11.17. 22Exod. 1.11, 14. s^Deut. 6.10, 11; 8.7, 8, 9. 
 
 24Deut. 12.5-14, 21, 26; 14.23-25; 15.20; 16.2-16; 17.8-10; 18.6; 26.2; 31.11. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 15 
 
 straightway destroy “the Hittite, the Amorite, the Cana- 
 anite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite.’'^^ 
 
 There were, however, voices counselling prudence and 
 caution. A large settled population, they were warned, 
 could not be disposed of suddenly: “The Lord thy God will 
 cast out these nations before thee hy little and little] thou 
 mayest not consume them quickly, lest the beasts of the 
 field increase upon thee.’’^® 
 
 Moses did not live to cross Jordan and the leadership 
 devolved on Joshua, whom the people, in eager anticipation, 
 willingly followed. In this mood, caution was thrown to 
 the winds. The cry was: “Clear the land of its inhabitants 
 and we will go in and enjoy it.” The course of events 
 soon removed their illusions. 
 
 Joshua began by taking Jericho and destroying it 
 with all its inhabitants, saving only Rahab and her kins¬ 
 folk.^’ The city of ‘Ai he treated with the same severity.^^ 
 
 Thereupon the campaign took another turn. A small 
 section of the natives began to be intimidated. The 
 Gibeonites, despairing of resistance by force, resorted to 
 cunning and deception. They sent a deputation to the 
 leaders of Israel and by false representations induced the 
 latter to agree to a treaty of peace. 
 
 This treaty was concluded under the belief that the 
 deputation represented a territory beyond that which 
 Israel had planned to conquer, “a very far country,” to 
 use their own words. 
 
 A few days later the fraud was discovered and a great 
 popular clamor was raised that the treaty should be dis¬ 
 regarded. The council, however, rejected these demands 
 to revoke a word solemnly given, saying: “We have sworn 
 unto them by the Lord, the God of Israel; now, therefore, 
 we may not touch thern.”^" 
 
 “Exod. 23.23, 28; Deut. 20.17. “Exod. 23.29; Deut. 7.22. 
 
 ”Jo 3 h. 6.22-25. *sjosh. 8.26, ^Josh. 9.3-15. »ojo3h. 9.19. 
 
16 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 At this point their Egyptian experience suggested 
 the remedy. They had been gerim in Egypt and as such 
 had been not only incapable of owning land, but had been 
 subject to feudal servitude, an incident of which was, what 
 in our modern states is called the corvee^ —the liability 
 to be called for a certain time in each year to labor on 
 public works. In Egypt it was doubtless called the mas^ 
 the superintendents of the laborers on public works being 
 known as sare missim. The latter word was apparently a 
 plural form for a singular mas not used in the narrative. 
 The labors which these feudatories had to perform were 
 called siblot,^^ the plural form of sebel, which word in another 
 form is, in at least one other instance, used to describe 
 mas-labor 
 
 The result of the treaty with Gibeon, as modified, was 
 that the Gibeonites lost their lands to the Israelites and 
 were moreover reduced to a condition not unlike the 
 peasants of the Middle Ages, that is to become laborers on 
 the land, subject however in addition to being called upon 
 to work for the state during a certain portion of the year. 
 
 “This we will do to them (the Gibeonites) and let 
 them live; ... So they became hewers of wood and 
 drawers of water to kol ha-‘edah” (Meaning: public 
 service.)34 And Joshua’s speech to the deputation is “. . . 
 There shall never fail to be of you bondmen, both hewers 
 of wood and drawers of water/or the house of my God”^^ 
 And they acquiesced.3^ 
 
 This treaty with Gibeon became the key-note of the 
 new policy. The sanguinary project of exterminating the 
 natives and the more moderate purpose of driving them 
 out were both abandoned. It was now resolved that the 
 natives should be reduced to the condition which the 
 
 siExod. 22,20; 23.9; Lev. 19.34; Deut. 10.19; 23.8. »2Exod. 1.11. 
 
 »»Gen. 49.15. wjosh. 9.20, 21. sejosh. 9.23. sejosh. 9.25-27. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 17 
 
 Gibeonites had submitted to. They were to become geritn 
 (landless) and subject to the mas. 
 
 The tribes were now ready to go on with the tasks 
 severally assigned to them. Their successes were at first 
 not complete nor even very important. Not until the 
 Northern tribes had formed a union and acted together 
 did they succeed in subduing the natives and relegating 
 them to the position of gerim subject to the mas. The 
 account is set forth in the Book of Judges.^7 While eight 
 of the tribes, namely Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, 
 Naphtali, Dan, Judah and Benjamin had at least won 
 some triumphs before the union of the tribes, Issachar had 
 totally failed. The record in Judges is silent on this humili¬ 
 ating event. Our information, on the subject, is obtained 
 from the ancient poem called the Blessing of Jacob, which 
 contains this remarkable passage: 
 
 “Issachar is a large-boned ass. 
 
 Couching down between the sheepfolds. 
 
 For he saw a rest-place that it was good. 
 
 And the land that it was pleasant. 
 
 And he bowed his shoulder to bear (lishol), 
 
 And became for mas-^ohed.”^^ 
 
 We have here the story of the only complete failure 
 among the invading forces. Instead of subjecting the 
 natives to the mas 'obed as did four of the tribes, or making 
 treaties of amity with them, as did four other tribes, Issachar 
 was itself overcome and made subject to the mas-'obed 
 by the natives of the district. The prosperity and comfort 
 enjoyed by the tribe in its new home is described in a tone 
 of lofty contempt for a spirit so mean as to be satisfied 
 with subjection however profitable. 
 
 It is only just to the memory of the Issachar tribe, 
 to remember that in the decisive battle with Sisera it showed 
 
 *Uud. 1.19-25. 
 
 ”Gen. 49.15. 
 
18 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 that it had redeemed itself. In the great ancient poem of 
 Deborah39 its achievements are lauded: “And the princes 
 of Issachar, were with Deborah; As was Issachar, so was 
 Barak; Into the valley they rushed forth at his feet."'*® 
 The accepted opinion seems to be that Barak, the general 
 of the Hebrew army, and the victor in that glorious com¬ 
 bat, was of Issachar, and it has even been suggested by 
 respectable authority that Deborah herself was of that 
 tribe. The fact that Tola of Issachar was one of the 
 shofetim of Israeb^ attests the regard in which the tribe 
 came to be held. 
 
 The poem further shows that the isolation of these 
 northern tribes had gradually yielded to a desire for a 
 more or less intimate unity, and that this confederacy was 
 known as Israel or Beth Joseph. 
 
 It was doubtless after this had been accomplished, 
 that the conquest of the north country was completed and 
 the mas ‘obed was imposed on all the indigenous inhabitants 
 who remained in the land. That some of them emigrated 
 to the Judaic or southern territory would appear from a 
 casual statement in Chronicles, in the account of Hezekiah’s 
 Passover."*^ Enumerating the classes of participants in 
 that high festival, it mentions “the gerim that came out 
 of the land of Israel and dwelt in Judah.” The attraction, 
 probably, was that in Judah, they were not subject to the 
 mas-ohed^^ 
 
 Whether some emigrated to other countries our records 
 do not inform us. No conjecture on this point should 
 omit to consider the scanty means of transportation at the 
 time and the improbability of a great mass of people find- 
 
 »»Jud. 5.1-31. ‘ojud. 5.15. «Jud. 10.1. ‘2Chron. 30.25. 
 
 <3The natives of the South country made a more successful stand against the 
 invaders than did those of the North. “Judah could not drive out the inhabitants of 
 the valley because they had chariots of iron,” (Jud. 1.19), a significant forerunner of 
 the effect of using tanks in the great world-war. “And the children of Benjamin did 
 not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem; but the Jebusites dwelt with 
 the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem, unto this day.” (Jud. 1.21.) 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 19 
 
 ing employment or sustenance in strange places within 
 their reach. 
 
 The situation, however, presented another aspect far 
 more important than mere passion or sentiment. 
 
 The Hebrews had suddenly come into control of a 
 country whose land they divided among themselves and 
 this land had to be cultivated. A relatively small num¬ 
 ber were capable farmers. Moreover the natives were 
 practising all sorts of industries which the Hebrews had 
 not mastered. 
 
 The statesmanlike genius evident in the whole move¬ 
 ment did not, at this crisis, fail. 
 
 The solution proposed, adopted and carried into 
 effect was that the native population, as a whole, should 
 remain where they were. True, they lost their land-holdings 
 to the Hebrews. They did not however lose their skill or 
 industry, and these qualities were absolutely needed to 
 maintain and develop the country. The precise terms 
 of the understanding are of course inaccessible to us, but 
 we have enough information to obtain a general idea of 
 them. 
 
 That the relations of Hebrews with the ger were quite 
 friendly, perhaps too friendly, appears sufficiently from 
 the traditions. 
 
 We are told that “the children of Israel dwelt among 
 the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the 
 Perizzites, and the Hivites and the Jebusites; and they took 
 their daughters to be their wives, and gave their own 
 daughters to their sons, and served their gods. “'*4 
 
 Ezekiel, perhaps in a mood of irritation, quotes the 
 tradition thus: “Thine origin and thy nativity is of the 
 land of the Canaanite; the Amorite was thy father, and 
 thy mother was a Hittite.’’^^ 
 
 «Jud. 3.5. 
 
 *‘Ezek. 16.3. 
 
20 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 And Ezra speaks as if the events of his time bore out 
 the tradition.^® 
 
 Let us, however, first ascertain by what name this 
 non-Hebrew population was called. As they had become 
 an element of the whole Hebrew social structure, the 
 multifarious names of the relatively small groups into 
 which they were divided would soon be abandoned. A 
 new name would be applied to them to designate their 
 whole body as against the body of Hebrews. 
 
 That name was gar, used sometimes in the singular 
 and sometimes as a collective noun, though its plural 
 form gerim was also used. A little reflection will supply 
 the reason. Those natives were strangers in blood to the 
 Israelites and there had been no acquaintance or inter¬ 
 course with them. In those early ages, when consciousness 
 of blood-relationship produced tribal bodies, all outside 
 the ranks were strangers indeed. When the body of Israel¬ 
 ites was brought in intimate contact with the body of 
 natives, both of them felt that they were strangers to each 
 other. The fact that the natives would soon become an 
 integral body in close relationship to the activities of 
 the new Hebrew nation could not at first mitigate the 
 strangeness in blood, in experience, in activities and in 
 religious practices. Moreover their national experience 
 supplied a precedent. Though they had been settled in 
 Egypt for centuries in relations somewhat similar to those 
 which they now imposed on the Canaanites, they always 
 viewed themselves as having been gerim in Egypt.^^ 
 
 It behooves us now to return to the other classes 
 called strangers by the versions. First among these was 
 the nokri . Him, the Hebre ws looked upon as the hostile, 
 the unmitig ated a lien. 
 
 Here are instances: 
 
 «Ezra 9.1, 2. 
 
 «Exod. 22.20; 23.9; Lev. 19.34; Deut. 10.19. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 21 
 
 1st. There were two kinds of flesh abhorred by the 
 Hebrews, that which dieth of itself (nebelah) and that 
 which is torn of beasts (terefah). 
 
 The nebelah, odious as it was, might be sold to the 
 nokri^^ The terefah was still more objectionable than the 
 nebelah. The antique law was that it should be cast to 
 the dogs.49 There is ground for the assumption that the 
 rigidity of this rule was, in the course of time, relaxed, 
 since an express ordinance forbade the eating of the terefah 
 by Hebrew or by It is not hazardous to conjecture 
 
 that it might be given or sold to the nokri, no allusion to 
 him being made in this prohibitive ordinance. 
 
 2d. No hen-nekar could eat of the Passover. 
 
 3d. An Israelite was not allowed to offer for sacrifice 
 an animal procured from a ben-nekar.^^ 
 
 4th. The taking of interest or increase for money or 
 goods loaned to another is a highly objectionable act, 
 but it is nevertheless allowed in the case of a nokriJ^ 
 
 5th. No ben-nekar should be allowed in the Temple.s-* 
 
 6th. Perhaps the most emphatic example is presented 
 by the spontaneous exclamation of the Levite while on 
 his journey. When night fell and it was necessary to 
 find shelter, his companion pointed out a city that lay 
 before them as a convenient stopping-place for the night. 
 The Levite, horrified, replied: “We will not turn aside 
 into a nokri city!”^^ 
 
 7th. Isaiah reproaches Judah and Jerusalem that 
 “they please themselves in the brood of nokri.'" 
 
 8th. Zephaniah denounces those who wear clothes in 
 nokri style. 57 
 
 9th. Obadiah looks upon nokrim as mere pillagers. 5* 
 
 10th. Lamentations does the like.^^^ 
 
 *8Deut. 14.21. ‘9Exod. 22.30. “Lev. 17.15. “Exod. 12.43. 
 
 “Lev. 22.25. “Deut. 23.21. “Ezek. 44.7, 9. “Jud. 19.12. 
 
 »»l 3 a. 2.6. “Zeph. 1.8. ‘»Obad. 1.11. “Lara. 5.2. 
 
22 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 11th. The 114th Psalm says of the bene nekar that 
 their “mouth speaketh falsehood, and their right hand is 
 a right hand of lying. 
 
 The Book of Proverbs looks upon them as degraded 
 and degenerate. The depth of infamy is reached by the 
 nokriyah. 
 
 The worst fate that can befall a Hebrew is that the 
 nokri or zar shall enjoy his substance, that ‘‘zarim be 
 filled with thy strength and thy labors be in the nokri's 
 house. 
 
 And a Hebrew has sunk low indeed when he has 
 become muzar unto his brethren and nobri unto his mother’s 
 children when the gerim of his house and his amahot 
 look upon him as a zar and a nokri.^^ 
 
 While common opinion was hostile to the nokri^ and 
 the law, in a measure, reflected it, since the education of 
 a whole people in new ideas is a slow process, there were 
 loftier spirits whose souls were unhampered by prejudice. 
 These had that wider vision which looks without fear into 
 a distant future nobler and freer than the present. They 
 foresaw a time when the hated nokri should become a 
 brother. In the prayer of Solomon at the dedication of 
 the Temple he speaks of “the nokri that is not of thy 
 people Israel, when he shall come out of a far country 
 for Thy name’s sake . . . when he shall come and 
 
 pray toward this house” and his supplication is: “Hear 
 Thou in heaven. Thy dwelling-place, and do according to 
 all that the nokri called to Thee for; that all the peoples of 
 the earth may know Thy name to reverence Thee as doth 
 Thy people Israel. . . 
 
 In the magnificent vision of Isaiah, he sees kol ha- 
 goyim (all the foreign nations) “at the end of days” flock 
 
 wpsalm 144.8, 11. eiProv. 2.16; 6.24; 7.5; 20.16; 27.13. 
 
 “Prov. 5.10; Eccles. 6.2. “Psalm 69.9. “Job 19.15. 
 
 *®1 Kings 8.41; 2 Chron. 6.32. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 23 
 
 tc the Temple and pledge allegiance to the God of Jacob 
 and “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and 
 their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up 
 sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any 
 more.”^^ And Micah foresees the same happy result in 
 the end of daysf’’ meaning, according to Margolis,^® the 
 Messianic era. 
 
 When we reflect that these messages were delivered 
 twenty-five centuries ago and view conditions as they are 
 to-day, the long postponement of the happy time is fully 
 vindicated. 
 
 The broad views above cited concerning the nokri 
 may be supplemented by an incident of the most interesting 
 character. 
 
 It will be remembered that Israel determined not to 
 make its attack on Canaan from the south, but to estab¬ 
 lish its base of operations east of Jordan. The direct route 
 to the desired point lay through the territory of Edom. 
 
 At this point Moses exhibited a regard for international 
 law based on ethical principles, which is amazing for that 
 early time. The narrative is related in the twentieth 
 Chapter of Numbers: 
 
 “Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the King 
 of Edom. Thus saith thy brother Israel. . . . We are 
 in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border. Let us 
 pass, I pray thee, through thy land; we will not pass through 
 field or through vineyard, neither will we drink of the 
 water of the wells; we will go along the king’s highway, 
 we will not turn aside to the right hand nor to the left, 
 until we have passed thy border.” 
 
 And Edom said unto him: 
 
 “Thou shalt not pass through me, lest I come out 
 
 •*Isa. 2.2-4. «^Micah 4.1-4. 
 
 ••Margolis’ Commentary on Micah, pp. 42, 43 (J.P.S., Philadelphia, 1908). 
 
24 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 with the sword against thee.” And the children of Israel 
 said unto him: 
 
 ”We will go up by the highway, and if we drink of 
 thy water, I and my cattle, then will I give the price thereof; 
 let me only pass through on my feet; there is no hurt.” 
 
 “And he said, Thou shalt not pass through. And Edom 
 came out against him with much people and with a strong 
 hand. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through 
 his border; wherefore Israel turned away from him.”®^ 
 
 The object to be attained was practicable by a march 
 through the territory of the Amorites whose King was 
 Sihon. 
 
 Moses then sent to Sihon, a message substantially 
 similar to that which had been sent to Edom, omitting 
 of course to call Israel brother to the Amorite because 
 they viewed each other as strangers whereas the Edomite 
 was looked upon as descended from the brother of Israel’s 
 ancestor Jacob. 
 
 Sihon, however, not only refused to grant the request 
 but gathered his army and attacked Israel at Jahaz. 
 
 “And Israel smote him with the edge of the sword 
 and possessed his land from the Arnon unto the Yabbok 
 oven unto the children of Ammon; for the border of the 
 ■children of Ammon was strong. And Israel took all these 
 cities and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, in 
 Heshbon, and in all the towns thereof. For Heshbon was 
 the city of Sihon the King of the Amorites, who had fought 
 against the former King of Moab and taken all his land 
 out of his hand even unto the Arnon.” 
 
 “Thus Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites.”^*^ 
 
 The aloofness of the great mass of Hebrews from the 
 mokri^ is in striking contrast to their position towards the 
 ger, 
 
 69Num. 20.14-24. ^oNum 21.22-31. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 25 
 
 We have already advanced the hypothesis that the 
 bulk of the native population remained in the land and 
 became feudatories of the conquering Hebrews, subject 
 likewise to the mas or corvee, which is the liability to be 
 called on to labor on public works for a limited period. 
 
 That the ger was an important factor in the labor- 
 force of the Hebrew commonwealth is amply attested by 
 the records. 
 
 We have, for instance, this narrative: 
 
 Moses is represented, as having, near the close of his 
 career, addressed all Israel, reciting at the same time the 
 several classes composing the nation,to wit: “All the 
 men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and thy ger 
 that is in the midst of thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood 
 unto the drawer of thy water. 
 
 If the ger here referred to had been merely alien out¬ 
 siders visiting the country or temporarily sojourning in it, 
 there would have been little reason to include them as an 
 important element of the people on this solemn occasion. 
 There would have been even less ground for using the 
 possessive pronoun and calling them thy ger. This posses¬ 
 sive expression implies not only close relationship, but also 
 superiority, a power of command, which would be inappro¬ 
 priate to express the condition of friendly visitors, but 
 would aptly characterize the relation between employers 
 and employees. We are not however compelled to rely 
 on inference alone. The phrase added defines their con¬ 
 dition, they are the “hewers of wood and drawers of water,” 
 a popular expression describing any kind of common labor. 
 
 There are other instances of a similar use of the word. 
 The Sabbath commandments in Exodus and Deuteron- 
 omy^^ direct the master to prohibit work on the Sabbath 
 not only by his family and his slaves but “by thy ger that 
 
 ”Deut. 29.1 9,10. ”Exod. 20.10; 23.12; Deut. 5.14. 
 
26 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 is within thy gates.” Such a command is, of necessity, 
 addressed to an employer who might otherwise exact 
 Sabbath service from an alien employee who was not a 
 worshipper of the God of Israel. 
 
 A similar prohibition is contained in the ordinance 
 commanding the observance of the tenth day of the seventh 
 month (Atonement Day).73 
 
 More striking still is the language attributed to Moses 
 in charging the judges: “Hear the causes between your 
 brethren and judge righteously between a man and his 
 brother and (between a man) and his ger."'^^ It is difficult 
 to imagine causes of contention with mere strangers, whereas 
 differences between employer and employee have always 
 arisen. And here again it is necessary to note the possessive 
 pronoun (his ger). 
 
 The unsophisticated historical evidence seems con¬ 
 clusive of the matter. Solomon, intent on increasing the 
 splendor of his reign, entertained magnificent building 
 schemes. He built not only the Temple but constructed 
 the fortifications of Jerusalem, the royal palace and other 
 notable structures. He also built Gezer, Beth-Horon the 
 nether, Baalath, Tadmor in the wilderness and other 
 cities. 75 In carrying on these projects he was doing what 
 his father. King David, had dreamed of and projected. 
 
 Needless to say, the work required a large force of 
 laborers, and the only practicable mode of obtaining them 
 was by the enforcement of the maSy the corvee to which 
 the conquered Palestinian natives had been subjected. 
 David had seen this clearly and had begun by systematizing 
 the institution putting at its head a man of extraordinary 
 ability, Adoniram, whose office is described as being “over 
 the maSy”’^^ what in modern parlance we would call a 
 “Minister of Labor” in the King’s Cabinet, which position 
 
 «Lev. 16.29. 74Deut. 1.16. «1 Kings 9.15-19; 2 Chron. 8.1-6. 
 
 »»2 Sam. 20.24. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 27 
 
 he continued to hold under Solomon77 and under the latter’s 
 successor RehoboamJ^ a period of remarkable length, 
 seeing that the duration of Solomon’s reign was about 
 forty years’^’ to which must be added the time he held office 
 under David and under Rehoboam. 
 
 David’s first step was to take a census of all the gerim 
 men in the land of Israel.^® There were, however, cir¬ 
 cumstances which hindered him from realizing his pro¬ 
 jects. Under Solomon everything was ready. Adoniram 
 took a new census of these gerim men, and their number 
 was found to be 153,600, from which figure it is fair to 
 infer that the whole ger population of Israel (women and 
 children included) was perhaps three quarters of a million. 
 
 We are not left in doubt as to who these gerim were. 
 The account is explicit: ‘‘All the people that were left 
 of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites 
 and the Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel; 
 even their children that were left after them in the land. . 
 
 The census being completed the next step was to levy 
 the mas. The architects needed 10,000 men to work stead¬ 
 ily, and these were to be taken from among the gerim. 
 As has already been said, these gerim were employed by 
 the Israelites, the men of the northern section, in agricul¬ 
 tural and other labors, though their largest and most 
 important industry was agriculture. 
 
 The mode in which the mas was levied, was somewhat 
 complicated and that for good and sufficient reasons. The 
 Israelite farmers needed the gerim and deprivation of their 
 service entailed loss and hardship. To reduce these dis¬ 
 advantages as much as possible, Adoniram devised this 
 
 scheme: 
 
 The 150,000 gerim men were divided into five sections 
 
 ”1 Kings 4.6; 5.28. Kings 12.18; 2 Chron. 10.18. 
 
 ’•Solomon’s reign is given as forty years in 1 Kings 12.42. 
 
 M2 Chron. 2.16 «1 Kings 9.20, 21; 2 Chron. 8.7, 8. 
 
28 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 of 30,000 each. The first year one of these sections was 
 drafted; another section was drafted for the second year, 
 and so on, one section for the third, another for the fourth 
 and another for the fifth year. It followed that the mem¬ 
 bers of any one of these sections were not subject to be 
 called for a second term of service until the fifth year after 
 the expiration of their first term. 
 
 These sections of 30,000 men were thrice the number 
 required by the architects. Each section was therefore 
 subdivided into three sub-sections of 10,000 each, the latter 
 being the number required. It followed that each of these 
 sub-sections was held to the work for only four months in 
 each year. To deprive the Israelite employer of a con¬ 
 siderable number of his workmen for four successive months 
 in the year would have been a serious hardship. The matter 
 was therefore so arranged that each sub-section of 10,000 
 men should do its work not by continuously working for 
 four months, but by working one month out of every 
 three in the year of their service, so that each individual 
 worked in the public service a total of four months in five 
 years, that is one-fifteenth or six and two-thirds per cent 
 of his time. 
 
 The outstanding feature of this mas levy was that it 
 did not include the southland, the territory of Judah and 
 Benjamin, while most of the magnificent structures to be 
 built were to be located in the latter. Solomon appointed 
 as Adoniram’s chief deputy in Israel, a northerner of the 
 northerners, Jeroboam ben Nebat, an Ephraimite.®^ He is 
 described as a gihhor hayil (a mighty man of valor) and of 
 untiring industry, and he was given charge “over all the 
 labor of beth-Joseph” (the northland). Instead of faith¬ 
 fully performing the duties of his office, he did his best to 
 rouse opposition to the enforcement of the mas. His 
 
 *^1 Kings 11.26; George Adam Smith’s Historical Geography of the Holy Land, 
 p. 319, note. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 29 
 
 treachery being disclosed, he fled to Egypt where he re¬ 
 mained till Solomon’s death. 
 
 Though the discontent of Northern Israel was not 
 relieved, Solomon’s reign was so imposing that no out¬ 
 break resulted. The work went on without disturbance, 
 and the results were, as regards the reputation of the 
 Kingdom, of the most flattering character. 
 
 At Solomon’s death, however, the rebel—Jeroboam— 
 returned to Palestine and resumed his activity. Solomon’s 
 son and successor, Rehoboam, was of a type far inferior 
 to his celebrated father. From the very beginning of his 
 career he blundered. The discontented northerners at 
 once approached him and demanded relief from the mas.^^ 
 Jeroboam was their spokesman. Rehoboam haughtily 
 refused, whereupon the northerners raised their old war- 
 cry “To your tents, O Israel,and openly rebelled. Reho¬ 
 boam, unable to grasp the situation, sent poor old Adoniram 
 to the north with orders to enforce the mas relentlessly. 
 He was killed in the attempt, the Northland seceded, Jero¬ 
 boam became its first king, Jerusalem was repudiated as 
 the capital and Beth-el was set up in its place. 
 
 Thus the kingdom was finally divided in the year 933 
 B.C., for a grievance which the Northerners had endured 
 for decades. The mas which took from the employer six 
 and two-thirds per cent of his gers working-time was 
 scarcely sufficient of itself to warrant the drastic step of 
 secession. There was undoubtedly a feeling that the South 
 was getting an unfair advantage of the North not only in 
 monopolizing the results of this labor, but in not contribut¬ 
 ing its proportionate share thereof. Added the tactlessness 
 of Rehoboam and the audacious ambition of Jeroboam, 
 and there were ample materials to produce a cataclysm. 
 
 Ml Kings 11.40. Ml Kings 12.3, 4. “1 Kings 12.14, 16. 
 
 s"! Kings 12.29-33: Amos 7.13. 
 
30 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 One curious feature in connection with this subject is 
 that many scholars understand the texts to mean that 
 the Israelites themselves were drafted for public work and 
 that this was the cause of the revolt. For this opinion 
 there is no semblance of authority. There is not the slight¬ 
 est hint that they were ever made subject to the corvee, 
 whereas all the texts concur in stating that the gerim were 
 so subject. When the text tells us that Solomon levied a 
 mas on kol-yisrael, it plainly means that he drafted their 
 employees and thus imposed a tax on the employers. 
 We may assume that people three thousand years ago 
 were not more eager to pay taxes than are our contempo¬ 
 raries, and that, then as now, they bandied charges that 
 the taxes were unfairly levied, that they were excessive 
 and that the products were unevenly distributed. 
 
 This aspect of the case many commentators and critics 
 have overlooked and have in consequence invented the 
 imposition of the corvee on the Israelites themselves, in 
 the belief that nothing less than a severe personal grievance 
 could have produced the great rebellion. 
 
 In the next lecture we will further consider the ger. 
 
 *U Kings 9.20-22; 2 Chron. 8.7-9. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 II 
 
 In the previous lecture the gerim were depicted as a 
 g reat, per haps the great labor force of the Hebrew common¬ 
 wealth. Though described by all the Bible translators as 
 strangers, the difference between them and the zarim and 
 the nokrim, who are also called strangers was dwelt upon. 
 In addition to these classes there were two other classes 
 of so-called strangers mentioned, namely the Toshab and 
 the Sakir, to investigate whom is our next problem. 
 
 About them there is no mystery. They are mere sub¬ 
 divisions of the ger. 
 
 When the natives were reduced to feudatories they 
 had to face abnormal conditions. The majority of them 
 were farmers but an important minority carried on other 
 trades. The Hebrew vocabulary is rich in the names of 
 such occupations.^ 
 
 The conquest had deprived the natives of their land- 
 holdings. Most of them had families to support. The 
 
 iThe following list, which is far from complete, will show how varied were the 
 occupations of the inhabitants: 
 
 The Omman (Cant 7.2) is a master-workman, an artist. 
 
 (Hosea 7.6) is a baker. 
 
 (Isa. 19.9) is a weaver. 
 
 (2 Kings 22.6) is a builder. 
 
 (Psalm 104.3) " 
 
 (Ezek. 5.1) is a barber. 
 
 (Isa. 19.8) is a fisherman. 
 
 The Ofeh 
 The Or eg 
 The Boneh 
 The Mekareh 
 The Gallab 
 The Dayyag 
 or 
 
 The Dawwag 
 The Hobel 
 The Mallah 
 The Hobesh 
 The Rofe 
 The liar ash 
 
 (Ezek. 47.10) “ 
 
 (Ezek. 27.9) is a sailor. 
 
 (Ezek. 27.29) " 
 
 (Is . 3.7) is a surgeon. 
 
 (2 Kings 20.5) is a physician. 
 
 (1 Sam. 13.19) is a metal-worker. 
 (2 Sam. 5.11) is a wood-worker. 
 
 (2 Sam.5.11) is a worker in stone. 
 
 31 
 
32 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 obvious resource was to utilize their knowledge by working 
 for the victors. The latter were not in the best condition. 
 They had not the requisite number of skilled farmers and 
 artisans to carry on the variegated business of the country^ 
 They needed the labor of the dispossessed natives. The 
 result was an arrangement whereby the bulk of the native 
 population remained where they were. They became settled 
 as employees on the land of which they had been the owners. 
 And these settled gerim were called toshabim {settled^ a 
 word related to yashab, to sit, just as in English, sit and 
 settled are related). They were not employed for a season 
 or for a limited period, but they and their progeny after 
 them were to be on the land indefinitely—a settled peasant 
 population. 
 
 That a minority of the natives, especially the artisans 
 and the unmarried men, were reluctant to enter into such 
 a service was only natural. They preferred to work for a 
 period expressly limited and to be paid daily wages. These 
 
 (Exod. 28.11) is a gem-engraver. 
 
 (Amos 6.5) invents musical instruments. 
 
 (Exod. 31.4) devises artistic constructions. 
 
 (Exod. 26.1) develops artistry in weaving. 
 
 (2 Chron. 26.15) invents engines of war. 
 
 (1 Sam. 8.13) is a cook. 
 
 (Jud. 16.21) is a miller. 
 
 (Isa. 41.25) is a potter. 
 
 (Isa. 23.8) is a trader. 
 
 (Isa. 24.2) 
 
 (Gen. 23.16) 
 
 (1 Kings 10.15) “ 
 
 (Isa. 7.3) is a fuller, a washer. 
 
 (2 Kings 24.14) is a locksmith. 
 
 (Jer. 24.1) a smith. 
 
 (2 Sam. 1.24) is a clothier. 
 
 (1 Kings 4.3) is a writer. 
 
 (Jud. 5.26) works with a hammer; the laborer in general (Prov. 16.26) 
 (Jer. 16.16) is a hunter. 
 
 (Jud. 17.4; Jer. 10.9, 14; Isa. 40.19; Neh. 3.8, 32) is a smelter, a refiner, 
 a goldsmith. 
 
 (Jer. 51.21) drives a chariot, 
 or 
 
 The Rakkah (1 Kings 22.34) ” 
 
 The Rokeah (Exod. 30.25) is a perfumer. 
 
 The Hosheb 
 
 The Tabbah 
 The Token 
 The Yoser 
 The Kena'ani 
 The Maker 
 The Soher 
 The Rokel 
 The Kobes 
 The Masger 
 
 The Malbish 
 The Sofer 
 The 'Amel 
 The Sayyad 
 The Soref 
 
 The Rokeb 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 33 
 
 constituted the sakir c lass of the ger. The term of a sakirs 
 work-contract was called yeme sakir^ or shene sakir.^ While 
 ordinarily yeme sakir would mean sakir s days, yet the 
 word yom besides its usual meaning of day, also signifies 
 time, instances of which meaning are given in Brown- 
 Driver’s Hebrew Lexicon.^ It is in this sense that it is used 
 here, and it indicates that the was hired, not from 
 
 day to d ay, but for a fixed perioT And this fixed period 
 was, in the beginning, more than one year, as the expression 
 shene sakir (literally sakir's years) shows. The probability 
 is that the term of his employment was for three years. - 
 So may fairly be understood the injunction to a master 
 releasing his Hebrew slave at the end of six years (which 
 was the limit of a Hebrew slave’s service) on the expiration 
 of which he was to go out free. These are the words: (A.V.) 
 
 ‘Tt shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest 
 him away free from thee; for he hath been worth a double 
 hired servant {sakir) to thee in serving thee six years. 
 
 It is true that many modern scholars haughtily reject 
 this view, but it is that of Ibn Ezra, who fortifies it by 
 Isaiah’s words in foretelling the doom of Moab, and it may 
 well be accepted: 
 
 “Within three years, as the years of a sakir {shene 
 sakir) and the glory of Moab shall wax contemptible.”^ 
 
 The probability is that in the course of time, as cir- 
 cum.stances changed, the three-year term of the sakir's 
 
 >Lev. 25.50; Job 7.1; 14.6. »Isa. 16.14. <P. 399, sect. 6. ‘Deut. 15.18. 
 
 Notwithstanding my repugnance to entering upon the slippery path of textual 
 criticism, I venture in this connection to make the suggestion that the text originally 
 read, not mishneh sekar sakir, but mishneh shene sakir. That an ancient scribe, who 
 has since been uniformly followed, might easily have made this blunder, plainly appears 
 when we reflect that he had three words to copy, that he kept these in mind, and that 
 the middle word was closely related to the. first. While writing he made it closely related 
 to the third instead of the first, a mistake the like of which many of us have made since 
 his day. Had he acted otherwise than mechanically, he could not have escaped the 
 reflection that the wage of the sakir was paid every evening, while the reward of the 
 ‘ebed was principally, if not altogether, in kind, and could bear no analogy to the sakir's 
 daily wage payment. 
 
34 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 contract was reduced to one year. This may fairly be 
 inferred from the expression used concerning the term of a 
 Hebrew who has sold himself as a slave to a ger we-toshab. 
 Instead of being doomed to perpetual servitude he must be 
 viewed as a sakir shanah be-shanah (a sakir from year to 
 year). 7 
 
 Our thesis that the ger were composed of the two 
 classes toshab and sakir seems provable from the records. 
 
 They are grouped together in several instances in a 
 way that shows their close connection in status. 
 
 A striking example of this is to be found in the impor¬ 
 tant Pesah statute/ which commands a ceremony sacro¬ 
 sanct, in commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt. It 
 is therefore of special concernment to Israelites and par¬ 
 ticipation in it by non-Israelites is eschewed. As there 
 are many of the latter connected with Israel, the relations 
 of the several groups are carefully defined. The groups 
 spoken of are the following: 
 
 a) The whole congregation of Israeh 
 
 b) The ben-nekar (the unmitigated alien) 
 
 c) The miknat kesef (purchased nokri slave) 
 
 d) The toshab and sakir'^^ 
 
 e) The ezrah ha-arep^ 
 
 f) The 'arel (uncircumcised) 
 
 g) The ger'^^. 
 
 Superficially read, there would appear to be six groups 
 of outsiders. Careful examination shows that there is not 
 so great a number. The ultimate test is, that one who 
 has not been initiated into the covenant of Abraham (the 
 *arel)j may not eat of the Paschal lamb. This condition 
 of inadmissibility was, of course, normal in the case of the 
 ben-nekar, the man who was and would remain a complete 
 
 ^Lev. 25.53. ®Exod. ch. 12 and the Supplement thereto Num. 9.1-14. 
 
 »Exod. 12.47. loibid. 12.43. nibid. 12.44. i^bid. 12.45. 
 
 “Ibid. 12.48, 49. “Ibid. 12.48. lUbid. 12.48. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 35 
 
 outsider. The miknat kesef was a ben-nekar by origin, 
 but according to the traditional custom, it was the duty 
 of the master to initiate his slave whether house-born or 
 purchased^^ and hence the ordinance admits him to par¬ 
 ticipate after such initiation. 
 
 The toshab and sakir are here named together, and 
 their participation in the Paschal ceremony is forbidden. 
 Respecting them there would appear to be no alleviation. 
 And yet such a state of affairs seems highly improbable. 
 The purchased nokri slave, may, after complying with the 
 condition, join in the festival. Respecting the house-born 
 slave not a word is said because his initiation into the 
 Covenant is assumed as a matter unquestionable. 
 
 The toshab and sakir work by their side for the same 
 master. Keeping in mind the imitative and assimilative 
 qualities of humankind, it is incredible that they would 
 not want to do what not only the master did, but what 
 the slave, whom they looked down upon, had the privilege 
 of doing. It is equally improbable that the ordinance 
 would sternly exclude the toshab and the sakir if they were 
 willing to leave the 'arel class. Nor did the ordinance do 
 so. When it permitted the ger, after the admission of him¬ 
 self and his males into the Abrahamic covenant, to partake 
 of the Paschal lamb, it was merely substituting the term 
 ger for its species, toshab and sakir. Bertholet, who has 
 studied the subject more closely perhaps, than any other 
 commentator, is of this opinion. These are his words: 
 “Vielmehr ist ger der Allgemeinbegriff, unter den sich toshab 
 subsumiert.”^® 
 
 If these views are correct it would follow that the only 
 class absolutely inadmissible to participate was the nokri, 
 the ben-nekar, the hostility to whom was dwelt upon in 
 
 i«Gen. 17.13. i^Exod. 12.44. 
 
 i*Bertholet, Die Stellung der Israeliten und der Juden zu den Fremden, p. 159. 
 
36 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 the preceding lecture. Though the gerim^ whether toshah 
 or sakir couXd join in the festival, they were perfectly free 
 to refrain from so doing. While their gradual assimilation 
 was likely to occur, no pressure was to be brought to hasten 
 the process. The words are: “If the ger . . will keep 
 
 the passover. . leaving the matter to their option 
 
 and initiative. 
 
 The groups mentioned have now been considered 
 excepting only the ezrah ha-ares. The versions present 
 various translations but with vexatious unanimity under¬ 
 stand this term to mean invariably the Israelite himself. 
 
 To this rendering there are serious objections. To 
 consider it now would be a hindrance to the elucidation 
 of the main questions and it must therefore be deferred 
 till later. 
 
 This much may, however, be said at this point. In 
 our view the ezrah ha-ares or as it is alternatively written, 
 the ezrah are terms that in the majority of instances mean 
 Israel but in the rest have another meaning, the phenome¬ 
 non being due to changes arising in the course of Hebrew 
 history. 
 
 We will now return to our toshah and sakir. They are 
 mentioned together in the regulations concerning the 
 priesthood. The latter are allowed the kodashim (holy 
 things) for their sustenance, but outsiders are excluded. 
 Among these outsiders are the priest’s toshah and sakir. 
 They may not eat of it, though his slaves purchased and 
 home-born are allowed to eat of it.^° The difference between 
 these two kinds of laborers is that the slave, as was ex¬ 
 plained in the previous lecture, has virtually become a 
 member of the family, and as such joins in the family wor- i 
 
 i 
 
 ship, whereas the toshah and sakir contemplated by the I 
 ordinance are freemen who are not to be persuaded to i 
 
 i*Exod. 12.48. 
 
 20Lev. 22.10.11. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 37 
 
 become proselytes. And even if they left the ^arel class 
 they would still be excluded from the kodashim, because 
 the ordinary Hebrew layman (here called zar) is equally 
 barred. 
 
 The next instance relates to the produce of the seventh 
 (the sabbatical) year when there must be neither sowing 
 nor reaping. What the land spontaneously produces may 
 be used for food 
 
 by thee (the owner) 
 by thy ‘ebed (slave) 
 by thy amah (female slave) 
 by thy sakir 
 by thy toshab^^. 
 
 Here the sakir and the toshab are placed in the same cate¬ 
 gory with the slave and are in like manner spoken of pos¬ 
 sessively^ indicating that there is the relation of master 
 and servant. There is no mention of thy ger as in other 
 analogous instances, for the obvious reason that the classes 
 mentioned are the two species of the genus ger. 
 
 In the preceding lecture the same use of the possessive 
 pronoun in connection with the ger was shown and dwelt 
 upon. 
 
 And, last but not least, the position of the sakir and 
 toshab as employees is emphatically illustrated in the case 
 of a Hebrew who has become impoverished and has sold 
 himself to a prosperous man of his own nation. Though 
 the greed of the buyer and the desperate straits of the seller 
 may have co-operated to make a contract whereby the 
 poor wretch was to become an 'ebed (slave), the law steps 
 in and annuls it as contrary to the public policy of the 
 state. The poor man’s status is to be that of ger we-toshab 
 or alternatively of sakir or of toshabd^ the various names 
 being practically equivalent to ger. 
 
 *‘Lev. 22.10. “Ibid. 25.4-6. “Ibid. 25.34, 40. 
 
38 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 In this connection it is well to consider the case of the 
 Hebrew who has become impoverished and has sold him¬ 
 self to a prosperous ger we-toshab or to one of the latter’s 
 kin. However stringent the contract, the law reads into 
 it a provision that the Hebrew may at any time be re¬ 
 deemed on fair terms, either by himself if he become able, 
 or otherwise, by any of his kin. In no event can he be held 
 beyond the jubilee year. In arranging the terms of redemp¬ 
 tion the time already served is to be used in the computation 
 as if the poor man had been serving sakirs time (yeme 
 sakir). Indeed he is to be considered and treated as a 
 sakir shanah be-shanah (a sakir from year to year).^'* 
 
 A comparison of the two cases invites attention to 
 facts that are noteworthy. The outstanding feature is 
 that the ger we-toshab is in a position to employ a Hebrew 
 to work for him. The desire on the ger we-toshab's part to 
 call for such help is based on his prosperity and on a form 
 of it which is nowhere expressly mentioned but seems 
 necessarily implied. He is a peasant living with his family 
 on a Hebrew’s land, deriving his and their sustenance from 
 it, with perquisites perhaps in the form of wages, which 
 are unascertainable from the records. A Hebrew land- 
 owner alongside of him is too impoverished to continue on 
 his land any longer and must seek a means of earning a 
 livelihood for himself and family. He makes an arrange¬ 
 ment with the ger we-toshab whereby the latter will employ 
 him, perhaps leasing to such employer for a limited term 
 the land which he himself can no longer manage. While 
 the ger we-toshab may not own land there is no authority 
 for believing that he might not lease it for a limited term. 
 If he does so, he may not employ the unfortunate owner 
 as a peasant (toshab) but must hire him as a sakir, a laborer, 
 whose wage must be paid daily. 
 
 24Lev. 25.47-54. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 39 
 
 In this connection it may not be amiss to remember 
 that the sakir is also capable of attaining a certain prosper¬ 
 ity. Probably such an achievement was rarer in the case 
 of a sakir than in that of a toshab, but it was practicable. 
 
 The only recorded instance is that of a sakir who owns 
 
 an animal and hires himself out to work with it, naturally 
 for a wage much greater than he would earn for his own 
 work without such aid. The text has given endless trouble 
 to the translators. The King James version renders it 
 thus: 
 
 ‘‘And if a man borrow aught of his neighbor (rea'), 
 and it be hurt, or die, the owner thereof being not with 
 it (‘immo), he shall surely make it good. But if the owner 
 thereof be with it {‘immo), he shall not make it good; if 
 (im) it be an hired thing (text: sakir) it came for his hire.”^^ 
 
 The English Revision makes it: 
 
 “And if a man borrow aught of his neighbor and it be 
 hurt or die, the owner thereof not being with it, he shall 
 surely make restitution. If the owner thereof be with 
 it he shall not make it good; if it be a hired thing {sakir) 
 it came for its hire.” 
 
 The J.P.S. version is like the English Revision except 
 that it renders the last clause thus: “if it be a hireling 
 {sakir) he loseth his hire.” 
 
 The King James version and the English Revision 
 make of the sakir, a hired thing. The J.P.S. version on 
 the other hand appears to make the sakir, a person (as he 
 really is), but what the meaning of its whole phrase is 
 passes my understanding. 
 
 There appears to have been a general obsession that 
 a sakir could never be rich enough to own an ox or a cow, 
 and therefore to conceive him as hiring himself out to 
 work with his animal did not occur to them. 
 
 J‘Exod. 22.13. 14. 
 
40 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 Kautzsch in his German version of the Scriptures is 
 unable to give a satisfactory translation and therefore 
 leaves the last clause untranslated, giving his reasons in 
 a note, of which the following is a translation: 
 
 “The last phrase is of quite uncertain meaning. It 
 is usually translated thus: Tf it (the animal) was hired, 
 the loss is on the hire’, i.e. the loss is to be reckoned and 
 covered by the hire. But, in the first place, the word sakir 
 always means a day-laborer, and in any event, it would be 
 monstrous to consider the value of the animal as being 
 covered by the hire, which, after all, is but a small fraction 
 of its value. On the whole, therefore, it would seem that 
 this additional phrase has no bearing on the subject of 
 hiring an animal and refers only to the negligence of a 
 hired man in failing to care for the loaned animal. In that 
 view, the phrase would mean: Tf it be a hired man who 
 is responsible for the loss, it falls on his wages, i.e. he must 
 work till he earns enough to pay for the loss.’ 
 
 Kautzsch was on the right track, though he wandered 
 from the path and failed to reach the goal. 
 
 The difficulty is caused by the failure to grasp the 
 special meaning of the word rea and the particular in¬ 
 timation conveyed by the word Hmmo (beginning with an 
 ^ayin) and by the word im (beginning with an alef). 
 
 It is however the word rea which is most important 
 in this connection. The versions agree in rendering it 
 “neighbor” which is its usual signification. Here, how¬ 
 ever, it has another and a special meaning, though at 
 bottom, this special meaning has the same ethical implica¬ 
 tions as the general meaning. This question, “who is my 
 neighbor,” is the text of a fine piece of Midrash in Luke.*^ 
 We cannot however ascertain exact legal definitions by 
 hortatory exposition, however beautiful. 
 
 2«Kautszch, Die Heilige Schrift des alien Testaments, Freiburg, i. B. and Leipzig’ 
 1894. Beilagen p. 2. 27Luke 10.29-37. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 41 
 
 It will be remembered that the great body of native 
 workmen were called ger (stranger). As the new lords of 
 the land developed its industries, there inevitably arose 
 considerable classes of Hebrew laborers, men, who, either 
 had lost the land originally assigned them or some per¬ 
 haps who had never received any.^* These Hebrews came 
 by degrees to practise the various trades at which the ger 
 worked. With agriculture they were more or less familiar 
 and doubtless the majority of these workmen chose farm¬ 
 ing. Thus they worked alongisde of the ger. The national 
 pride forbade the calling of these brethren ger^ though this 
 word had practically come to mean “laborer.” In contrast 
 to the ger (stranger) they called their Hebrew workman, 
 rea (neighbor, friend). It is to be noted that though the 
 Hebrews balked at calling their laboring tribesman ger, 
 they did in time call such of them as worked for daily 
 wage, sakir, though the latter were originally one section 
 of the ger. 
 
 The following ordinance shows this use of the word: 
 
 “Thou shalt not oppress a sakir 'ani we-ehyon (the 
 versions render: a hired servant that is poor and needy) 
 whether he be of thy brethren or of thy ger that are in thy 
 land within thy gates. In the same day thou shalt give 
 him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for 
 he is poor {'ani) and setteth his heart upon it. . . 
 
 28Num. 1.2, 3 tells us that prior to the invasion of Canaan, a census was taken of 
 all the males “from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war 
 in Israel.” Upon the basis of the registry so made the conquered land was to be divided • 
 The question arises whether “and upward” was intended to include men of senile age 
 or whether there was a maximum age for military service. That there was some limit 
 seems intrinsically probable, and this probability is enhanced by the narrative which 
 makes Caleb, in his eighty-fifth year declare himself as still fit for war (Josh. 14.11). 
 Had he been on the registry, such a remark would have had no reason. It is still 
 further strengthened by the statement of Josephus (Antiq. Book III, ch. 12, 4) that 
 the limit was fifty years. Though he is not always to be relied on, he is in this instance 
 probably right, especially in view of the current opinion that man’s normal span of 
 life is seventy years (Psalm 90.10). If this hypothesis be correct it would follow that 
 some were landless from the very beginning. Add to this the inevitable differences 
 in the fertility of soil and in the ability and effijiency of the owners, and causes for 
 distress and impoverishment will not be wanting. 
 
 2»Deut. 24.14, 15. 
 
42 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 Returning now to our rea^ we find in the prophetic 
 writings satisfactory evidence of its use to mean workman. 
 
 Jeremiah in his great sermon on morality delivered 
 at the gate of the Lord’s house, exhorts his hearers as 
 follows: 
 
 “Thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; 
 thoroughly execute justice between a man and his rea\ 
 oppress not the ger, yatom or almanah."'^^ 
 
 Note the parallelism between the rea^ and the ger. 
 More explicit still is his cry against the King Jehoiakim: 
 
 “Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unright¬ 
 eousness, 
 
 And his chambers by injustice. 
 
 That useth his read's service for nothing 
 And giveth him not his hire (po'alo).'"^^ 
 
 And comparing the King unfavorably with his father^ 
 he dwells on the latter’s justice and righteousness in that 
 he judged the cause of the ‘ani and the ebyon, whereas 
 the son is a covetous oppressor.^"^ 
 
 Again in Zedekiah’s time he reproaches all the powers 
 of the state, namely, the princes of Jerusalem, the sarisim 
 and the priests and the whole ‘am ha-aref^ with dereliction 
 in not securing liberty for all including every man’s rea‘.^* 
 Ezekiel is equally bitter. His reproaches directed 
 to the princes of Israel enumerate among their other de¬ 
 linquencies that they have dealt by oppression with the 
 ger, the yatom, the almanah^^ and the rea‘.^^ 
 
 Proverbs has this significant passage: He that de- 
 spiseth his rea‘ sinneth, but he that is gracious to the 
 'aniyyim happy is he^^ 
 
 There are passages in the Pentateuch on similar lines: 
 “A ger thou shalt not wrong, neither shalt thou oppress 
 him; for ye were gerim in the land of Egypt. Ye shall 
 
 sojer. 7.5, 6. sUbid. 22.13. ^Ubid. 22.15-17 ssjbid. 34.19. 
 
 *abid. 34.17. 35Ezek. 22.7. aUbid. 22.12. ^vprov. 14.21. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 43 
 
 not afflict any almanah or yatom. ... If thou lend money 
 to any of my people, even to the ‘ani Hmmak (versions: 
 the poor with thee) thou shalt not be to him as a creditor, 
 neither shall ye lay upon him interest. If thou at all take 
 thy rea^^s garment to pledge, thou shalt restore it to him 
 by that the sun goeth down; for that is his only covering, 
 it is his garment for his skin; wherein shall he sleep? . 
 
 Note here the classification: ger, almanah, yatom, 
 ^ani ^immak, rea\ Again: “Thou shalt not oppress thy 
 rea\ nor rob him; the wages of a sakir shall not abide 
 with thee all night until the morning. 
 
 Here rea^ and sakir are in juxtaposition, if indeed 
 they are not alternative expressions meaning the day- 
 laborer. 
 
 And now as to the word Hmmo. 
 
 This word Hm, among its numerous meanings, has 
 one which expresses the idea of employment. The versions 
 simply translate “with” apparently ignoring the special 
 meaning here present. 
 
 Instances of the use of the word with this special 
 meaning are not wanting. We have an interesting series 
 of passages relating to an important event in the life of 
 the patriarch Jacob. 
 
 When he had roused his brother Esau’s enmity, his 
 mother feared for his life and begged him to go to Haran 
 to her brother Laban “and tarry with him a few days,” 
 until Esau’s fury should abate.Though mother and son 
 knew that it was not a trifling journey to Paddan-aram, 
 and that Esau’s wrath was not so short-lived, that a few 
 days or a short time would see matters adjusted, yet need 
 we not quarrel with the mother’s loving belittlement of 
 the difflculty. She did not intend to be understood literally 
 and Jacob easily divined her intention. Indeed the same 
 
 >8Exod. 22.20-26. 
 
 si'Lev. 10.13. 
 
 «Gen. 27.42-45. 
 
44 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 expression occurs in the narrative of Jacob’s love for Rachel 
 which was so great that his service of seven years for her 
 seemed to him but “a few days.”"*^ 
 
 Rebecca did not expect her son to pay a visit to her 
 brother in order to enjoy a genteel vacation. She knew 
 that when there, he would be expected to earn his living 
 by working for it. And so indeed it happened. We are 
 told what he did: 
 
 “And he (Jacob) abode Hmmo (with him, Laban) for 
 the space of a month.This is the way the versions put 
 it, the real meanng being that he served him (worked for 
 him) for that time. The next verse proves this. Laban 
 says to Jacob: “Because thou art my nephew {ah) shouldst 
 thou therefore serve me for naught? Tell me, what shall 
 thy wages be?’’"*^ 
 
 And when Jacob departed and there was bad blood 
 and chiding between him and Laban, the former remarked: 
 “These twenty years have I been with thee'' plainly mean¬ 
 ing “These twenty years have I worked for thee.”'*'* 
 
 The twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, which treats 
 of the sabbatical year and the year of jubilee uses this 
 preposition 'im freely. 
 
 We may quote in this connection the already cited 
 sixth verse, which the translators have found troublesome. 
 
 The J.P.S. version renders: “And the sabbath-produce 
 of the land shall be food for you: for thee, and for thy 
 servant {'ebed), and for thy maid {amah), and for thy hired 
 servant {sakir), and for ‘the settler by thy side’ {tosha- 
 beka), that ‘sojourn with thee’ {haggarim ‘immak).’’ 
 
 According to our hypothesis the latter part of the 
 sentence really means: “And for thy sakir and for thy 
 toshab that are in thy employ.’’ 
 
 Another instance is the provision regarding the fugitive 
 
 «Gen. 29.20. 
 
 «Ibid. 29.14. 
 
 «Ibid. 29.15. 
 
 «Ibid. 31.38. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 45 
 
 slave.The J.P.S. version is: “Thou shalt not deliver 
 unto his master a bondman {‘ebed) that is escaped from 
 his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee {'inimeka) 
 in the midst of thee, in the place which he shall choose 
 within one of thy gates, where it liketh him best; thou 
 shalt not wrong him {to tonennu)” the meaning of which is: 
 
 Thou shalt not deliver unto his master a bondman 
 {‘ebed) that is escaped from his master’s service {me‘im 
 adonaw) unto thee. He shall settle in thy employment 
 {'immeka) in thy midst, in the place which he shall choose 
 within one of thy gates which it liketh him best; thou shalt 
 not wrong him.” 
 
 Here we see that the slave has escaped from ''with his 
 master.” That relation is not one of friendly intimacy or 
 of equality. It is the relation of servitude. Nor is the 
 new relation which is to be established for the fugitive 
 any other than one of employment. It also is described 
 by the same preposition 'im. 
 
 Moreover there is the significant prohibition lo tonennu^ 
 thou shalt not maltreat him, a verb habitually used to 
 describe the ill-treatment of the workman, the ger, which 
 goes far to indicate that the employment of the fugitive 
 slave is contemplated. 
 
 Other instances of the use of this preposition 'im in 
 the sense of being in another’s employment are numerous. 
 
 There is the story of Micah a rich Ephraimite who 
 had a little temple of his own in which he set up ephod and 
 teraphim and consecrated one of his sons to be the priest 
 (Kohen), 
 
 And there came along a Levite, seeking employment. 
 In those early days, there must have been a class of trained 
 
 «Deut. 23.16, 17. 
 
 ^•Instances of the use of this verb in connection with the oppression of the get 
 or other employees are Exod. 22.20; Lev. 19.33; Jer. 22.3; Ezek. 18.12; 22.7, 29. 
 
 <7Lev. 25.50, 53; Deut. 15.16; Jud. 17.10; 1 Sam. 2.21. 
 
46 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 priests called Levites, who sought employment in their 
 capacity in every one of the tribes. 
 
 Micah said to him: ‘‘Dwell with me {^immadi) . . . 
 and I will give thee ten pieces of silver by the year, and 
 a suit of apparel and thy victuals.” (J.P.S. version.) 
 The Levite cheerfully accepted, whereupon Micah installed 
 him and he became Micah’s priest, at which Micah greatly 
 rejoiced, believing that the Levite had much more influence 
 with the Lord than his own son would have had, who was 
 after all but an amateur and not a professional priest. 
 
 The last example we shall cite of this use of the word 
 'im is perhaps the most interesting. It is part of the history 
 of the prophet Samuel.''^ The versions agree that the 
 lad ‘‘grew before the Lord,” the text using the word 'im. 
 The true meaning must be that the acolyte Samuel was 
 reared in the service of the Lord. 
 
 When we remember that his mother devoted him to 
 the Lord’s service when he was a mere babe^® and that 
 the child ministered unto the Lord before the priest Eli,^^ 
 we must conclude that the narrative records the lad’s 
 progress in the service. 
 
 This use in Hebrew of the word 'im (with) to denote 
 employment, has its analogue in our ordinary English. 
 We have all heard men say, sometimes with evident self- 
 sufflciency, that they are with a great corporation, or a 
 leading mercantile or banking establishment. They do 
 not mean to assert that they are chief or part owners of 
 the business. All they wish us to understand is that they 
 are of its employees. 
 
 The third word that contributes to the difficulty is 
 im, the general meaning of which is “if.” It may however, 
 on occasion, mean “when.”^^ 
 
 **Jud. 17.7-13. <*1 Sam. chs. 1-3. “1 Sam. 1.28. 
 
 Sam. 2.11, 18; 3.1. ^^Brown-Driver, Lexicon, p. 50, sub voce Im b4. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 47 
 
 Having digressed long enough from the main subject 
 in order to elucidate these three words, we may now, in 
 the light of the suggestions put forward, return to our 
 text and seek to make it clearer than the versions have 
 succeeded in doing. 
 
 This is the way in which we would explain it:^^ ‘‘And 
 if a man borrow aught of his (Hebrew employee) and 
 it be hurt or die, the owner thereof not being employed 
 with it, the borrower must make restitution. If the owner 
 thereof be employed with it, the borrower need not make 
 it good. When the man is sakir (that is, hired with his 
 animal to work for a stipulated daily wage), this wage 
 covers everything, the labor of the man, the labor of the 
 animal and the risk of the animal’s injury or death while 
 employed in the work under its owner.” 
 
 . The legal reason for the rule if thus established is 
 impeccable. Under the circumstances, when the owner 
 of the animal is himself using it, an injury suffered by it 
 could not with any show of justice be charged to the em¬ 
 ployer of the man and the beast. It was the duty of the 
 owner to care for his beast. It was under his control and 
 if it was negligently used, the fault is the owner’s and not 
 the employer’s. 
 
 The Mishna seems to understand the law in the same 
 way. In discussing our text it lays down these principles: 
 “If a man borrow a cow and, at the same time or before, 
 hire its owner, and the cow is hurt or dies, the borrower 
 is not liable to pay for the cow, because the Bible says 
 (Exod. 22.14): ‘If the owner thereof be with it, he need 
 not make it good.’ It evidently identifies the owner 
 of the cow with the sakir who has been hired with it or 
 before it, and who works with it. 
 
 We have, however, not yet finished with the Toshab. 
 
 “Exod. 22.13, 14. “Mishnah, Baba Mesi'a, 8.1. 
 
48 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 He also appears in the expression ger we-toshab and once 
 as ger toshab. 
 
 Considerable learning has been expended on the differ¬ 
 ence between these two forms. As they obviously have 
 the same meaning, the variation need not further concern us. 
 
 When Abraham, after the death of his wife Sarah, 
 felt reluctant to bury her in a cemetery over which he would 
 have no control, he applied to the bene-Heth^ the natives 
 of the land, and began by saying: I am ger we-toshab with 
 you, 55 meaning that though he considered himself a resi¬ 
 dent, he recognized the law that, as a ger^ he could not be 
 the absolute owner of land. He therefore appealed to 
 them to make an exception under the sad circumstances. 
 Their replies were courteous. They offered him the use 
 of any of their own sepulchres, which would require no 
 infringement of the settled law. He, however, persisted 
 in his request for a sepulchre which would be his absolute 
 property (ahuzzah), and they graciously complied with 
 his request. Needless to say, the lord of the land accepted 
 full payment in silver for the field of Machpelah and the 
 cave that is therein. 
 
 That the inability of the ger we-toshab to own land in 
 perpetuity was an accepted doctrine among the Hebrew^, 
 appears plainly from the terms of the jubilee law, which 
 required the return in that year, of all purchased land, 
 to its original owner,s? the reason stated being that the 
 land itself is God’s, and that the human beings who claim 
 its ownership are, as regards Him, merely gerim we-tosha- 
 bim,^^ who, of course, could not be absolute owners. 
 
 When the Hebrews are forbidden to hold fellow- 
 Hebrews as slaves, there is leave granted them to acquire 
 ^ebed or amah from the surrounding nations,59 and also 
 
 t^Gen. 23.4. seibid. 23.5-20. ^’Lev. 25.10. ^sibid. 25.23. 
 
 MIbid. 25.44. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 49 
 
 from the toshabim in their employ.^® Mention has already 
 been made of the fact that these toshabim may reach a 
 certain degree of prosperity. An interesting linguistic 
 circumstance in that regard is the fact that such a prosper¬ 
 ous toshab is spoken of in the same verse as ger we-toshab 
 and as ger toshab 
 
 It is time now to return to our simple ger uncom¬ 
 plicated with toshab or sakir. 
 
 The presence of a large population in an inferior posi¬ 
 tion but in close relations with Israel would naturally 
 result in a gradual abandonment by them of many prior 
 practices and in a progressive assimilation with the prac¬ 
 tices of their employers. The absorption of the slave 
 population in the religious community of Israel would be 
 an element tending to hasten such a process. 
 
 To determine the course it actually took may be 
 difficult but not quite impossible. The records give us 
 evidence which may be arrayed under the following heads: 
 
 A. The gradual admission of the ger to participation 
 in the national religious festivals. 
 
 B. Their gradual subjection to laws imposed prima¬ 
 rily on Israelites alone. 
 
 C. Their presence on occasions of extraordinary 
 solemnity as if they were an integral portion of Israel. 
 
 D. The careful provisions made for their gaining 
 and maintaining material advancement. 
 
 A. Their position in regard to the festivals: 
 
 In the Paschal lamb celebration, the ger were not 
 expected to participate. They were supposed, in general, 
 to maintain their own religious rites and peculiarities, but 
 provision was made that if any one of them desired to 
 
 join the Israelites in this solemn ceremony, he was at 
 liberty to do so, if he complied with the one condition 
 
 ®®Ibid. 25.45. The words are: “mi-bene ha-toshabim ha-garim immakem.” 
 
 «ilbid. 25.47. 
 
50 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 imposed, namely that he and the male members of his 
 family should leave the class of ^arelim and become initiated 
 into the covenant of Abraham. 
 
 This was evidently at an early period when it was 
 considered unwise to permit the employer to persuade 
 his ger to adopt Hebrew customs, but the latter was left 
 free to act according to his own desire, without interference 
 of any kind. 
 
 And the supplemental ordinance which established 
 for certain emergencies, a Passover of the second month 
 for those who could not lawfully celebrate it in the first 
 month, has the same provision for the ger who wishes to 
 avail himself of it, reference being made to the original 
 Pesah ordinance as the norm.^^ 
 
 The festival closely related* to that of the Paschal 
 lamb is the Massah festival, (the festival of unleavened 
 bread).The ordinance establishing it provides that 
 Israelites must eat unleavened bread during seven days 
 and that leaven must be put away out of the houses and 
 “whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until 
 the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. 
 
 As this like the Paschal lamb celebration commemorated 
 Israel’s Exodus from Egypt, it was but natural that the 
 command should be limited to Israel alone. Later on, 
 however, in the same chapter, the ordinance is repeated, 
 but this time three words are added ha-ger u-he-ezrah ha- 
 ares, which the versions render “whether he be a sojourner 
 or one born in the land.’’^^ Without stopping to analyze 
 the meaning of this addition, it may be remarked, that 
 in view of the fact that the punishment was excision from 
 Israel, its denunciation against a non-Israelite like the 
 ger would seem strange. The explanation of the apparent 
 inconsistency is to be found in the additional prohibition 
 
 ®2Exod. 12.49. ®®Num. 9.14. ®*Exod. 12.18; Deut, 16.3. 
 
 «5Exod. 12.15. ®®Ibid. 12.19. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 51 
 
 that “seven days there shall be no leaven found in your 
 houses. “^7 This could not be enforced, if there were a 
 group of inhabitants who were at liberty to eat leaven. 
 The ger were not directed or compelled to assume a religious 
 duty of Israel, but they were prevented from interfering 
 with the religious practices of Israel. The Masj^ot ordinance 
 therefore viewed the ger, just as did the Passover ordinance, 
 that is, neither considered him as being religiously affiliated 
 with Israel. 
 
 Other texts on the subject are to the same effect: 
 “There shall no leavened bread be seen with thee, neither 
 shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy borders. 
 
 Affirmation of this view of the gers position is found 
 in the fact that there was to be a holy convocation and a 
 cessation of servile labor in Israel on the first and the last 
 days of the seven, but there is no word respecting the 
 ger in this connection. He is not expected to assist in the 
 celebration of the festival. His sole part is to avoid inter¬ 
 ference with the enforcement of the leaven prohibition. 
 
 The gers religious aloofness is maintained in regard 
 to the Day of Atonement. The ordinance is directed to 
 Israel alone and no one else is included. It is to be a fast 
 day and a rest day; and whosoever breaks the rule against 
 certain forbidden indulgence “shall be cut off from his 
 people,” and whosoever works on that day will be de¬ 
 stroyed “from among his people.”^® 
 
 Another version of the ordinance^^ presents a variation 
 in that it brings in the ger. After directing like the other, 
 that ye shall afflict your souls and shall do no manner of 
 work, it like the Massah ordinance has the words: ha- 
 ezrah we-ha-ger ha-gar betokekem which the versions simi¬ 
 larly render ‘whether it be one of your own country or a 
 
 «7Exod. 12.19. «»Ibid. 13.7; Deut. 16.4. 
 
 »»Exod. 12.16; Lev. 23.7, 8; Num. 28.18, 25; Deut. 16.8. 
 
 «Lev. 23.27-32; Num. 29.7. ^iibid. 16.29. 
 
52 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 stranger that sojourneth among you’ (King James); 'the 
 home-born or the stranger that sojourneth among you’ 
 (J.P.S.). The true bearing and meaning of the added 
 clause will be discussed hereafter. For the present, it is 
 enough to note that the ger must abstain from work not 
 because of any religious obligation resting on him, but 
 rather in order that this day of solemn rest might not be 
 marred by anybody’s working. 
 
 The New Year’s day (Rosh ha-Shanah) ordinance has 
 no reference whatever to the ger. It is to be a solemn rest, 
 a memorial, a holy convocation. No servile work may be 
 done thereon ,72 but it is for Israel alone and the ger is not 
 called upon to do, or to refrain from doing, anything. 
 
 Even the ordinance establishing the weekly Sabbath^^ 
 with all its anxious care that the ger shall not work on 
 that day, gives no inkling of an approach to a religious 
 fellowship with Israel. It is a day of rest and work therein 
 is forbidden, but the grounds of the prohibition are ad¬ 
 dressed to Israel alone. They are based on Israel’s relation 
 to God and have no hint concerning those who worship 
 other gods. These grounds are: the Lord’s resting on 
 the seventh day after the six days of creation^^ and His 
 leading Israel out of Egyptian bondage, 
 
 The ger is exempted from labor just as are the beasts 
 used in agricultural work: “that thine ox and thine ass 
 may have rest, and thy ben-amah and the ger may be 
 refreshed.The ultimate aim of such a policy was to 
 enforce Sabbath rest on Israelites themselves, which would 
 have been impossible had their heathen workmen been 
 allowed to cultivate their fields and perform other labors. 
 That such enforcement was no easy matter, we learn from 
 the earnest protests of the prophets: 
 
 “If thou turn away thy foot because of the Sabbath, 
 
 ^^Lev. 23,24, 25; Num. 29.1. ^^Exod. 20.10; Deut. 5.14. 
 
 ’<Exod. 20.11. 76Deut. 5.15. ’SExod. 23.12. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 53 
 
 From pursuing thy business on My holy day; 
 
 And call the Sabbath a delight, 
 
 And the holy of the Lord honorable, 
 
 And shalt honor it, not doing thy wonted ways. 
 
 Nor pursuing thy business, nor speaking thereof; 
 
 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord.’'^? 
 
 Thus far Isaiah; Jeremiah is equally emphatic. 
 
 Indeed, the country people who were pious, construed 
 the Sabbath ordinances in a comfortable way. They 
 evidently believed that their animals though not to be 
 used for agricultural work on the Sabbath, might well 
 carry them on a journey. When the Shunnamite’s beloved 
 son died, and she wished to consult Elisha in order that 
 the child might be revived, she called to her husband, who 
 was not informed of the calamity: “Send me, I pray thee, 
 one of the servants and one of the asses, that I may run 
 to the man of God and come back.” And he answered: 
 “Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day? it is neither New 
 Moon nor SabhathN'^^ Had it been such, he would have 
 deemed her request quite proper. Needless to say, she 
 did as she wished. 
 
 The command to observe the Feast of Weeks (Shabu- 
 *ot) is: 
 
 “Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee; from the 
 time the sickle is first put to the standing corn shalt thou 
 begin to number seven weeks. And thou shalt keep the 
 feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God, after the measure 
 of the free-will offering of thy hand, which thou shalt give, 
 according as the Lord thy God blesseth thee. And thou 
 shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou and thy son 
 and thy daughter and thy man-servant {‘ebed) and thy 
 maid-servant {amah) and the Levite that is within thy 
 gates, and the ger and the yatom and the almanah that 
 
 ”l 3 a. 58.13, 14. ”Jer. 17.21-27. ”2 Kings 4.23. 
 
54 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 are in the midst of thee, in the place which the Lord thy 
 God shall choose to cause His name to dwell there.”®® 
 
 There is also the provision: “There shall be a holy 
 convocation unto you; ye shall do no manner of servile 
 work.”®* 
 
 This injunction to refrain from labor does not mention 
 the ger. When, however, the ger is directed “to rejoice 
 before the Lord” in the religious capital of the nation, it 
 is clear that it becomes the employer’s duty to travel from 
 his dwelling-place to Jerusalem and to bring with him to 
 this rejoicing before the Lord, not only his own family, 
 but the Levite, the ger^ the yatom and the almanah that 
 dwell with him. 
 
 This classification of the Levite with a working peasant, 
 which seems strange at first, attests the fact, that at an 
 early time, Levites wandered about the country and 
 obtained employment as paid priests to private persons, 
 as was the case with Micah referred to in the previous 
 lecture.®^ 
 
 All of an Israelite’s employees are to participate in 
 the ceremonies at Jerusalem, and we have here an advance 
 in the ger's religious position. He is no longer a mere 
 instrument to assist in enforcing certain religious duties 
 on his employer, but has acquired a distinct status of his 
 own. From a merely negative assistant, he has become a 
 principal. 
 
 This advance is maintained in the Sukkot ordinance.®® 
 The classes commanded to rejoice at Shahu'ot are likewise 
 to do so in this festival. There is also to be a holy con¬ 
 vocation on the first day and a solemn assembly on the 
 eighth.®'* “Ye shall do no manner of servile work, and 
 ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days.”®® 
 
 That this advance was but a step forward in the 
 
 “Deut. 16.9-11. «Lev. 23.21. «2Jud. 17.5-15. “Deut. 16.14. 
 
 MNum 29.35. «nbid. 29.12, 35. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 55 
 
 process of the ger's religious assimilation appears from 
 another version of the ordinance which after providing 
 as did those already cited adds the following: 
 
 “Ye shall take you on the first day the fruit of goodly 
 trees, branches of palm-trees and boughs of thick trees, 
 and willows of the brook, and ye shall rejoice before the 
 Lord your God, seven days. . . Ye shall dwell in booths 
 seven days; every ezrah in Israel shall dwell in booths; 
 that your generations may know that I made the children 
 of Israel dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the 
 land of Egypt. . 
 
 These special commemorative ceremonies do not in¬ 
 clude the ger. Another class however, the ezrah in Israel 
 must, like the Israelites themselves, dwell in booths; the 
 ger may not do so. Here, as elsewhere, the versions under¬ 
 stand the ezrah to mean the Israelite himself, and the 
 commentators have been much troubled about him. The 
 consideration of his real position must be deferred with 
 the caution, however, that we regard him as being by origin 
 a non-Israelite, though rapidly approaching complete 
 assimilation. 
 
 The conclusion is that as regards national religious 
 festivals the ger had advanced towards assimilation but 
 had not gone more than halfway in the process. 
 
 B. Besides the ger's part in festivals, his obligation to 
 obey certain laws binding Israelites primarily, was another 
 forward step in his assimilation. There are several in¬ 
 stances of this kind. 
 
 It was the duty of the Israelite to present his offering 
 at the door of the tent of meeting {ohel mo'ed)^ failure to 
 do which was punishable by the offender’s being “cut off 
 from among his people.’’^^ 
 
 This duty was extended to the ger under like penalty 
 
 8 «Lev. 23.40, 42. 43. 17 . 3 , 4 , 3 , 9. 
 
56 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 of being “cut off from his people” meaning Israel.** 
 
 So likewise was the eating of blood by Israelite or 
 by ger similarly penalized.*^ The summing up was: “No 
 person (nefesh) among you shall eat blood, neither shall 
 any ger among you eat blood. 
 
 The bene-Israel were forbidden to give any of their chil¬ 
 dren to make them pass through the fire to Molech.^^ As 
 this was an odious pagan custom the penalty of being cut 
 off from among their people was none too severe. 
 
 This prohibition was extended to the ger^^ under like 
 penalty. Some of them had probably practised this cruel 
 rite. Including them in the prohibition was a measure 
 designed to wean them from odious features of their pre¬ 
 vious religion and thus constituted a sort of negative 
 proselytism. And this policy was insisted on and empha¬ 
 sized by the additional provision: “Whosoever he be of 
 the children of Israel, or of the ger that live in Israel, that 
 giveth of his seed to Molech must be put to death; the 
 ‘aw ha-ares shall stone him.”94 
 
 The penalty first denounced, namely, being “cut off 
 from among their people” has been construed by many 
 as a punishment not to be inflicted by man but by Divine 
 action. Such a penalty would scarcely deter those of the 
 ger who worshipped Molech and looked upon Israel’s God 
 as an intruder upon their god’s territory, from continuing 
 their cruel rites. The penalty of death to be executed by 
 human hands was likely to be a more powerful motive 
 for abstention. 
 
 That the practice was not rare even among Israelites 
 is shown by the hint conveyed in the text, that the tribunal 
 (the ‘aw ha-ares) would be likely to acquit the offender, 
 just as in our modern experience, jurors who are opposed 
 
 *8Ibid. 17.9. 89ibid. 17.10. 90Lev. 17.12. sUbid. 18.21. 
 
 »Tbid. 18.27. »3ibid. 18.26. »Ubid. 20.2. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 57 
 
 to capital punishment refuse to join in verdicts of murder 
 of the first degree punishable by death. 
 
 Blaspheming the Name (shem) was a crime almost 
 too horrible to contemplate. The presumption apparently 
 was that God Himself would visit condign punishment 
 on the Israelite guilty of such offence. The code, it is 
 true, has an express prohibition of it to the Israelite but 
 it provides no punishment therefor.^^ 
 
 In the course of time the question had to be met. 
 
 On a certain occasion the son of an Israelite mother 
 and an Egyptian father blasphemed {wa-yikkob) the 
 Name. Divine vengenace did not pursue him and the 
 natural inference was that his exemption was due to the 
 fact that he was not an Israelite. He had however com¬ 
 mitted a fearful offence for the punishment of which there 
 was no law. 
 
 The case was therefore referred to Moses who con¬ 
 sulted the Oracle. Whereupon the narrative proceeds: 
 
 “And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying: 
 
 “Bring forth him that hath cursed (ha-mekallel) with¬ 
 out the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands 
 upon his head, and let all the Congregation {kol ha-edah) 
 stone him.^^ And thou shalt speak unto the children of 
 Israel, saying, whosoever curseth (yekallel) his God shall 
 bear his sin {we-nasa hefo). And he that blasphemeth 
 {nokeh) the Name of the Lord must be put to death; kol 
 ha-edah shall stone him; as well the ger as the ezrah when 
 he blasphemeth the Name, must be put to death.” 
 
 We have here a specific case for which the authorities 
 could find no established law. Consequently, the supreme 
 judicial authority was invoked with the result that the 
 offender was sentenced to death. This tribunal went a 
 
 »^Lev. 20.4, 5. **Exod. 22.27. Elohim lo tekallel. »^Lev. 24.10-16. 
 
 »*0n the meaning and function of ha-Edah see my Am ha-Aretz, Philadelphia,1910. 
 
58 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 Step further, and on the basis of this decision as a pre¬ 
 cedent, laid down a general law applicable to future cases 
 just as precedents in English and American law become 
 in effect statutes for the future. 
 
 If, as is not impossible, the Egyptian father in this 
 case belonged to the ^ereh rah, it would indicate that not¬ 
 withstanding his close association with Israel, and although 
 he had married an Israelite woman, he was still looked 
 upon as in some degree, an outsider. The decision of the 
 tribunal that the ger as well as the ezrah must suffer death 
 for the crime would indicate a marked advance in the 
 ezrah's status, because in this instance, the word doubtless 
 comprehends all Israel. 
 
 Whereas, earlier, an Israelite blasphemer of the shem 
 was not subject to human punishment, because it was 
 believed that Heaven itself would punish him, this case 
 established the rule that he was to suffer death on the 
 finding of the proper Court. 
 
 Notwithstanding this development, the old popular 
 conception persisted. When Job’s wife, exasperated by 
 his tame submission to misfortune, hysterically urged him 
 ‘to blaspheme God and die’^® she naively uttered the com¬ 
 mon belief that Divine vengeance would promptly follow 
 the offence. 
 
 I had hoped to treat in this lecture of all the instances 
 showing the gradual subjection of the ger to laws imposed 
 primarily on Israel, but the time is too short for the pur¬ 
 pose and in order not to weary you, we must postpone 
 the rest for the next lecture. 
 
 »9Job 2.9. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 III 
 
 We paused at the end of the last lecture at the con¬ 
 sideration of one of the series of laws laid down for Israel, 
 but which were gradually, in whole or in part, applied to 
 the ger. 
 
 It remains to treat of the rest of that series. Before 
 doing so however we cannot ignore the fact that we will 
 over and over again meet with the ezrah, who, we have 
 already hinted, was not of Hebrew origin. 
 
 At a very early stage of Hebrew history, we find the 
 law that the alien ger, if he complies with a certain con¬ 
 dition “shall be as the ezrah ha-ares.''^ 
 
 It is necessary to know what the status of this ezrah 
 ha-ares was, if we would measure the gers progress in the 
 Commonwealth. The versions generally agree that he 
 was the Israelite himself. In the Pesah ordinance just 
 cited, they render ger by stranger and ezrah ha-ares, by 
 “one that is born in the land,” evidently meaning Palestine. 
 As the ordinance is stated to have been handed down in 
 Egypt, it is difficult to see how they could have adopted 
 such an expression, since, up to that time, not an Israelite 
 of them all had been born in Palestine. The difficulty is 
 not new. It has been encountered before and our en¬ 
 deavors must be directed to obtain as satisfactory a solu¬ 
 tion as possible. There are two forms of the term: ezrah 
 ha-ares and ezrah. Ezrah ha-ares occurs but three times, 
 while ezrah is found thirteen times. Of these thirteen 
 
 ^Exod. 12.48. 
 
 59 
 
60 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 instances, there are four, which are followed by added 
 words, that may be termed explanatory. Once we have 
 ezrah mi-kem (the ezrah among you), twice we have ezrah 
 bi-bene Yisrael (the ezrah among the children of Israel) 
 and the fourth time we have ezrah be-Yisrael (the ezrah 
 in Israel). 
 
 The versions (A.V. and J.P.S.) agree in rendering 
 ezrah ha-ares by born in the land. In their translations of 
 the four instances in which ezrah is followed by a qualifica¬ 
 tion they agree in the rendering home-born. 
 
 For the nine instances in which the ezrah stands by 
 itself, the King James version has seven variant renderings: 
 homeborn, once; one of your own country, three times; 
 one of your own nation, once; born in the land, once; born 
 of the country, once; born among the children of Israel, 
 once; born among them, once. The English and American 
 Revisions and the J.P.S. version agree in uniformly render¬ 
 ing the word by home-born in all these nine instances. 
 
 The great probability is that ezrah ha-ares is the original 
 form and that ezrah is merely a convenient abbreviation. 
 
 It is therefore specially important to fathom the origin 
 of this ezrah ha-ares. 
 
 One noticeable feature is that the three instances in 
 which it occurs are all connected with the celebration of 
 the Exodus—the Pesah-massah festival. 
 
 The historical setting of the narrative is that this 
 festival was ordained on the day that Israel was to start 
 on its journeying from the land of Egypt,^ and that Israel 
 did not go alone but was attended by a considerable group 
 of non-Israelites, a group which must have been com¬ 
 posed of Egyptians, whose discontent with conditions in 
 their native land, impelled them to seek a way out, and 
 who therefore resolved to become proselytes and to stake 
 
 2Exod. 12.39, 51. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 61 
 
 their fortunes on the future achievements of Israel. This 
 accession to their numbers was probably looked upon as 
 an advantage by the leaders of Israel. By the mass of 
 the people it must have been viewed coldly if not with 
 positive aversion. Otherwise the fact would be inexplicable, 
 that this reinforcement is mentioned in the texts by two 
 names, expressive of contempt: 'ereh ra¥ and asajsuj,^ 
 both of which might fairly be rendered “the rabble.” 
 That so important an adjunct should have no other designa¬ 
 tion than these nicknames is barely conceivable. When 
 it is remembered that, according to the narrative, Israel, 
 though bound for foreign parts, had not yet left Egyptian 
 territory, what more likely than the thought of calling 
 these non-Hebrew Egyptians, natives of the land (Egypt) 
 (ezrah ha-ares)} The only land they had yet touched was 
 Egypt, in which they considered themselves outsiders, 
 strangers, {gerim)^ and there could be no plainer contra¬ 
 distinction than between foreigners and natives {gerim and 
 ezrah ha-ares). Moreover that so considerable a body of 
 men should after the Exodus be spoken of but once and 
 then in contemptuous terms is, to say the least, strange. 
 What became of them? 
 
 The one occasion on which they are referred to, is 
 full of interest. At an early stage of their journey, the 
 Israelites came to think its hardships unendurable, and 
 practically revolted against the Lord and against Moses. 
 There is fair ground for believing that the brother and the 
 sister of Moses, Aaron and Miriam, instigated the rebellion, 
 being jealous of the predominance of their eminent brother.^ 
 However that may be, the movement was pretty general 
 among the people. 
 
 When it collapsed, the crowd realized that it had 
 blundered, and with the usual unfairness of crowds, sought 
 
 sExod. 12.38. <Num. 11.4. 
 
 6 Exod. 22.20; 23.9; Lev. 19.34; Deut. 10.19; 23.8. 
 
 *Num. 12.1-5. 
 
62 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 a scape-goat to cast the blame upon. The Egyptian group, 
 being a minority, were, of course, fastened upon, and the 
 asafsuf were charged with having incited and misled the 
 people. 7 As has been said asafsuf was only a nickname. 
 The versions treat it as equivalent to 'ereb rab, on the 
 theory that they were the original 'ereb rab or their progeny. 
 Rashi makes the same identification and so is the general 
 opinion. The important implication of the narrative is 
 that the asafsuf were of sufficient numbers and importance 
 to sway the multitude in a movement of transcendent 
 significance. And yet we never hear of them again. 
 
 Just as they unaccountably disappear, so do the ezrah 
 ha-ares unaccountably appear. We are not told whither 
 the former went, nor whence the latter came. That they 
 must have been a group of recognized importance is plain 
 from the fact that the ger are under certain conditions 
 to attain a position equal to that of the ezrah ha-ares. 
 
 The common notion that they are the Israelites them¬ 
 selves must have originated from the circumstance that 
 in fifteen of the sixteen passages in which they are men¬ 
 tioned, they are placed in collocation with the ger and that 
 hence it was concluded that they were in contradistinction 
 to the ger] and if this were so, the inference was easy that 
 the ezrah was Israel. 
 
 To this theory, plausible as it seems, there are objec¬ 
 tions weighty, if not insurmountable. 
 
 There is the sixteenth instance, in which the ezrah is 
 in no relation whatever with the ger because the latter is 
 not even mentioned. 
 
 In the Sukkot ordinance of Leviticus^ there is a com¬ 
 mand addressed to Israel in these words: “Ye shall dwell 
 in booths seven days,” and, the verse goes on, “all the 
 ezrah in Israel shall dwell in booths,” and the next verse 
 
 ^Num. 11.4. 
 
 8 Lev. 23.42. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 63 
 
 explains the purpose: “that your generations may know 
 that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths when 
 I brought them out of the land of Egypt. . . Here 
 
 the collocation is with Israel alone, and in order to identify 
 the two, it must be assumed that the second half of the 
 verse is a useless repetition of the first, and even if this 
 were granted, we should still have to learn why in the 
 second half, the whole body of Israel should be spoken of 
 as being “in Israel,” an expression which clearly implies 
 a distinction of some kind between Israel and ezrah. 
 
 Doubtless this Sukkot ordinance originated in the 
 very beginning of the nation. Hosea in the eighth century 
 B.C. alludes to the custom of dwelling in Sukkot as having 
 subsisted in hoar antiquity: “I will again make thee to 
 dwell in tents, as in the days of the By mo^ed 
 
 he means the festival of Sukkot.^^ In the Deuteronomic 
 version of the Sukkot ordinance there is not a word about 
 dwelling in booths. The custom was so rooted in the 
 habits of the people, that no mention of it was necessary. 
 In reciting the participants in the rejoicing before the Lord 
 on that festival, there is nothing said of the ezrah who had 
 doubtless been so completely assimilated that he is in¬ 
 cluded in the “thou” addressed to the people of Israel. 
 “Thy God” is his. They had become one.^^ 
 
 The implied distinction between Israel and ezrah in 
 the Sukkot ordinance does not stand alone. There are 
 three other passages which carry a similar implication. 
 One of them speaks of the ezrah mikkem (the ezrah among 
 yoii),^^ while the other two tell us of the ezrah hi-hene 
 Yisrael (the ezrah among the children of Israel). 
 
 We cannot, in the face of such evidence, escape the 
 conclusion that the ezrah was originally a numerous body 
 
 Ubid. 23.43. wHosea 12.10. 
 
 i^Brown-Driver, Lexicon, p. 417, sub voce Mo‘ed lb; Dent. 31.10. 
 
 i2Deiit. 16.13-17. i^Lev. 19.34. I'Nuin. 15.29; Ezek. 47.22. 
 
64 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 which finally entered into the composition of Israel, and 
 that to render the word by Israel or its equivalent, in 
 every text in which it occurs, will create error and con^ 
 fusion. There was a time when the ezrah became fully 
 assimilated, and at this point the difficulty presents itself. 
 While the ezrah before such complete assimilation was not 
 identical with Israel, there was a great change after that 
 event, and then the ezrah was sometimes included in the 
 term Israel, and at other times the whole of Israel was 
 designated by the term ezrah. 
 
 As the two kinds of ezrah are externally similar, it 
 is not easy to determine which ezrah is in any particular 
 case meant. The main factor in the decision must be the 
 context—an appreciation of the circumstances and a com¬ 
 mon-sense conclusion therefrom. 
 
 The result of such an examination presents some 
 curious features. Of the four cases in which the ezrah is 
 accompanied by a qualifying phrase, there is one in which 
 that phrase is probably due to a scribe’s error. 
 
 The latter half of the fifteenth chapter of Numbers 
 provides for the atonement of sins committed in error 
 (shegagah), and declares that, the proper ceremonies being 
 performed, “all the congregation of the children of Israel 
 shall be forgiven, and the ger that liveth among them;, 
 for, in respect of all the people {kol ha-'am) it was done in 
 error, 
 
 The plain meaning of this is that the people of Israel 
 (the 'Am) are composed of two elements, the hene Israel 
 and the ger. Of the division of the hene Israel into com¬ 
 ponent parts there is not a hint. And yet in the same 
 connection, a few verses further on, it is provided that the 
 priest shall make atonement for “the ezrah among the 
 children of Israel, and the ger that liveth among them: ye 
 
 J^Num. 15.26. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IX ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 65 
 
 shall have one law for him that doeth aught in error. 
 
 And continuing the theme, atonement is denied to 
 him that sinneth with a high hand, whether he be ezrah 
 or 
 
 There can be no question that the ezrah all through 
 this half chapter is identical with Israel, and the conclusion 
 follows that the added words ‘‘among the children of 
 Israel” in the 29th verse are out of place and should be 
 elided. 
 
 The three passages which use the expression ezrah 
 ha-ares may fairly be counted as not referring to Israel. 
 There is a special insistence that the Pesah shall be cele¬ 
 brated “by all the congregation of Israel”^® and the institu¬ 
 tion is of so early a date and the expression ezrah ha-ares 
 is at that stage so inept to describe Israel, that doubt on 
 the subject may be dismissed. 
 
 There is however one circumstance which must be 
 noted. The whole chapter mentions the ezrah ha-ares 
 twice and while still dwelling on the same subject, once 
 introduces simple ezrah This can only mean the ezrah 
 ha-ares and cannot therefore be interpreted to mean Israel. 
 
 This leaves nine passages in which ezrah may fairly 
 be said to stand for Israel. An examination of the context 
 confirms this view of its meaning. 
 
 These are the passages: 
 
 Lev. 16.29, relating to the Day of Atonement. 
 
 17.15, relating to the prohibition against eating 
 nehelah (that which dieth of itself). 
 
 18.26, relating to the observance of certain 
 moral duties. 
 
 24.26, relating to the punishment of blasphemy. 
 
 24.22, establishing uniformity of law for ger 
 
 and ezrah. 
 
 i6Num. 15.29. lUbicl. 15.30. isExod. 12.47. »Ibid. 12.49. 
 
66 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 Num. 15.13, relating to meal offerings. 
 
 15.29-30, relating to sins committed in error 
 (shegagah ). 
 
 Josh. 8.33, describing Joshua’s audience. 
 
 The result so far seems to be that the earliest mention 
 is that in the Sukkot ordinance, in which the ger is not yet 
 thought of, and in which the ezrah is viewed as distinct 
 from the body of Israel. Ye (addressing Israel) are com¬ 
 manded to dwell in booths, to which there is the significant 
 addition that “all the ezrah in Israel shall dwell in booths.” 
 This points to a time when the ezrah had reached the stage 
 of believing himself to be an essential part of all Israel, 
 but had not succeeded in convincing the bulk of Israel of 
 that fact. The ezrah, at this mo ed period might logically 
 urge that he had accompanied Israel on its travels and 
 had to dwell in booths like the rest. Why then should he 
 be excluded from the celebration of that experience? At 
 all events any effort at such exclusion was ineffective, made 
 so by the specific ordinance not only allowing but com¬ 
 manding him to dwell in booths at the Mo ed. 
 
 When we meet him next he is far advanced on the road 
 towards assimilation but has not finally reached the goal. 
 There is no longer a question about his right to celebrate 
 the Pesah. That is assumed^® and though there are a few 
 later instances in which the distinction between him and 
 the Israelite is recognized, yet this soon ceases. The word 
 ezrah is not even mentioned by any of the prophets from 
 Amos down save only by Ezekiel in one text and his use 
 of it is merely literary and oratorical. It refers to no one 
 in being but is a vision of a finer future based on past 
 history.^^ 
 
 The change in the meaning of the word was in con¬ 
 formity to the general law that mutations in the life of 
 
 a)Exod. 12.48, 
 
 2iEzek. 47.22. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 67 
 
 the body are reflected in the career of the words designat¬ 
 ing it. 
 
 The mode here adopted is not new. The investigators 
 of ancient times encountered the same difficulties and one 
 of them, at least, treated them in a manner somewhat 
 analogous. 
 
 About eighteen hundred years ago, the Syriac Targum 
 (called the Peshitta) understood ezrah to mean Israel in 
 eight of the sixteen passages. It can scarcely be a mere 
 co-incidence that seven of these belong to the list of nine 
 Israels given by us; the eighth (Num. 15.29) counted by 
 us is excluded by the Peshitta. It is however not rendered 
 by any other word, but is passed over evidently on the 
 theory that its presence is due to an error in the text, while 
 our ninth (Josh. 8.33) may well give rise to two opinions, 
 though on the whole we prefer the rendering Israel. 
 
 The Peshitta’s eighth Israel is Lev. 19.34. This is 
 one of the four passages from which we infer that the ezrah 
 were originally a separate, non-Israelite group. The 
 Peshitta shies at such an inference but nevertheless is 
 unable to find Israel in the other three and therefore prac¬ 
 tically elides the word from them. In this instance, how¬ 
 ever, the terrifying qualification in Israel, or among the 
 children of Israel is lacking. Instead of an objectionable 
 noun there is only a pronoun, mi-kem {among you) and it 
 is encouraged to render the ezrah among you as Israel. 
 Needless to say in such reasoning we cannot concur. If 
 the Peshitta were right its translation would read, “the 
 Ezrah (Israel) among you (Israel). . 
 
 The other eight passages which the Peshitta did not 
 render by Israel it treats in three ways. In four it rendered 
 by the equivalent of yosheh ha-ares (dweller in the land), in one 
 by 'Amora, and in the remaining three it ignored the word 
 and translated the sentence as if the word were not there. 
 
68 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 While we may not agree with the Peshitta’s procedure, 
 its outstanding feature is the recognition of the fact that 
 in half the instances of its use, the word ezrah does not 
 mean Israel and it is therefore in advance of most moderns 
 who seem to have sensed no difficulty in uniformly under¬ 
 standing it to refer to Israel. 
 
 Let us, however, examine in detail, the Peshitta’s 
 treatment of these eight non-Israelite passages. 
 
 It renders yosheb ha-ares four times. Probably the 
 rendering was intended to parallel the Hebrew ezrah ha- 
 ares. The latter expression occurs only thrice in the 
 texts and of these three it translates one by 'Amora. It 
 renders simple ezrah by yosheh ha-ares in two cases, one 
 in Exodus 12.49 which we have above concluded stands 
 for ezrah ha-ares and the other in Joshua 8.33 where, as 
 we have above stated, a difference of opinion may well 
 exist. 
 
 What the Peshitta exactly means by yosheh ha-ares 
 is a matter that deserves careful examination. I have 
 roughly conceived it to mean the conquered Canaanites, 
 whom we in this investigation, have settled upon as the 
 ger of the texts. If this supposition is justified, it would 
 follow that the Peshitta’s ger is not an important compact 
 body like ours, but is composed of alien individuals who, 
 from time to time, leave their former surroundings and 
 become converts to Israel’s religion. 
 
 There is, however, a clue to the Peshitta’s meaning. 
 In Number 9.14 it renders ezrah ha-ares not by yosheh 
 ha-ares but by 'Amora. The definition of 'Amora is given 
 as follows: 
 
 "Workman. In Syria the workman is called Amora.’’^^ 
 As the Peshitta uses 'Amora as the equivalent of yosheh 
 ha-ares, it seems fair to infer that it views the conquered 
 
 ^^Neuhebrdisches und Chalddisches Wdrterbuch by Prof. Dr. Jacob Levy, vol. 3, 
 p. 665. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IX ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 69 
 
 Canaanites as a body of laborers, just as we have done, 
 but calls them ezrah instead of ger. And this ezrah it seems 
 to look upon as a body completely assimilated to Israel 
 at the earliest period of the nation’s history. In short it 
 knows no real distinction between “the congregation of 
 Israel” and the ezrah ha-ares of the Passover ordinance. 
 The ger of that ordinance is for it, a casual stranger who 
 has imbibed the notion that he would like to become a 
 convert to Israel’s religion. 
 
 The three passages in which the Peshitta refused to, 
 translate the word ezrah must have given the Targumist 
 infinite trouble. He knew his plain duty to be to transfer 
 the original text to its Syriac equivalent. In the Passover 
 ordinance he had gone so far as to recognize the ezrah's 
 incorporation in the body of Israel and in these three 
 passages he was met by expressions which differentiated 
 between ezrah and Israel. The notion that circumstances 
 and therefore laws might have changed, in short that the 
 Hebrew nation like others had been subject to the law of 
 development, was to him not only inadmissible but im¬ 
 possible. For him the Canaanites—the ezrah — when 
 conquered, immediately became attached to Israel’s law 
 and religion, and were indistinguishable from the main 
 body. 
 
 Instead of solving the difficulty he evaded it, and, 
 curiously enough, in doing so he practically adopted the 
 favorite modern method of dealing with obstacles in the 
 text of the Bible—namely, textual criticism. He may 
 not have been fully conscious of the audacity of his pro¬ 
 cedure, but he none the less corrected the text by prac¬ 
 tically striking out the disagreeable words that bothered 
 him. 
 
 Notwithstanding the impossibility of agreeing to all 
 of his views, it has been a source of gratification to find 
 
70 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 this early scholar reach conclusions with which, in the 
 main, I agree. 
 
 In modern times too there have been dissents from 
 the current notion that ezrah always means Israel. 
 
 Professor Reggio, of the Rabbinical College of Padua, 
 Italy, makes the following remarks on the subject: 
 
 I have explained to you the meaning of ger toshab 
 and ger sedek. I now come to ezrah. This term is applied 
 to all those who live in a country in which they have been 
 born and in which their forefathers have been settled, no 
 matter to what people or religion they belong. In this 
 sense it is the opposite to ger. A clear proof of this explana¬ 
 tion is the fact that the term is used for trees and plants 
 which still stand on the ground on which they have grown 
 (see Psalm 37. 35). Similarly Kimhi in his Dictionary 
 says that the ezrah is the old inhabitant of a city. Accord¬ 
 ingly I believe that the Canaanites who remained in Pales¬ 
 tine after the conquest of the land were called ezrahim. 
 Wessely’s statement (on Leviticus 16. 29) that ezrah only 
 refers to Israelites, as many rabbinical statements also 
 seem to imply, sounds very strange to me, since many 
 verses do not bear this interpretation (see e.g. Numbers 
 9.14). After the Israelites came to Canaan the people 
 were compelled to accept the seven Noahidic command¬ 
 ments and then were considered on the same level with 
 ger toshab, the only difference being that they had remained 
 in the country. If they were fully converted they would 
 be on a plane with the ger sedek.^^ 
 
 Needless to say I do not concur with much that Reggio 
 says in this note, but consider it important to cite him 
 because, great scholar as he was, he could not accept the 
 general rendering of our word ezrah. 
 
 For all of the facts concerning the Peshitta, I am 
 
 ^Iggerot Yashar (Vienna, 1834-6), vol 1, pages 52-53, Letter 8. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 71 
 
 indebted to that great authority on the Syriac Targum, 
 the Reverend Doctor Chayim Heller, who, learning of 
 the work in which I was engaged, generously sent me a 
 memorandum on the subject of which I have made free 
 use. Needless to say that the Reverend Doctor is not 
 responsible for the opinions and conclusions derived by 
 me from the facts. 
 
 We are now ready to resume the main line of our dis¬ 
 course, and to examine the remaining instances of laws 
 primarily intended for Hebrews and subsequently imposed 
 upon the ger. 
 
 Immediately following the blasphemy statute with 
 the consideration of which we ended the last lecture there 
 is laid down a little code as follows: 
 
 He that smiteth any man mortally shall be put to 
 death. 
 
 He that smiteth a beast mortally, shall make it good, 
 life for life. 
 
 If a man maim his fellow {'amito); as he hath done, 
 so shall it be done to him: breach for breach, eye for eye, 
 tooth for tooth; as he hath maimed a man, so shall it be 
 rendered unto him. 
 
 He that killeth a beast shall make it good. 
 
 He that killeth a man must be put to death. 
 
 Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the ger 
 as for the ezrah.^^ 
 
 One may fairly ask why should such a monstrous crime 
 as murder be denounced for ezrah (meaning Israel) and for 
 ger when the general law governing Israel had made it a 
 capital crime in terms that could not be misunderstood. 
 A possible explanation may be that in the early times, 
 the ger had certain community privileges, among them 
 the right of judicial cognizance of crimes committed by 
 
 24Lev. 24.17-22. 
 
72 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 their own members among themselves, and that the enact¬ 
 ment in question contemplated the gers assimilation to 
 the Hebrew community and abolished such separate 
 jurisdiction, so that like the Israelites themselves, the ger 
 would be answerable to Israel’s judicial tribunals—an 
 enormous step in the advance towards equality. 
 
 In this little code the punishment for maiming was 
 according to the law of retaliation. 
 
 In view of the fact that the general principle of Israelite 
 law in case of personal injuries was otherwise, a question 
 arises as to the reason for this seeming conflict of laws. 
 The Israelite law regulating the punishment for personal 
 injury was the payment of adequate money damages for 
 the loss of the victim’s time and for the cost of healing.^^ 
 And this law was general, for it contemplated not only 
 injuries inflicted with the fist, in the heat of passion, in 
 a quarrel, but also injuries caused by a dangerous weapon, 
 a stone, the use of which implies malice aforethought. 
 
 The provision that demands payment of the cost of 
 healing implies that the injury is not permanent. 
 
 The maiming of this Levitical code evidently refers 
 to an injury which cannot be healed, such as the loss of 
 an eye or another member of the human body. Such an 
 injury is technically termed mum. Then there is the 
 probability that among the crude peasantry of Canaan, 
 the infliction of such permanent injuries was often the 
 purpose of the fighters, and severe measures were deemed 
 necessary to overcome such a habit. It may be remarked, 
 in passing, that even in modern times, there were places 
 among the civilized nations, in which the gouging out of 
 an adversary’s eye was deemed to be fair fighting. In 
 this connection a quotation from Webster’s Unabridged 
 (sub voce ‘‘Gouge”) may not be out of place: 
 
 26Exod. 21.18, 19 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN AAXIENT ISRAEL 
 
 73 
 
 “Gouge—To force out, as the eye of a person, with 
 the thumb or finger (U.S.). 
 
 The practice of gouging is said to have existed formerly 
 in the interior of some of the Southern states, but was 
 never known elsewhere, except by hearsay (Bartlett). 
 
 Gouging is performed by twisting the forefinger in 
 a lock of hair, near the temple, and turning the eye out 
 of the socket with the thumb nail, which is suffered to grow 
 long for that purpose (Lambert).” 
 
 This little code so far as it provides for the punish¬ 
 ment of homicide must be read with the Numbers statute 
 which makes malice aforethought the indispensable ground 
 for convicting a man of the capital offence of murder, 
 and thereby abolishes the lex talionis to that extent. If 
 malice is absent, the homicide is reduced from murder to 
 manslaughter and the punishment from death to intern¬ 
 ment in a separated city frequently called “city of refuge” 
 {Hr miklat). This Hr miklat statute is expressly declared 
 to be “for the bene Yisrael, for the ger and for the toshab 
 in their midst,or as it is put in the Joshua text: “for 
 kol bene Yisrael and for the ger who lives in their midst. 
 
 The next instance of the class we are considering is 
 the following: 
 
 Moses, at a particular period, was directed to speak 
 to the children of Israel concerning certain duties which 
 would devolve upon them after their settlement in Canaan. 
 One of these duties referred to meal-offerings and drink- 
 offerings and they are prescribed in adequate details. 
 
 2“Num. 35.22-29. See my Ancient Hebrew Law of Homicide (Philadelphia. 1915). 
 
 2^Num. 35.15. The distinction in this verse between ger and toshab is the only 
 instance of the kind in Scripture. That there is some error or confusion in the text 
 seems obvious. It is probable that the scribe’s ms. read “for the toshab" and as the 
 sakir was equally entitled to the benefit of the statute, he probably wrote in the margin 
 “for the ger" in order to note that both toshab and sakir were included, and this gloss 
 probably crept into the text. 
 
 The Joshua text is perfectly clear. It declares the separated cities to be for kol 
 bene Yisrael and for the ger. The toshab is not mentioned. 
 
 28Josh. 20.9. 
 
74 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 Thereupon there is this additional provision: 
 
 '‘Every shall do these things after this manner. . . 
 and the ger or whoever may be among you throughout 
 your generations and will offer an offering made by fire. . . 
 as you do, so shall he do.” 
 
 "As for the congregation (Kahal) there shall be one 
 (and the same) statute for you and for the ger, a statute 
 forever throughout your generations; as ye are, so shall 
 the ger be before the Lord. One law and one ordinance 
 shall be for you and for the ger living with you.”^^ Here 
 the ezrah stands for Israel. The principle therein declared,, 
 though limited to this particular religious activity was 
 couched in terms to make a profound impression on the 
 general public, who, according to the custom of homo¬ 
 geneous communities, looked upon any new element 
 introduced as inferior. 
 
 There were certain peculiarities in the wording of 
 this addition which are worthy of attention. Its first 
 word is ha-Kahal which J.P.S. renders: "As for the con¬ 
 gregation.” That this is not a satisfactory rendering needs 
 no remark. Its great fault is that it conveys no idea. The 
 probability is that it was a scribe’s marginal note which 
 has crept into the text and this seems to be the view of 
 Bertholet.^® 
 
 How the scribe came to write such a note may be 
 plausibly explained. The word Kahal in reference tO' 
 Israel, in the numerous instances in which it occurs, always 
 means Israel alone without the infusion of any others. 
 Indeed the distinction between Kahal and ger is expressly 
 declared when we are told that "there was not a word of 
 
 29Num. 15.2, 13-16. 
 
 30Bertholet, Die Siellung der Israeliien und der Juden zu den Fremden, p. 170, note 2. 
 
 siExod. 12.6; 16.3; Lev. 4.13, 14, 21; Num. 10.7; 14.5; 16.3, 33; 17.12; 19.20; 
 20.4, 6, 10, 12; 22.4; Dent. 9.10; 10.4; 18.16; 23.2, 3, 4, 9; 33.4; 1 Kings 8.14, 22;12.3; 
 
 Jer. 26.17; Micah 2.5; 1 Chron. 13.2, 4; 28.8; 29.1, 10, 20; 2 Chron. 1,3, 5; 6.3, 12,13; 
 20.5; 23.3; 24.6; 28.14; 29.23, 28, 31, 32; 30.17, 23, 24, 25. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 75 
 
 all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before 
 kol-kehal Yisrael and the women and the little ones and 
 the ger that walked among them.”^^ 
 
 So also in the narrative of Hezekiah’s great Pesah 
 festival it is recorded that ''kol-kehal Yehudah, and the 
 priests, and the Levites, and kol-ha-kahal that came out 
 of Israel, and the gerim that came out of the land of Israel 
 and that dwelt in Judah rejoiced. 
 
 The scribe who was copying our ordinance which 
 declared itself to be one statute for you (Israel) and for the 
 ger that liveth with you, which further declared that '‘as 
 ye are, so shall the ger be before the Lord,” and which 
 emphasized these declarations by adding that "there shall 
 be one and the same Torah and mishpat for you and for 
 the ger living with you” might well exclaim: Behold, the 
 ger has become incorporated into the Kahal! We have 
 now an enlarged Kahall 
 
 We may readily affirm his view and conclude that 
 this ordinance contemplated the religious assimilation of 
 the ger with Israel. 
 
 At this point we may note that ger is not mentioned 
 in Ezra-Nehemiah, Ruth, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of 
 Songs, Lamentations, Daniel and Esther, a significant 
 indication that the distinction between him and the whole 
 community of Israel, had, after the Return from Babylon, 
 been ignored and forgotten. 
 
 The next ordinance to be considered is the statute 
 providing for the atonement of the community or of the 
 individual for certain violations of law committed by error 
 or inadvertence (shegagah). If the fault be that of the 
 congregation {'edah) a specific sin-offering is required, 
 whereupon the priest makes atonement for the whole 
 congregation of the bene Israel "and they shall be for- 
 
 s2Josh. 8.35. 332 Chron. 30.25. 
 
76 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 given.This effect is repeated in the next verse with 
 an important addition thus: “And all the congregation 
 of the children of Israel shall be forgiven and the ger living 
 in their midst; it was the error of kol ha-'am (the whole 
 people). 
 
 If the fault be that of an individual, the offering to 
 be brought by him is specified, and the priest shall make 
 atonement for him and he shall be forgiven. “The ezrah 
 among the children of Israel and the ger that liveth In 
 their midst; there shall be one law (Torah) for him that 
 doeth aught In error. 
 
 Just as in the previous ordinance the ger is considered 
 to be part of the Kahal, so in this he is viewed as part of 
 the 'Am. And the Bene Israel and the ezrah are used inter¬ 
 changeably. They seem to fix the period at which the 
 ger became fully assimilated, civilly and religiously. 
 
 There is, too, a statute which provides for purification 
 from defilement by the dead. We may call this the statute 
 of the Red Heifer. A whole chapter is devoted to it.^^ 
 It was without doubt originally binding on Israelites only, 
 but in the tenth verse the words “and unto the ger dwelling 
 in their midst” follow the word “Israel,” that being the 
 only mention of the ger in the whole chapter. There could 
 be no more intimate fusion of ger and Israelite than in 
 such an ordinance looking to perfect ritual purity. 
 
 We may here pause a moment to consider an ordinance 
 which belongs to an early period when the assimilation of 
 the ger was not yet in sight. The carcass of an animal 
 which died of itself (nebelah) was held to be unfit for the 
 food of Israelites. It was an abominable thing.Never¬ 
 theless, as in other times and climes there were those who 
 violated the prohibition. Jeremiah denounces such sin¬ 
 ners.Notwithstanding the aversion with which the 
 
 «Num. 15.25. ^Ubid. 15.26. ^eibid. 15.29. »nbid. chap. 19. 
 
 *»Deut. 14.3, 21. *9Jer. 16.18. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 77 
 
 idea of an Israelite’s eating such a thing was viewed, 
 express permission was granted to give it to the ger to 
 eat, presumably as part of his food-wage. 
 
 As the assimilation of the ger progressed there was 
 a supplemental ordinance which reads thus: "Every person 
 (nefesh) that eateth nebelah or terefah, among ezrah or 
 among ger shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water 
 and be unclean until the even; then shall he be clean. But 
 if he wash them not, nor bathe his flesh, then he shall 
 bear his iniquity. 
 
 Here we have the extremes of the assimilation progress 
 of the ger. At first he is treated as a complete outsider 
 religiously, while in the last instance, he is regarded as an 
 intimate proselyte, who, if he fail to conform to the require¬ 
 ments, "must bear his iniquity,” that is, must expect 
 direct Divine punishment. 
 
 The tithe of the third year is another instance showing 
 the relation between the land-owner and the ger. This 
 tithe must be specially set aside for the Levite, the ger^ 
 the yatom and the almanah, to whom it shall be for food.'^^ 
 
 This provision is usually construed as a charitable 
 gift to the poor. It is more probably a supplemental com¬ 
 pensation for laborers in the land-owner’s employ. We 
 have in a previous lecture alluded to the fact that Levites 
 were in the early days hired for wages to perform certain 
 religious duties. Nothing is more likely than this: that 
 we have here a list of several species of workers, who were 
 entitled to these third-year tithes as a bonus, to use the 
 language of our contemporaries. 
 
 This ordinance seems devoid of any religious signifi- 
 
 <®Deut. 14.21. 
 
 <iLev. 17.15, 16. The expression ‘‘bear his iniquity,” as has been suggested in 
 the preceding Lecture, conveys Divine punishment for an offence committed by an 
 Israelite. Here the ezrah (meaning the Israelite) and the ger are put in the same class 
 in this regard. 
 
 «Exod. 28.43; Num. 18.22. 
 
 «Deut. 14.28, 29; 26.12, 13. 
 
78 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 cance as regards the ger. He need not do anything nor 
 refrain from doing anything. It is a civil matter, a regula¬ 
 tion of the relations between employer and employees. 
 
 C. Besides the classes of cases of which we have hither¬ 
 to treated, there is a third class which shows that on certain 
 occasions of extraordinary solemnity in Israel, the ger 
 were invited to be, and were, present as if they were an 
 integral portion of the community. 
 
 When the end of Moses’ life was near, he called a 
 meeting of “all Israel’ and exhorted them to observe 
 the words of the covenant and do them.^s In oratorical 
 style he addresses them by classes, “even all the men of 
 Israel, your little ones, your wives and thy ger that are 
 in the midst of thy camp from the hewer of thy wood unto 
 the drawer of thy water; that thou shouldst enter into 
 the covenant of the Lord thy God . . ’’ “which the Lord 
 thy God maketh with thee this day.’’'^^ “Neither with you 
 only do I make this covenant and this oath, but with him 
 that standeth here with us this day. . 
 
 In his portrayal of the consequences that will follow 
 Israel’s non-observance of the law, Moses is still more 
 emphatic in his recognition of the ger as an integral portion 
 of the body of Israel. These are his words: “The ger 
 asher be-kirbeka shall mount above thee higher and higher; 
 and thou shalt come down lower and lower. He shall 
 lend to thee and thou shalt not lend to him; he shall be 
 the head and thou shalt be the tail.’’^^ Just as we describe 
 the individual body by saying “from head to foot,’’ so he 
 in portraying the corporate body uses the words “from 
 head to tail.’’ In both cases the thought is that the body 
 may be characterized by its two extremes. 
 
 Again, Moses in his final charge to “the priests the 
 sons of Levi’’ and to all the elders (zekenim) of Israeb^ 
 
 «Deut. 29.1. <5Ibid. 29.8. «ibid. 29.9-11. <Ubid. 29.13, 14. 
 isibid. 28.43, 44. «Ibid. 31.9. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IX ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 79 
 
 directs them to read the Law once in every seven years, 
 at the feast of Tabernacles “before all Israel in their hear- 
 ing.“so thereupon he defines what he means by “all 
 
 Israel.” 
 
 “The men and the women and the little ones and 
 thy ger that are within thy gates, that they may hear, 
 and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and 
 OBSERVE TO DO all the words of this law, and that their 
 children, who have not known, may hear, and learn to 
 fear the Lord your God. . 
 
 And finally it is recorded that Joshua, in compliance 
 with the direction of Moses “wrote there (in Mount Ebal) 
 upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses. . . And 
 
 all Israel and their elders and officers, and their judges, 
 stood on this side the ark and on that side ... as well 
 the ger as the ezrah. . .”5^ 
 
 In a great chapter of the Holiness Code, fundamental 
 moral laws for the governance of Israel are laid down, 
 the violation of which was declared to have resulted in 
 the downfall of the vanquished Canaanites and Moses 
 summed it all up by saying: “Ye therefore shall keep 
 My statutes and Mine ordinances and shall not do any 
 of these abominations—the ezrah and the ger that live in 
 your midst.”53 Here again, ezrah means Israel. It will 
 be seen that the ger are no longer looked upon as strangers, 
 but as fully accepted proselytes, forming a recognized 
 portion of the Israelite religious community. 
 
 Ezekiel seems to look upon them in the same light.54 
 
 D. We are finally to consider the provisions made for 
 the improvement of the gers material condition and the 
 consequent intellectual and spiritual advantage accruing 
 to him. 
 
 Perhaps the most important improvement in the gers 
 
 wDeut. 31.11. “Ibid. 31.12, 13. “Josh. 8.32,33, 35. 
 
 “Lev. 18.26. “Ezek. 14.7, 8. 
 
80 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 material condition was produced by granting him rest 
 from labor on the weekly Sabbath. 
 
 The tradition was uniform that this institution was 
 of the greatest antiquity. The accepted belief that God 
 himself rested on that day from the work of Creation 
 attests this. Moreover when Israel’s support in the wilder¬ 
 ness was by manna which fell from Heaven, two portions 
 fell on Friday in order to relieve the people from the work 
 of gathering it on the seventh day.^^ Qf the various texts 
 commanding the observance of the Sabbath, only three 
 contain any reference to the ger.^^ The others are addressed 
 to Israel alone. 
 
 And these three disclose peculiarities which merit 
 attention. The first of them^® addressed to Israel com¬ 
 mands that on the seventh day ^‘thou shalt not do any 
 manner of work,” with which the sentence might well have 
 ended, but it goes on ''thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, 
 nor thy man-servant {'ehed) nor thy maid-servant (amah) 
 nor thy cattle, nor thy ger that is within thy gates.” That 
 the mention of the slaves should be followed by the cattle 
 may well give the impression that the sentence is finished, 
 when, lo and behold! after the cattle come the free em¬ 
 ployees as if by an afterthought of later times. 
 
 The second of them^^ is likewise addressed to Israel 
 and commands "On the seventh day thou shalt rest that 
 thine ox and thine ass may have rest.” After this care 
 for the animals, there follows the additional ground "and 
 the son of thy handmaid {ben-amah) and the ger may be 
 refreshed.” 
 
 The family are not mentioned, probably on the pre¬ 
 sumption that by the use of the second person the land- 
 owner addressed would assume that his family was included. 
 
 “Exod. 16.22,23. *6Ibid. 20.8-11; 23.12; Deut. 5.14. 
 
 ‘’Exod. 16.26, 29; 31.13-16; 34.21; 35.2, 3; Lev. 19.3, 30; 23.3. 
 
 »8Exod. 20.10. “Ibid. 23.12. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 81 
 
 The third of them^° has the same list as the first to 
 wit: thou, thy son, thy daughter, thy man-servant ('ebed), 
 thy maid-servant {amah), and then follow the ox, the ass, 
 or any of the cattle. Only after these comes the ger. The 
 most curious feature of this text is, however, what follows 
 the ger, namely the purpose of this ordinance which is 
 declared to be that ‘The ‘ebed and the amah may rest as 
 well as thou.” Not a word about the ger, just as if the 
 sentence had been finished before he was introduced or 
 thought of. 
 
 It is not an unreasonable inference that these three 
 texts were originally addressed to Israel alone, and that 
 the anxious care for the workman, slave and free, ‘ebed 
 and ger was developed in the course of Israel’s history. 
 
 To return now to our Sabbath-law prohibiting work 
 by the ger on that day. It should be remarked that though 
 the benefit of it was primarily material, in that it gave the 
 workman a substantial interval of rest, thereby relieving 
 the monotony, the dulness and the fatigue incident to 
 unceasing physical labor of one sort, yet the advantage 
 to the laborer in another aspect was even greater. The 
 leisure afforded by the regularly recurring period of rest 
 at short intervals, made it not only possible but inevitable 
 that he should observe and to a certain degree imitate 
 the habits and practices of his master’s family and the 
 result would follow that he would cultivate thoughts 
 which in his previous condition would have been beyond 
 his reach. 
 
 The command to the ger to abstain from work on 
 Atonement day was another long step in advance. The 
 extraordinary solemnity surrounding its celebration stim¬ 
 ulated reflection in a high degree. He saw his master 
 deprived not only of food but of other ordinary indulgences 
 
 ®®Deut. 5.14. *'Lev. 16.29; Nuni. 29.7. 
 
82 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 which seemed not only necessary but indispensable. There 
 were moreover stately ceremonies conducted by the priests, 
 which were well adapted to rouse curiosity and interest. 
 
 So too the Day of Memorial (now called Rosh ha- 
 Shanah^^), the day of the blowing of the horn (the Shofar), 
 could well rouse emotions and implant ideas concerning 
 a man’s being and his future. 
 
 Less grave than these solemn occasions was the Pesah- 
 Massot festival. While the Hebrews called the Massot 
 (unleavened bread), the bread of affliction,®^ the fact that 
 the festival celebrated the rise of the nation gave it a joyful 
 color which mere nicknames could not overcome. While 
 the ger was free to join in the Pesah ceremonies, he was 
 also free to refrain. The choice was his.®^ During the 
 Massot festival, however, he was bound to abstain from 
 eating leaven®® and the probability is that so far from 
 being conscious of any affliction he enjoyed it, while drink¬ 
 ing in from his surroundings historical memories in which 
 it is true he had no part, but which nevertheless tended 
 to raise his intellect to a higher plane. When a mere yokel 
 loses sight for a time of the insistent present and dwells 
 even with bare superficiality on a past replete with great 
 deeds, he imbibes ideas which spiritualize his whole being. 
 
 Hebrew life though essentially solemn was not monoto¬ 
 nously so. There was a joyous side and the ger reaped 
 the full benefit of it. 
 
 At the gathering of the first fruits of the wheat harvest 
 there was a great holiday,®7 the feast of weeks (Shabuot). 
 Naturally there were impressive ceremonies®® but these 
 were coupled with the injunction to go up to the religious 
 capital with the family, the slaves, the Levite and the ger, 
 yatom (fatherless) and almanah (widow) and there rejoice 
 
 «2Lev. 16.32-34; 23.27-32. e^ibid. 23.24; Num. 29.1. 84Deut. 16.3. 
 
 osExod. 12.48. aUbid. 12.19* »Ubid. 34.22. a^Lev. 23.16-21. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 83 
 
 before the Lord thy God/^ And this rejoicing was not 
 to be merely rhetorical or spiritual. There were to be 
 feasts: “Thou shalt eat there.”7“ And the practice con¬ 
 formed to the ordinance. 
 
 And the “Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, 
 when thou gatherest in thy labors out of the field” partook 
 of this same frolicsome nature. This is the Festival known 
 as Sukkot (Tabernacles),one of the most jovial features 
 of which was, doubtless, a great army of paraders bearing 
 branches of palm-trees, willows of the brook and other 
 plants. Even if the ger were not admitted to join in the 
 procession, they doubtless enjoyed looking at it, as we 
 know from the habits of people of our own time. Needless 
 to say there were abundant ceremonies besides.Here 
 too all the householder’s dependents, his family, his slaves, 
 the Levite, the ger, the yatom and the almanah asher bi-she- 
 ‘areka were to “be altogether joyful. 
 
 In order to complete this branch of our inquiry, it 
 will be necessary to cite the general principles laid down 
 for the treatment of the ger as well as the special regulations 
 made in his behalf. The most important of these prac¬ 
 tically was the protection of the ger in his right to adequate 
 wages or other compensation. 
 
 “A ger thou shalt not wrong, neither shalt thou oppress 
 him.In view of the relations of the ger with his em¬ 
 ployer, the wrong and the oppression here spoken of can 
 mean nothing else than exacting an undue amount of work 
 or whittling down the compensation for it so as to render 
 it inadequate. 
 
 The farmer may not go back to recover a sheaf for¬ 
 gotten in the harvest. It is for the ger, the yatom and the 
 almanah nor is he allowed to go again over the boughs of 
 
 «»Deut. 16.11. 7oibid. 14.2.3-27; 27.7. Sam. 11.15. 
 
 72Exod. 23.16. ”Lev. 23.34, 39-43. 74Nehem. 8.1-18; Num. 29.12-39. 
 
 76Deut. 16.15. 70Exod. 22.20; 23.9; Lev. 19.33. 
 
84 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 the olive-trees. What is left also goes to the ger, the yatom 
 and the almanah, and the like disposition is made with 
 respect to the gleaning of the vineyard. 
 
 In the parallel passages of Leviticus, the provision is 
 that the corner of the field must not be reaped, nor the 
 gleaning of the harvest or the vineyard gathered. They 
 belong to the ‘ani and the ger.'^^ 
 
 In still another Levitical passage only the corner of 
 the field and the gleaning of the harvest are mentioned 
 and these are to be for the ‘ani and the ger^^ 
 
 We have here three kinds of disposition of the farmer’s 
 remainders after the collection of his produce. The first 
 specifies in more detail the several species to be distributed 
 and awards them to ger, yatom and almanah, the second 
 omits the olive-trees but names the other species, while 
 the third omits not only the olive-trees but the vineyard. 
 Then too the first names as beneficiaries the ger, the yatom 
 and the almanah while the second and third omit the 
 yatom and the almanah but add the ‘ani. 
 
 These variations lead to the inference that at the 
 time of the first ordinance, the order of Hebrew work¬ 
 men called ‘ani had not yet been regarded as a class by 
 themselves; but that the bulk of the agricultural work 
 was done by the non-Hebrew classes to wit, the ger, the 
 yatom and the almanah, that these being settled on the 
 land indefinitely, were not paid wages, but received their 
 support in kind which was supplemented at harvest time 
 by what their employers doubtless called a gratuity in 
 the nature of the bonus so anxiously looked for by the 
 workmen of our own day. 
 
 The inference from the second and third ordinances 
 is that the ger therein named was used as a general term 
 to include the yatom and the almanah of a deceased ger, 
 
 ”Deat. 24.19,20, 21. ’sLev. 19.9, 10. ’Ubid. 23.22. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IX ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 85 
 
 which words were therefore omitted, while the Hebrew 
 workmen, the 'ani had so increased as to form a class by 
 themselves who were admitted to share in the bonus. 
 
 The wages of a sakir shall not abide with thee all 
 night until the morning. 
 
 The product of the seventh or fallow year shall be 
 for food of the land-owner and of all his dependents includ¬ 
 ing his sakir and his toshah.^^ Moses, in his charge to the 
 judges enjoins upon them to judge righteously between 
 a man and his ger. The great probability is that the ques¬ 
 tions arising between these two classes referred to quantum 
 of labor or of compensation.®'* 
 
 At the end of every three years the land-owner was 
 ordered to lay up the tithe of his increase and this belonged 
 to the Levite, the ger, the fatherless and the widow, all, 
 in one sense or another, employees of the owner.®® 
 
 The prophets, Jeremiah,®4 Ezekiel,and Malachi,®^ 
 especially the latter, were insistent upon obedience to these 
 requirements. The general principles, illustrative of these 
 regulations were emphatic. 
 
 The leading one was enunciated in several specific 
 cases: 
 
 When the punishment for various offences was laid 
 down, the pronouncement with which the little code con¬ 
 cluded was: 
 
 “One mishpat shall be for you, as well for the ger as 
 for the ezrah}"^ 
 
 When the Pesah of the second month was instituted 
 the doctrine was repeated in words nearly similar.®® 
 
 And the like occurred in respect to offerings®^ and 
 to the atonement for sins of inadvertence.^" 
 
 The persistent repetition of this declaration undoubt- 
 
 “Lev. 19.13; Deut. 24.14. 15. “Lev. 25.6. s'^Deut. 1.16; 24.17; 27.19. 
 
 MIbid. 14.28, 29; 26.12, 13. ^Jer. 7.6; 22.3. ^sEzek. 21.1, 29. 
 
 ««Mal. 3.5. s^Lev. 24.22. »»Num. 9.14. »»Ibid. 15.16. 
 
 Mbid. 15.29. 
 
86 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 edly gave it the effect of a principle generally applicable. 
 The fact that it failed of universal effect is attested by 
 the speeches of the prophets. This, however, need not 
 surprise us. Ancient men were much like moderns. In 
 their day as in ours, natives looked upon themselves 
 as superior to men of other nations, and even in their most 
 liberal moods, exhibited as against them, a certain con¬ 
 descension. This trait too was heightened and exaggerated 
 then as now when the others were inferior in prosperity 
 and social standing. 
 
 These mighty efforts to produce unity between Israel 
 and the ger were further strengthened by such declarations 
 as these: 
 
 "Thou shalt love him (the ger) as thyself; for ye were 
 gerim in the land of Egypt.”’* 
 
 "He (the Lord) loveth the ger in giving him food and 
 raiment. Love ye therefore the ger\ for ye were gerim in 
 the land of Egypt. The effort was to remind the superior 
 that in his origin, he was as humble as the class he wished 
 to look down upon. 
 
 While naturally the object was not fully attained, 
 there was undoubtedly created a higher and purer senti¬ 
 ment regarding the relation between Hebrew employer 
 and non-Hebrew employed. 
 
 We have now reached a point where we shall feel at 
 liberty to assume that the ger were a large population of 
 Palestinian natives who, by the conquest, lost their lands 
 and became employees in the service of the conqueror. 
 
 We shall next proceed to ascertain whether there 
 were other classes of non-Hebrew laborers; and this brings 
 us back to our starting-point, the classification of ger with 
 yatom and almanah (fatherless and widow) which we shall 
 proceed to consider in the next Lecture. 
 
 »iLev. 19.34. 
 
 s^Deut. 10.18, 19. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 IV 
 
 The frequent collocation of ger with yatom and almanah 
 started our whole inquiry. The accepted notion that they 
 were classed together because they all needed the kindliness 
 and charity of the public seemed inadequate. 
 
 The result of the inquiry so far has been that we I 
 have collected evidence enough to establish the fact that ! 
 the g er were a large class, that they were the conquered i 
 
 inhabitants of Palestine, and that*’the majority of them i 
 
 \ 
 
 had remained on the land as feudal employees of the con- ( 
 querors. That these so settled were called toshahim , ger- ) 
 toshah, or ger we-toshab. That tlie minority not so settled ; 
 
 ^ — . ... - ^1 . 1 , 1, , BP I W 'l .— l. n B n'W I I M w- 
 
 became sekirim or wage-earners. To speak of a large 
 population of industrious laborers as objects of charity 
 is merely absurd. 
 
 Then what is the meaning of the collocation of ger, 
 yatom and almanah?. If their being classed together gives 
 them certain leading characteristics in common, it would 
 seem that the ger's leading characteristic, to wit, being 
 a laborer, might inhere also in the yatom and the almanah, 
 however fantastic such a view might at first appear. 
 
 In every'instance where the locution is used, it is quitfe 
 consistent with such a view, especially when we consider 
 that the peasant gerim were landless and were dependent 
 on their compensation for the support of their families. 
 When such a ger died, what was to become of his widow 
 and children? The interest of the land-owner would be 
 to oust them from their cottage and to put in their place 
 a strong man capable to do what the decedent had done. 
 
 87 
 
88 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 The humanitarian policy of the state would have been 
 defeated if the land-owner had been allowed to consult 
 his pecuniary interest only. The best that could be done 
 was to leave the family in their place and set them to work 
 doing as much as possible. This was probably a fair pro¬ 
 portion of what had been done before, since doubtless the 
 ger had been assisted in his work by his wife and such of 
 his children as were old enough to help. The case of Ruth 
 shows that the practice of women to work in the field was 
 well established. Boaz, in addressing her, said: “Go not 
 to glean in another field, but abide here fast by my maidens. 
 Let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go 
 thou after them.”^ 
 
 And that children would be compelled to work appears 
 plainly from Job’s bitter speech against the avaricious 
 rich, however exaggerated its terms.^ 
 
 Our ger, yatom and almanah are coupled together 
 in at least sixteen instances which may be divided into 
 five classes. Six of them refer to the oppression of laborers 
 by their employers, five speak of their participation in 
 the fruits of the soil, two of their joinder with other em¬ 
 ployees in great celebrations by their masters, two enjoin 
 on the judges the duty of disregarding differences of status 
 among litigants and commanding them to do justice to 
 laborers and the sixteenth is a Divine fiat announcing 
 that Heaven itself takes special care of yatom, almanah 
 and ger. 
 
 I. The first class of six are these: 
 
 a) “The ger thou shalt not wrong {lo toneh) nor oppress 
 him {lo tilhasefinu). . . Kol almanah we-yatom ye 
 
 shall not afflict {lo te‘annun).”^ 
 
 iRuth 2.8, 9. 
 
 2Job 24.3-12. 
 
 3E.K0d. 22.20, 21. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 89 
 
 b) Jeremiah speaking at the gate of the Temple says: 
 
 “Do justice between a man and his rea' (the 
 versions render: neighbor, but the meaning here is 
 his Hebrew employee); do not oppress {lo ta'ashoku) 
 ger, yatom and almanah.''^ 
 
 c) Jeremiah, under instruction, addresses the King 
 in these words: 
 
 “Execute ye justice and righteousness, and de¬ 
 liver the spoiled (gazul, robbed) out of the hand of 
 the oppressor {‘ashok), and do no wrong (al-tonu), 
 do no violence {al tahmosu) to the ger, yatotn and 
 almanah.''^ 
 
 d) Ezekiel, inveighing against the princes {nesiim) 
 of Israel charges them with grave crimes, among them 
 these: “They have dealt by oppression {‘asu be- 
 ^oshek) with the ger; they have wronged (honu) yatom 
 and almanah.'"^ 
 
 e) Zechariah, harping on the same subject says: “Do 
 not oppress {al ta‘ashoku) the almanah and yatom, 
 the ger and the ^ani."'^ 
 
 f) And finally Malachi closes the prophetic era by 
 denouncing “those that oppress (oshekim) the sakir 
 in his wages, the almanah and the yatom and turn 
 aside the ger from his right {matte ger)."^ 
 
 In these six passages denouncing oppression five 
 words are used. Their basic forms are: 'ashak in five of 
 the texts, honah in three, and ‘innah, lahas, and Jiamas 
 each in one. They all signify the ill-treatment of one by 
 another, oppression. There might be room for speculation 
 as to what kind of oppression may be referred to. Fortu¬ 
 nately, the Malachi text solves the problem, by the specific 
 statement that the 'oshek, the oppressor, is wronging the 
 employee, the sakir in respect to his wages. The inference 
 
 *Jer. 7.5, 6. Her. 22.3. ‘Ezek. 22.7. ^Zech. 7.10. »Mal. 3.5. 
 
90 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 is obvious that the other classes mentioned with the sakir 
 are fellow-employees and that in that relation they are 
 the victims of ill-treatment by their employers. 
 
 The dictionaries lay especial stress on the idea of 
 extortion involved in 'ashak^^ or as the Hebrew with brutal 
 frankness calls it ''robbery” (gazul) and on the idea of 
 ill-treatment of the poor and weak involved in honahf'^ 
 and these are the two words running through all these 
 passages. 
 
 Oppression as between employer and employee would 
 likely be of two kinds, overworking and under-payment. 
 Needless to say, a cruel master might be guilty in both 
 respects. In the case of the sakir there might be an addi¬ 
 tional mode of oppression. He was the only laborer who 
 was to be paid a daily wage at sundown. The law is im¬ 
 perative: ''The wages of a sakir shall not abide with thee 
 all night until the morning.”” ''In the same day thou 
 shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon 
 it.”” An avaricious master would violate this law, just 
 as selfish and inconsiderate men violate other laws. 
 
 H. Next to this series of six passages are five, in which 
 the ger, yatom and almanah are made to participate in 
 the fruits of the soib^ and following these five are: 
 
 HI. Two passages which represent the ger^ the yatom 
 and the almanah as enjoying, with other employees, great 
 national and religious celebrations, all under the charge 
 of their employers. 
 
 The seven passages of these two series have been 
 sufficiently considered in the previous Lecture and need 
 not be repeated here. 
 
 IV. We have, next, the two passages which enjoin the duty of 
 disregarding differences of status among men. They are these: 
 
 “Brown-Driver, Hebrew and English Lexicon, p. 798. ^®Ibid., p. 413. 
 
 ”Lev. 19.13. i2Deut. 24.15. “Ibid. 14.29; 24.2Q, 21; 26.12, 13. 
 
 “Ibid. 16.11, 14. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 91 
 
 “Thou shalt not pervert the justice due to the ger^ 
 yatom {mishpat ger yatom) nor take the almanah^s raiment 
 to pledge. 
 
 “Cursed be he that perverteth the justice due to ger- 
 yatom we-almanah. . 
 and finally we have this passage: 
 
 V. “He (the Lord) doth execute justice {*oseh mishpat) 
 for the yatom and the almanah and loveth the ger in giving 
 him food and raiment. 
 
 An attentive consideration of these sixteen passages 
 discloses a certain historical order showing the stages at 
 which the various classes of laborers among the Hebrews 
 were formed. 
 
 At first, that is, as soon as the natives had been sub¬ 
 jected to the loss of their land and the bulk of them had 
 become a settled peasantry under their new masters, the 
 texts are confined to the ger, yatom and almanah alone 
 without thought of any other class. There was urgent 
 need for their protection and there were prompt measures 
 to secure it for them. 
 
 These texts are found in four verses only. In the verse 
 which represents God as speaking for justice and love to 
 them no other class is mentioned. This is the text which 
 has just been cited at length.'® 
 
 One of the texts which provides for a supplemental 
 compensation in addition to the ordinary reward given to 
 working-people is composed of three verses: the first of 
 them directs that a forgotten sheaf may not be gone after 
 by the farmer but must be left for the ger, yatom and 
 almanah, the second imposes on the farmer the same 
 duty of abstention after beating his olive-trees and reserves 
 what remains thereon for the ger, yatom and almanah,^^ 
 
 isDeut. 24.17. i«lbid. 27.19. JUbid. 10.18. lUbid. 10.18. 
 
 J»Ibid. 24.19. 20Ibid. 24.20. 
 
92 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IX ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 while the third has an analogous provision in the gleaning 
 of the vineyard. 
 
 Though these are three separate verses in each of 
 which the same beneficiaries of the farmer’s abstention 
 are named, they are in reality but one ordinance, inculcat¬ 
 ing one duty, namely, the duty of giving to the laborers 
 whose active work contributes greatly to the increase of 
 the produce, an extra gratuity which has a tendency to 
 cheer and exalt them. 
 
 The result reached from a consideration of all the 
 passages may fairly be said to be that the yatom and the 
 almanah when mentioned as pendents to the ger, are not 
 Israelites, but are the gers (the non-Hebrew’s) widow and 
 children, who after the father’s death were allowed to 
 remain where they had always been, on condition of course 
 that they should become employees in his stead. This 
 conclusion however does not negative the idea that there 
 are texts which speak of the yatom and almanah of Hebrews. 
 
 When the Hebrew widow had no child, the death of 
 her husband practically threw her back on her father or 
 his family.If, however, she had a child, the husband’s 
 land descended and the widow and children remained on 
 it as before. The gehul almanah^^ is referred to as well as 
 the prohibition against trespassing on the fields of the 
 yatom. So too the avaricious men are described by 
 Job as being alert to drive away the ass of the yetomim 
 and to take the almanah's ox for a pledge.With a funda¬ 
 mental law which aimed at equality of land-ownership by 
 individuals, the invasion of the neighbor’s land by crossing 
 the boundary line {gehul) or by obliterating it so as to seize 
 a portion of the neighbor’s land was a heinous offence: 
 “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor’s land-mark {gehul)" 
 is a stern prohibition which is drastically strengthened by 
 
 2iDeut, 24.21. 22Lev. 22.13. ^^Prov. 15.25. ^Ubid. 23.10. 
 
 26Job 24.3. 26 Deut. 19.14. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 93 
 
 the Arur-code: “Cursed be he that removeth his neigh¬ 
 bor’s (gebul) land-mark.Hosea, denouncing the princes 
 of Judah, finds nothing more degrading to characterize 
 them than likening them to those “that remove the land¬ 
 mark.’’^® Proverbs too repeats the accepted view: “Remove 
 not the ancient land-mark which thy fathers have set.”^^ 
 
 The Hebrew yatom and almanah were therefore not 
 objects of charity in general. They did need protection, 
 however, against the greed of wily land-grabbers who 
 were ever ready to take advantage of the helplessness 
 not only of unsophisticated persons suddenly thrust into 
 a position of responsibility without adequate preparation, 
 but of those land-owners whose management of their 
 farms was not efficient enough to assure their ability to 
 hold them permanently. Doubtless the current philosophy 
 and morality of the avaricious was satisfactory to their 
 class as it has been from that day to this: The fittest 
 survive. Whoso fails should abandon the task and serve 
 others who can do better, and so on and so on. 
 
 The prophets did not see eye to eye with them. Amos 
 thunders against them: “They sell the innocent for silver 
 and the ebyon for a pair of shoes. They pant after the 
 dust of the earth on the head of the dallim and pervert 
 the right of the humble {'anawim)d'^° Isaiah, somewhat 
 later (8th century B.C.), is specific in his denunciation of 
 their efforts to gain a monopoly of the land: 
 
 “Woe unto them that join house to house. 
 
 That lay field to field. 
 
 Till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell 
 Alone in the midst of the land!’’^^ 
 and Micah (724 B.c. and later) does the same. 
 
 “Woe to them that devise iniquity 
 And work evil upon their beds: 
 
 *meut. 27.17. ^Rjiosea 5.10. *»Prov. 22.20. Amos 2.7. *‘Isa. 5.8. 
 
94 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 When the morning is light, they execute it, 
 
 Because it is in the power of their hand. 
 
 And they covet fields, and grab them; (gazalu) 
 
 And houses, and take them away; 
 
 They oppress a man and his house (family) 
 
 Even a man and his heritage {nahalah)^^^ 
 
 After the provisions for securing the ger, yatom and 
 almanah there is another stage which introduces alongside 
 of them a new class of beneficiaries, namely the Levite 
 class. This disposition is made in three verses, the first 
 of them providing that the tithe of the third year, shall 
 be disposed of as subsidiary compensation to '‘the Levite, 
 the ger, the yatom and the almanah that are within thy 
 gates” {asher bi-sJie areka) the second of them directing 
 that the rejoicing on the Feast of Weeks at the national 
 sanctuary thereafter to be established, shall be by the 
 employer and his family, by his slaves, by “the Levite 
 that is within thy gates” and by “the ger, the yatom and 
 the almanah that are in the midst of thee” {asher be-kir- 
 beka),^^ and the third of them laying down a similar rule 
 for the celebration of the Tabernacle festival the bene¬ 
 ficiaries of which are to be the same as those named for 
 the Feast of Weeks, namely, the employer and his family, 
 his slaves “and the Levite, the ger, the yatom and the 
 almanah that are within thy gates. 
 
 We have in a previous lecture referred to the case of 
 the Ephraimite Micah who employed a Levite of the 
 mishpahah of Judah to be his ab and his kohen promising 
 to pay him for this service ten pieces of silver by the year 
 and a suit of apparel and his victuals. And on these terms 
 the bargain was concluded. The narrative is of great 
 antiquity. Though the facts as told were shocking to 
 the sensibilities of the compiler, he recited them fully. 
 
 ®2Micah 2.1, 2. ssDeut. 14.29. 34ibid. 16.11. »Ubid. 16.14. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IX ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 95 
 
 The chapter in which the narrative occurs is well worth 
 reading.3^ 
 
 It shows why the Levites like the ger, the yatom and 
 the almanah are located hish'areka or be-kirbeka {within 
 thy gates or in thy circle). They are all resident on the 
 estate of the owner in whose employ they are. A wide¬ 
 spread notion that these words refer to residence in Israel 
 at large, is clearly inept. They point directly to the land 
 of an individual and relate to persons under his control. 
 
 When a central sanctuary was established, perhaps 
 at Shiloh, a new governmental policy was instituted. The 
 sanctuaries on private estates were to be discontinued. 
 They were an obstacle to the unity of the state and more¬ 
 over tended to perpetuate pagan practices. 
 
 The measure designed to abolish them was the in¬ 
 stitution of a system of pilgrimages to the central sanctuary. 
 There were to be three of these pilgrimages in every year, 
 one on Pesah, the next on Shabu^ot and last and greatest 
 of all, the one on Sukkot.^’’ Though the ordinances com¬ 
 manding these pilgrimages were doubtless observed, the 
 result was not what had been hoped for. When the owners 
 of the private sanctuaries with their retainers returned 
 home, many of them adhered to their ancient customs and 
 consulted their Levites as of yore. 
 
 To overcome this, inducements were offered to the 
 Levites coming from these estates to remain at the central 
 sanctuary, which movement, if successful, would finally 
 cause the local sanctuaries to wither away and in the end 
 perish from inanition. 
 
 The ordinance on this subject was well adapted to 
 effect the purpose. It is as follows: 
 
 “And if (when) a Levite come from any of thy gates 
 
 *“Jud. chap. 17. 
 
 a^Exod. 23.14-17; 34.23; Deut. 16.16; 1 Kings 8.2, 65; 2 Kings 23.23; Neh. 8.18; 
 2 Chron. 7.8, 9. 
 
96 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 {me-ahad she‘areka) out of all Israel, where he lives (gar 
 sham), and come with all the desire of his soul unto the 
 place which the Lord shall choose; then he shall minister 
 in the name of the Lord his God, as all his brethren the 
 Levites do, who stand there before the Lord. They shall 
 have like portions to eat, beside that which is his due accord- 
 ing to the fathers' houses" {'at ha-abot).^^ This is the J.P.S. 
 version. A. V. renders the last phrase “that which cometh 
 of the sale of his patrimony,” and this translation is adhered 
 to by the English and American Revisions. 
 
 That all these renderings are inadequate seems clear. 
 What the ordinance really meant was, that the local 
 Levites who would remain at the central sanctuary, were 
 allowed to do so without abandoning their local position 
 and emoluments. Many would have dreaded the change,- 
 if it involved the loss of what they had, because of the 
 fear that their position at the central sanctuary would 
 be uncertain, and that if they should be deprived of it, 
 they would be turned loose upon the country and be com- 
 pelled to wander round in order to obtain proper places. 
 
 Hence, the provision that they should retain what 
 they had at home namely “that which belonged to the 
 abot," the latter word meaning the country Levites them¬ 
 selves. It will be remembered that Micah employed his 
 Levite as kohen and as ab.^^ 
 
 We may now close the discussion concerning the 
 ger, yatom and almanah, in the belief that their position 
 as laborers of non-Hebrew origin has been sufficiently 
 established. 
 
 It behooves us now to inquire concerning the existence 
 of [Hebrew, labor-classes. 
 
 Our information on this point is derivable from observ¬ 
 ing the texts relating to ger, yatom and almanah in order 
 
 88Deut. 18.6, 7, 8. ssjud. 17.10. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 97 
 
 to learn whether, associated with these, there are other 
 classes of persons who are laborers like themselves, and 
 if there are such, whether they differ from the ger in that 
 they are of pure Hebrew blood. The sixteen instances 
 which speak of the ger, yaiom and almanah are, as has been 
 said, divisible into five classes: 
 
 Of the first class referring to oppression of ger, yatom 
 and almanah by their employers there are six, and five of 
 these are connected with other terms denoting classes of 
 persons in the same category as themselves, to wit, free ’ 
 laborers. 
 
 Following the order just adopted we find that the 
 first of the six texts. Exodus 22.20, 21, associates the fol¬ 
 lowing classes: 
 
 The 'ani Hmmak (which I would render, the ^ani in 
 thy employ),4° thy rea the dal‘^'^ and the ehyon.^^ 
 
 The second of these six texts, Jeremiah 7.6, is accom¬ 
 panied by the rea^^^^ 
 
 The third of them, Jeremiah 22.3, is associated with the 
 rea'^^ and with the ^ani we-ehyon.^^ 
 
 The fourth of them, Ezekiel 22.1, is followed by the rea^^^ 
 and by the 'ani we-ehyon^^ while, 
 
 The fifth of them, Zechariah 7.10, utters ger, yatom, almanah 
 and 'ani in one breath. 
 
 The sixth, Malachi 3.5, adds none of these terms, but 
 introduces the sakir in the same sentence with the ger, 
 yatom and almanah. 
 
 These terms for persons in a position similar to the 
 ger, yatom and almanah are not fanciful superfluities. 
 They denote a substantial distinction, which is, that the 
 'ani, the rea , the dal and the ehyon are Hebrews, while 
 the others are the native Canaanites and their progeny, 
 
 «Exod. 22.24. ^Ubid. 22.25. «ibid. 23.3; 30.15. «Ibid. 23.6, 11. 
 
 «Jer. 7.5. “Ibid. 22.13. “Ibid. 22.17. “Ezek. 22.12. 
 
 “Ibid. 22.29. 
 
98 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 who have become laborers for their Hebrew conquerors. 
 There are some valuable hints favoring this conclusion 
 scattered through the texts, e.g.: If thou lend money 
 to any of My people even to the ^ani thy brother, 
 
 thy ^anij thy ebyon;^° the ehyonim of thy people an ebyon, 
 one of thy brethren thy brother, the ebyon.^^ 
 
 “Thou shalt not respect the person of the dal, nor 
 favor the person of the mighty; but in righteousness shalt 
 thou judge thy fellow'' (famiteka) (^amit wherever it occurs 
 refers to a fellow-Israelite).^'^ 
 
 The dallim of the 'Am (referring to Israelites). 
 
 As regards the rea' there can be no doubt the word 
 is in direct contrast with ger which refers to the non- 
 Israelite. Its use for Israelite is exemplified in the follow¬ 
 ing: “Thou shalt not go up and down as a tale-bearer 
 among thy people, neither shalt thou stand idly by the 
 blood of thy rea'. . . Thou shalt not hate thy brother 
 
 in thy heart; thou shalt surely rebuke thy 'amit. 
 
 Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear grudge against 
 the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy rea' as 
 thyself. . 
 
 Note that later on in the same chapter, there is exactly 
 the same wording with reference to the ger: Thou shalt 
 love him as thyself. 
 
 The sakir whom Malachi mentions in addition to the 
 ger, yatom and almanah had a rather complicated history. 
 At first he was a mere sub-division of the ger; later on a 
 class of Hebrew sekirim arose and the ger sakir and the 
 Hebrew sakir existed side by side.^^ Probably by Malachi's 
 time (he was about 300 years later than Amos) the dis¬ 
 tinction between the two classes had become obliterated and 
 all the sekirim were regarded as of genuine Hebrew stock. 
 
 «Exod. 22.24. ^ooeut. 15.11. ^lExod. 23.11. 62Deut. 15.7. 
 
 “Ibid 15.9. siLev. 19.15. ssjer. 39.10. s^Lev. 19.16, 17, 18. 
 
 “Ibid. 19.34. ssDeut. 24.14. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 99 
 
 It is, of course, unnecessary to remind you that the * 
 special meaning of laborers here attributed to all these 
 words is not generally accepted. The general meaning 
 of 'ani, according to the Dictionary is “poor, afflicted, 
 humble”; that of ehyon: “in want, needy, poor;” that of 
 dal: “the poor” and that of rea': “friend, companion, 
 fellow. ”59 
 
 The disparity need not surprise us. We have but 
 to remember that in pretty nearly every language, English 
 not excepted, the great mass of people who are not rich, 
 but who work for a living are curtly called “the poor”.^*’ 
 
 Indeed Murray illustrates his definition by quoting 
 from Burke who denounces as base and wicked, the cant¬ 
 ing phrases of demagogues about “the laboring poor.” 
 One might almost suspect the great orator of speaking 
 under the inspiration of the philosophy of our Book of 
 Proverbs, which dubs the arrogant upstart, who dwells 
 in fancied superiority over his fellow-men, “the scorner” 
 {lesY^ and, much to his disadvantage, contrasts him with 
 his betters, the humble men, the laborers {^aniyyim). 
 “The Lord scorneth the scorners {lesim) but giveth grace 
 unto the 'aniyyimd'^^ 
 
 “The rich man {'ashir) is wise in his own eyes; 
 
 But the poor {dal) that hath understanding 
 searcheth him through. 
 
 A comparison of the texts relating to “the poor” 
 will show that they have no reference to mere paupers, 
 but that th^ deal with substantial citizens whose labors 
 contribute to the general welfare. 
 
 Mere paupers are essentially different. They are 
 free of obligations. They own nothing, they owe nothing, 
 and are creditors to no man. It follows that they have 
 
 Brown-Driver, pp. 2, 195, 776, 945. 
 
 “Webster’s Unabridged, p. 1012; Murray’s (The Oxford) English Dictionary, vol. 
 
 7, pp. 1114, 1115. '“Prov. 21.24. “Ibid. 3.34. “Ibid. 28.11. 
 
100 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 no occasion to sue and no man thinks of suing them. The 
 whole machinery of civil justice is to them a mere spectacle. 
 As to being victims of extortion or of oppression the thing 
 is impossible. The worst that can befall them is to be 
 refused a gratuity. Beyond that they cannot be victimized. 
 
 The texts that we are considering deal with quite 
 another kind of persons. Though not rich they are pos¬ 
 sessed of some property, they can borrow money, they 
 can sue and be sued and they are liable to pay public taxes. 
 
 The Book of Exodus contains seven texts which bear 
 upon this subject. 
 
 The first, which has been commented on in an earlier 
 lecture of this series, relates to the rea' from whom an 
 animal is hired, sometimes to be worked by its owner, 
 and sometimp by the borrower or by another in his behalf. 
 
 The second refers to the ^ani: ‘df thou lend money 
 to any of my people, to the 'ani Hmmak, (the ^ani in thy 
 employ) thou shalt not be to him as a creditor, neither 
 shall ye lay upon him interest.”®^ 
 
 The third refers once more to the rea^: 'df thou take 
 thy read's garment to pledge, thou shalt restore it unto 
 him by that the sun goeth down; for that is his only cover¬ 
 ing, it is his garment for his skin; wherein shall he sleep?”^^ 
 
 The fourth refers to the dal: ‘‘Thou shalt not follow 
 the multitude to do evil; . . neither shalt thou favor 
 
 the dal in his cause”, while the fifth refers to the ehyon: 
 
 “Thou shalt not divert justice (mishpat) from thy 
 ehyon in his cause. 
 
 The sixth also refers to the ehyon: The produce of 
 the fallow year shall be for “the ehyonim of thy people” 
 to eat,^^ while 
 
 The seventh recurs to the dal. It provides for a census- 
 
 e^Exod. 22.13. eUbid. 22.24. eUbid, 22.25,26. 
 
 'Ubid. 23.3. esjbid. 23.6. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 101 
 
 tax. Everyone numbered shall pay half a shekel: “The 
 rich (he-^ashir) shall not give more, and the poor (ha-dal) 
 shall not give less. . . 
 
 This group of Exodus texts is of interest in various 
 aspects. It and the Jeremiah group of analogous texts 
 are the only ones which employ all of the four terms rea\ 
 ^ani, dal and ehyon. 
 
 What however is more important is the fact that all 
 the members of all the classes mentioned have either some 
 property or some credit. The is represented in one 
 text as the owner of an animal which he\ hires out for 
 money, and in another he borrows money, pledging his 
 garment for its repayment. He is probably always poor, 
 but sometimes very poor and seems like the sakir to depend 
 on his daily wage for his living. The ordinance requires 
 that this pledged garment shall be handed to him at night 
 so that he may have a covering needed for sleep. Such 
 a loan must therefore finally rest on credit, that is, the 
 lender must believe that the borrower, once having his 
 garment, will not refuse to work to pay off the debt. 
 
 The ‘am, in one text, is represented as being credited 
 with a loan without a pledge, the creditor apparently 
 believing, not only that he will pay the debt, but will also 
 pay interest thereon. The ordinance, however, interferes 
 with such a contract by declaring the exaction of such 
 interest illegal. 
 
 This subject of interest for money loaned or tarhit 
 (increase) for victuals loaned was an important feature 
 of labor conditions in the ancient world. The wages or 
 other compensation must have been so scanty that when¬ 
 ever anything beyond the ordinary occurred in a laborer’s 
 family, he was compelled to resort to a loan to tide it over, 
 and for this loan interest or increase was exacted. No 
 
 *9Exocl. 30.15. 
 
102 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 one but the employer would lend the money to these 
 laborers and there was practically no opportunity to earn 
 a surplus wherewith to pay it back. On the contrary, as 
 new difficulties arose there would have to be more loans. 
 When it is remembered that the great Babylonian empire’s 
 normal rate of interest was three times as great as ours, 
 it will be seen with what terrific rapidity a loan would be 
 doubled. The natural effect of such conditions was that 
 the poor laborer would have to work all his life in the vain 
 effort to reduce a debt which was steadily mounting. He 
 would in short be in a position barely distinguishable from 
 slavery. 
 
 That the ger were at first in this condition is fairly 
 inferable from the words of Moses in describing the evil 
 consequences which the non-observance of the Lord’s 
 law by Israel would entail: '‘The ger that is in thy midst. . 
 shall lend to thee and thou shalt not lend to him.”7" With 
 the rise of Hebrew working-classes, the latter became sub¬ 
 ject to the same practices, and the problem of curing the 
 evil became insistent. 
 
 The result was the ordinance which forbade the charg¬ 
 ing of interest for loans to the and afterwards to 
 
 any Israelite who had become impoverished and finally 
 to the sweeping prohibition to take interest from any one 
 but a nokri, an unmitigated alien, a foreigner.^3 The 
 effect of this was far-reaching for it relieved the ger, who 
 had by that time either reached assimilation or approached 
 it. While this consequence is nowhere stated directly, 
 it is implied in the ordinance which forbade the charging 
 of interest to an impoverished Israelite who must be 
 treated as a ger we-toshah and no interest or increase may 
 be asked of him.74 
 
 This, however, was not the limit of its accomplish- 
 
 70Deut. 28.43, 44. ”Exod. 22.24. «Lev. 25.35-37. 
 
 ^aOeut. 23.20, 21. ?<Lev. 25.35-37. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 103 
 
 ment. It practically acted as an obstacle to the develop¬ 
 ment of commerce, evidently on the matured policy of 
 favoring and stimulating agricultural activity. Trade 
 and commerce were to be left to the nokri, meaning, most 
 probably, the Phoenicians, the Tyrians. Isaiah speaks 
 of Tyre as destined "to have commerce with all the king¬ 
 doms of the world”7s and Ezekiel addresses it as "the 
 merchant of peoples for many isles’’^^ while Proverbs 
 and Job both use the word kena'ani (Canaanite) for 
 
 "merchant."77 
 
 However discouraging this state-policy of the Hebrews 
 was to mercantile adventure, it was steadily adhered to. 
 "Take no interest from an Israelite" was the slogan. Like 
 all forcible prohibitive measures there were those who 
 violated it. Ezekiel is especially bitter on such, holding 
 them to be criminals of the deepest dye. 7* While his 
 denunciation may have been intensified by ultra-enthusiasm 
 for the cause, it nevertheless reflected general opinion. 
 A man entitled to respect, one "who shall sojourn in thy 
 tabernacle" is he "that putteth not out his money on 
 interest. "79 The wisdom of Proverbs is equally condemna¬ 
 tory : "He that augmenteth his substance by interest and in¬ 
 crease, gathereth it for him that is gracious to the dallim."^^ 
 
 We must not however permit our attention to stray 
 too long from the texts concerning the Hebrew working¬ 
 man which we were considering when we lighted upon 
 the subject of interest on loans. 
 
 And now to resume: 
 
 The dal is spoken of in one text as liable to a fixed 
 capitation tax, like any other citizen rich or poor, which 
 necessarily involves the idea of his having or claiming to 
 have a valuable interest of some kind worth striving for. 
 
 The ehyon too is in one text viewed as having such a 
 
 ’Usa. 23.17. »«Ezek. 27.3. ”Prov. 31.24; Job 40.30. 
 
 ’sEzek. 18.13. «Psalm 15.5. ««Prov. 28.8. 
 
104 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 case at law. In the other case he is made to receive a 
 quantum at least of the produce of the fallow year. The 
 questions raised in this instance are complicated. First, 
 we must understand what the fallow year is. 
 
 The first provision respecting it is as follows: 
 
 ‘‘Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and gather in 
 the increase thereof; but the seventh year thou shalt let 
 it rest and lie fallow and the ehyone ‘ammeka shall eat and 
 what they leave the beast of the field shall eat. In like 
 manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard and with thy 
 oliveyard.”^^ 
 
 This curt paragraph cannot possibly be the whole 
 law on a subject so intricate and so important. It would 
 seem to have behind it a body of traditional or oral law 
 familiar to all, and to be stated as it is, merely to introduce 
 a new feature to be added to the old common law. 
 
 There is, however, another provision, which being 
 more extended, throws light upon the whole subject. It 
 is found in Leviticus. “When ye come into the land which 
 I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the 
 Lord. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years 
 thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the produce 
 thereof. But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of 
 solemn rest (Shabbat Shabbaton) for the land, a Sabbath 
 unto the Lord; thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune 
 thy vineyard. That which groweth of itself of thy harvest 
 thou shalt not reap, and the grapes of thy undressed vine 
 thou shalt not gather; it shall be a year of solemn rest 
 {Shenat Shabbaton) for the land. And the Sabbath-produce 
 of the land shall be food for you: for thee, and for thy ^ebei 
 and for thy amah and for thy sakir and for thy toshab living 
 ^immak (in thy employ); and for thy cattle and for the beasts 
 that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be for food.” 
 
 aiExod. 23.10, 11. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 105 
 
 “And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat 
 until ye have enough, and dwell therein in safety. And 
 if ye shall say: ‘What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, 
 we may not sow, nor gather in our increase;’ then I will 
 command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and 
 it shall bring forth produce for the three years. And ye 
 shall sow the eighth year, and eat of the produce, the old 
 store (yashan) ; until the ninth year, until her produce 
 come in, ye shall eat the old store. 
 
 That these two provisions refer to the same institu¬ 
 tion is, of course, obvious; but there are noteworthy 
 distinctions. 
 
 In the former, the year is not given a name. There 
 is no substantive for it. It is, however, characterized by 
 the verbs shamat (to let it rest) and natash (lie fallow). 
 From this verb shamat is derived the name for the release- 
 year {shenat ha-shemittah) of Deuteronomy.®** This release- 
 year, being the same seventh year, is closely related to 
 the fallow-year of Exodus and to the Sabbatical year of 
 Leviticus though it does not speak of the land. It was, 
 what we call, a statute of limitations. These are its pro¬ 
 visions: 
 
 “At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a 
 release {shemittah). And this is the manner of the release: 
 every creditor {ba‘al mashsheh yado) shall release that 
 which he hath lent unto his rea'\ he shall not exact it of 
 his rea^ and his ah (brother); because the Lord’s release 
 hath been proclaimed. Of a nokri thou mayest exact it, 
 but whatsoever of thine is with thy brother thy hand shall 
 release unless the time should come when there shall be 
 no ebyon among you. . .’’®4 
 
 The close relation between these three sorts of years 
 was apparent to Nehemiah when a covenant was entered 
 
 82Lev. 25.2-7, 19-22. “Deut. 15.9; 31.10. »meut. 15.1-4. 
 
106 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 into to observe the ancient laws among which were “the 
 fallow year and the release year” {we-nittosh et ha-shanah 
 ha-shehi'it u-mashsha kol~yad)}^ Note here the use of 
 natash just as in the fallow-year provision of Exodus^ 
 and the conjunction with the release of debts {mashsha 
 kol-yad), as in the limitation law of Deuteronomy. 
 
 From the consideration of the three groups of texts 
 the following inference may be drawn: 
 
 a) The ancient inhabitants of Canaan whom Israel 
 dispossessed, had probably the custom of the fallow in 
 every seventh year. 
 
 b) This custom was, after the Conquest, continued 
 by the Hebrews. 
 
 c) As was common in the ancient world, the Canaan^ 
 ite fallow was probably associated with pagan ideas and 
 pagan practices. 
 
 d) The Exodus text contained no reference to religion 
 but the Leviticus text was an essential portion of it, the 
 two together being one complete ordinance. This Levitical 
 section gave to the fallow year a specifically Hebrew 
 religious character and even a specifically Hebrew religious 
 name. Sabbatical year. It also supplied the data which 
 were not expressed in the Exodus portion, namely a com¬ 
 plete list of those entitled to eat of the fallow-year’s pro¬ 
 duce, and specific directions as to the mode in which thrift 
 should be exercised in order to avoid scarcity. 
 
 There were naturally to be store-houses—granaries. 
 That the Hebrews were familiar with this mode appears 
 plainly from the narrative of Joseph’s advice to Pharaoh 
 in Egypt.In these granaries the surplus portion of the 
 crop of the sixth year was to be stored, which, with the 
 natural produce of the seventh year, combined with such 
 
 *«Neh. 10.32. 
 
 *®Gen. 41.56. Though the Masoretic text of this verse may be somewhat defective,, 
 there is enough in it when combined with the Septuagint version to make the meaning 
 unmistakable. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 107 
 
 of the crop of the eighth year as would be available for 
 consumption in that year, would suffice to ward off suffering 
 in the Sabbatical year and the year following it. By the 
 ninth year, the bulk of the eighth year crop would be on 
 hand and all danger would be past. 
 
 As regards the beneficiaries of the seventh year produce 
 it is to be remarked, that the Levitical section specifies 
 the farmer, his family, his slaves and his Canaanite laborers 
 the sakir and the toshab. When the Hebrews had developed 
 a class or classes of farm-laborers it was necessary to add 
 them to the list and they were accordingly added as a 
 new feature of the old common law, ebyone ‘ammeka, the 
 ebyonim of thy people. The word ebyonim is here used 
 as a general term including all the Hebrew farm-laborers 
 by whatever names their classes might on other occasions 
 be known. 
 
 After this rather prolix treatment of the Exodus 
 texts we may now pass on to the Levitical texts. 
 
 Of these there are but five, one referring to the rea\ 
 two to the ^ani and two to the dal. The ebyon is not men¬ 
 tioned in any of them. 
 
 The first, the text is as follows: 
 
 “Thou shalt not oppress thy rea' nor rob him, {lo 
 ta‘ashok et re‘eka we-lo tigzol) ; the wages of a sakir shall 
 not abide with thee all night until the morning.”®^ Here 
 we have the rea' tied to the sakir, the wage-earner, and 
 moreover we have the prohibition against oppressing or 
 robbing him in about the same terms as similar ordinances 
 against abusing other (non-Hebrew) workers are worded. 
 
 The ^ani texts are these: 
 
 The first of them prohibits reaping “the corner of 
 thy field’' and gathering “the gleaning of thy harvest” 
 as also the gleaning of “thy vineyard;” “thou shalt 
 
 *’Exod. 23.11. 88Lev. 19.13; Dent. 24.15. 
 
108 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 leave them for the 'ani and for the ger." 
 
 The other of them provides: “When ye reap the 
 harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corner 
 of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleaning of thy 
 harvest; thou shalt leave them for the 'ani and for the 
 
 ger:^9o 
 
 The probability is that the term ger in these texts 
 is used in a sense large enough to include the yatoni and 
 the almanah who are in fact part of the ger. 
 
 These texts further show that here, as in the Exodus 
 texts, the Hebrew ‘ani had been recognized as a class. 
 When the analogous Deuteronomic ordinances were 
 enacted, the beneficiaries were merely the ger, the yatom 
 and the almanah.^^ The ‘ani workers had not yet become 
 of sufficient importance to be arrayed alongside of the 
 classes of non-Hebrew workers. 
 
 The dal texts are these: 
 
 The first provides for an abatement of the offering 
 demanded of the leper who is to be cured, “if he be dal 
 and his means suffice not.”^^ 
 
 The significance of this text lies in the fact that the dal 
 is not released from the payment of a proper tax, although 
 the amount thereof is reduced to suit his circumstances. 
 
 The other dal text is a substantial reiteration of the 
 
 Exodus texts which dwell on the duty to do justice without 
 fear or favor: 
 
 “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment {rnish- 
 pat) ; thou shalt not respect the person of the dal, nor 
 favor the person of the mighty (gadol) ; in righteousness 
 shalt thou judge thy neighbor.”®^ 
 
 The only difference is in the wording and in the use 
 of the dal and ehyon synonymously in the Exodus passages. 
 
 The Book of Numbers contains no texts having in 
 
 8»Lev. 19.9, 10. 90Ibid. 23. 22. siDeut. 24.19, 20. 21. 
 
 »2T.ev. 14.21. «ibicl. 19.15. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 109 
 
 them any of the words we are considering. Deuteronomy, 
 on the other hand, is rich in them, though it does not 
 mention the dal. 
 
 The rea* texts in Deuteronomy are these: 
 
 ‘When thou dost lend thy rea' any manner of loan, 
 thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge. Thou 
 shalt stand without, and the man to whom thou dost lend 
 shall bring forth the pledge without unto thee. And if 
 he be an 'ani, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge; thou 
 shalt surely restore to him the pledge when the sun goeth 
 down, that he may sleep in his garment, and bless thee; 
 and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord 
 thy God.”^^ 
 
 Hard upon this Deuteronomy text follows one relating 
 to the sakir, 'ani we~ehyon. 
 
 The ^ani-ehyon texts are as follows: 
 
 “The ehyon shall never cease out of the land; therefore 
 I command thee, saying: ‘Thou shalt surely open thy 
 hand unto thy brother, unto thy 'ani and to thy ehyon 
 in thy land.’ 
 
 “Thou shalt not oppress {lo-ta‘ashok) a sakir 'ani 
 we-ehyon among thy brethren or among thy ger that are 
 within thy land within thy gates {bi-she areka). In the 
 same day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the 
 sun go down upon it; for he is 'ani and setteth his heart 
 upon it. . . 
 
 There appears to be no distinction between the ‘ani 
 and the ehyon in these texts. Moreover they appear to 
 be used adjectively at times, the main thought being that 
 persons well off in this world’s goods should be kind and 
 helpful to the poorer classes. The only workmen who are 
 distinctly conceived as a class are the sakir, the laborers 
 
 • "meut. 24.10-13. «Ubid. 15.11. sUbid. 24.12, 15. 
 
110 
 
 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 for daily wage The others seem to be visualized in the 
 lump as “the poor.” 
 
 The prophets are not reticent on the general subject. 
 
 Amos denouncing Israel charges that they sell the 
 ehyon for a pair of shoes,that they pant after the dust 
 of the earth on the head of the dallim and pervert the 
 right of the ‘anawim^^ that they oppress the dallim (ha- 
 'oshekot dallim) and crush the ehyonimy^ that they trample 
 upon the dal and take from him exactions of wheat, 
 that they turn aside the ehyonim in the gate (i.e. deny 
 them justice in the court) ;ioi they swallow the ehyon and 
 destroy the 'anawim of the land^"^ and seek to buy the 
 dallim for silver and the ehyon for a pair of shoes. 
 
 The burthen of his complaint is that the nobility 
 and gentry of the land are unmindful of the common 
 people’s welfare, look upon the latter as mere instruments 
 of their pleasure and will certainly encounter a deserved 
 doom. With him the ‘am, and the ehyon are the working 
 masses of the country while the dal is the unsuccessful 
 farmer. 
 
 Isaiah is not a whit more complaisant to Judah than 
 Amos to Israel. He charges that the elders and the princes 
 have the spoil (gezelat) of the ‘am in their houses, that 
 they crush the people and “grind the face of the ‘amyyfm.”^"^ 
 
 And, referring either to Judah or to Israel or to both 
 he denounces “woe unto them that decree unrighteous 
 decrees and to the writers that write iniquity; to turn 
 aside the dallim from justice {din) and to rob of their right 
 (ligzol mishpat) the 'aniyyim of my people”. . 
 
 Even when he pictures an ideal government for the 
 future he cannot forbear a thrust against the mean magnates 
 of the present, the wicked ‘am and the arrogant les, who 
 
 »7Amos 2.6. 98Ibid. 2.7. »9Ibid. 4.1. looibid. 5.11. 
 
 loilbid, 5.12. loUbid. 8.4. loUbid. 8.6. ^Usa. 3.14, 15. 
 
 loUbid. 10.1, 2. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 111 
 
 will in better times disappear with the consequence that 
 the ^anawim shall rejoice in the Lord and the ehyonim shall 
 exult in the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 When a true Davidic type of king shall be restored, 
 “with righteousness shall he judge the dallim and decide 
 with equity for the ^anawim of the land.”^“7 
 
 Jeremiah, too, berates the magnates of Judah: “They 
 do not award justice {mishpat) to the ehyonimd^^°^ 
 
 “Do justice between a man and his rea\ oppress not 
 ger, yatom or almanahd'^^'^ 
 
 He bitterly denounces the King Jehoiakim: 
 
 “Woe unto him that buildeth his palace by unright¬ 
 eousness. 
 
 And his chambers by wrong. 
 
 That useth his read's service for naught 
 And giveth him no wage for it.““<^ 
 
 And contrasts his corruption with the righteousness 
 of his father King Josiah: “He judged the cause of ‘ani 
 and ebyon, and it went well with him.““^ 
 
 When Babylonian supremacy made Zedekiah the 
 last king of Judah before the Captivity, a wave of contri¬ 
 tion seems to have swept over the land because of the 
 breach of the laws relating to Hebrew laborers, slave and 
 free. Under its influence there was enacted a solemn resolu¬ 
 tion to obey these laws in future. When the peril under 
 which that action was taken seemed past, the old abuses 
 were revived. This called forth Jeremiah’s denunciation: 
 
 “Thus saith the Lord: Ye have not hearkened unto 
 Me to proclaim liberty, every man to his brother and 
 every man to his and therefore “I will give them 
 
 into the hand of their enemies and into hand of them that 
 seek their life.’’"^ 
 
 Ezekiel enumerates among his vicious criminals him 
 
 “«Ibid. 29.19, 20. i^Usa. 11.4. w^er. 5.28. 7.5, 6. 
 
 “Hbid. 22.13. “‘Ibid. 22.16. “‘Ibid. 34.17. “Ubid. 34.20. 
 
112 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 that “hath wronged (honaJi) the ‘ani and the ehyon, taken 
 by robbery (gezelot and indicts the princes of 
 
 Israel, for having committed grave crimes, among them 
 having gained from their re im by extortion or oppression 
 {he-osheky^^ which profit he here stigmatizes as plunder 
 {besa‘)j just as in the text before quoted he calls it robbery. 
 
 Enlarging upon his theme, he inveighs against the 
 'am ha-ares for similar offences, which he characterizes 
 as oppressionand robbery (gazel). The crimes 
 charged are “having wronged (honu) ‘ani and ehyon and 
 oppressed the ger contrary to law.”*" 
 
 Zechariah speaks in the same strain: 
 
 “Thus hath the Lord of hosts spoken, saying. Execute 
 true justice, show mercy and compassion every man to 
 his brother. Oppress not (al-ta'ashoku) almanah, yatom, 
 ger or 'ani. . .”“7 
 
 Malachi while speaking on the same subject makes 
 no mention of a specific class of Hebrew laborers. While 
 he warns against unfair treatment of sakir, almanah, 
 yatom or ger, he does not mention rea\ ^ani, dal or ehyon. 
 As he probably lived and worked during or shortly after 
 the advent of Ezra and Nehemiah, the inference is not 
 remote that in the restored Commonwealth, the Hebrew 
 laborers held a position superior to that which had been 
 theirs before the Captivity. The social conflict, between 
 the nobility and gentry on the one hand and the laborers 
 and the less successful farmers on the other, had been greatly 
 reduced. The fifth chapter of Nehemiah seems to confirm 
 this view."® 
 
 The Proverbs too throw light on our subject: 
 
 “The oppressor {'oshek) of the dal blasphemeth his 
 Maker, 
 
 But he that is gracious to the ehyon honoreth Him.”"^ 
 
 iKEzek. 18.2. nUbid. 22.12, 13. nUbid. 22.29. “^Zech. 7.9, 10. 
 
 iifiNeh. 5.1-13. “*Prov. 14.31. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 113 
 
 ''Say not unto thy rea\ Go and come again, 
 To-morrow I will give—when thou hast it by thee.”^^° 
 "He that is gracious to the dal lendeth unto the 
 Lord.”'"^ 
 
 "He that oppresseth the dal for gain 
 Will pay to the rich (‘ashir) and come to want."“^ 
 "Do not rob (al-tigzol) the dal, because he is dal, 
 
 Nor crush the ^ani in the gate” (at the local court 
 sitting in the gate).^^^ 
 
 "The king that faithfully judges the dallim 
 His throne shall be established forever. 
 
 "There is a generation whose teeth are as swords, 
 and their great teeth as knives, 
 
 To devour the ^aniyyim from off the earth, and the 
 ebyonim from among men.”^^^ 
 
 "Open thy mouth, judge righteously. 
 
 The cause of 'ani and ehyond'^^^ 
 
 Job too describes transgressors of the kind we have 
 been considering: 
 
 "They drive away the ass of the yetomim. 
 
 They take the almanalds ox for a pledge. 
 
 They turn the ebyonim from their right. 
 
 The 'anawim of the land hide themselves together. 
 "They take pledge from the 'ani 
 So that they go about naked, without clothing. 
 Carry sheaves and remain hungry, 
 
 Tread winepresses and suffer thirst. 
 
 The conclusion to be derived from the texts is that 
 the various names for the Hebrew poorer classes, did not 
 originally suggest any great disparity among them. 
 Their multiplicity may have been due to local, to temporary 
 or to dialectal causes. 
 
 i20Ibid. 3.28. is'Prov. 19.17. i^Ubid. 22.16. 22.22. 
 
 ’^nbid. 29.14. i^Ibid. 30.14. ^-’Ubid. 31.9. i27job 24.3, 4. 
 
 i^nbid. 24.9. 10. 11. 
 
114 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 The notion that they were all recipients of charity 
 is old and wide-spread. Indeed, in one instance A. V. goes 
 so far as to translate ehyon, straightway, by beggar. 
 
 My hope is that such ideas may be finally dismissed. 
 
 Actual beggars or actual beggary is perhaps nowhere 
 
 mentioned in the Bible. The two strongest passages 
 referring to it are to be found in the Psalms. They are 
 both utterances of the lowly spirit. 
 
 The first is the thirty-seventh Psalm. 
 
 It rejoices in the prospect that the 'anawim shall inherit 
 the land and that the wicked who design to depress the 
 *ani we-ehyon shall be baffled,and sums up experience in 
 this hopeful strain: “I have been young and now I am 
 old, yet have I not seen the innocent forsaken nor his seed 
 begging bread {mebakkesh lehem).^^^ 
 
 The second is the one hundred and ninth Psalm. The 
 Psalmist is represented as dwelling on the malignity of 
 his enemies and invoking against them and their progeny the 
 sternest retributive justice: “Let his children be vagabonds 
 and beg. . {we-shielu).^^^ Such a fate he demands for the 
 powerful oppressor who “persecuted the 'ani we-ehyon.''^^^ 
 
 While the picture of beggary, present in the mind of 
 the Psalmist, must have been derived from life, yet it 
 presents no actual condition, but is in both cases an imagina¬ 
 tive suggestion. Certain it is that the 'ani we-ehyon whose 
 voice we hear has nothing in common with this hypothetical 
 beggar nor with any actual beggar. He may, it is true, be 
 subject to oppression by his employer, but he can have 
 recourse to the Courts and he will obtain justice. Indeed 
 there is nothing more admirable in an}^ system of juris¬ 
 prudence than the principles laid down in the Mosaic law 
 to govern the administration of justice. 
 
 iMl Sam. 2.8. iJopsalm 37.11. iJUbid. 37.14. “Ubid. 37.25. 
 i“Ibid. 109.10. i34ibid. 109.16. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 115 
 
 The charge of Moses to the judges was: 
 
 “Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge 
 righteously between a man and his brother, and between 
 a man and his ger. Ye shall not respect persons in judg¬ 
 ment, ye shall hear the small (katon) and the great (gadol) 
 alike; ye shall fear no man, for justice (mishpat) is God’s. 
 
 An important Exodus passage indicates the danger 
 that tribunals might be influenced by popular prejudice, 
 the voice of the crowd. 
 
 “Thou shalt not follow the crowd (jahhim) to do 
 evil, ... to pervert justice;’’ and do not favor the dal 
 in his cause (be-ribo). Thou shalt not wrest the judgment 
 {mishpat) of thy ebyon in his cause. 
 
 “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment {mishpat ); 
 thou shalt not favor the dal or the gadol; but in righteous¬ 
 ness shalt thou judge thy neighbor {'amiteka)^^^’^ 
 
 “Thou shalt not wrest judgment, thou shalt not 
 respect persons, nor take a gift. . 
 
 “Thou shalt not pervert the justice due to the ger. . 
 
 “Cursed be he that perverteth the justice due to 
 the ger. . 
 
 Isaiah, denouncing injustice in the courts declares 
 that unrighteous judges “turn aside the dallim from justice 
 {din) and rob {gazal), ‘aniyyim of their right {mishpat). . 
 
 Jeremiah too declares of such that they do not judge 
 the right {mishpat) of ebyonim.''^^^ 
 
 Whatever the origin of the four names for the Hebrew 
 poorer classes, it would appear that in the event only one 
 of them developed a specific and peculiar meaning. This 
 was the dal. 
 
 Just as the landless Canaanites had become the sakir 
 and those who had been landholders before the Conquest 
 had become the toshab, so there was a somewhat similar 
 
 i»‘Deut. 1.16, 17. n9Exod. 23.2, 3, 6. ^^Lev. 19.15. i^sDeut. 16.19. 
 
 i«Ibid. 24.17. i«Ibid. 27.19. i«Isa. 10.2. ««Jer. 5.28. 
 
116 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 movement among the Hebrews. The landless ones became 
 in general, the ehyon, the 'ani, the rea' and later on the 
 sakir, while the landholders who were in danger of losing 
 their farms or who had actually lost them became the dal. 
 
 Amos, in the eighth century b.c., denouncing the 
 Northern government (Israel) declares that “it tramples 
 upon the daV taking from him unreasonable proportions 
 of his wheat, and rails at the luxury and extravagance of 
 those who thus abused their taxing-power. This burden¬ 
 some wheat-tax he calls mas'at-har 
 
 That even before Amos, there were unsuccessful land- 
 owners appears incidentally in the narrative which tells 
 of the selection of Gideon to be the shofet of Israel. When 
 the deputation waited on him to tender him the great 
 office, he was found threshing wheat. In his reply he 
 modestly deprecated his fitness for the post describing his 
 family or clan as dal and himself as its humblest member. 
 
 The dal farmers persisted as a class until the downfall 
 of the Judean Kingdom (586 b.c.) and even then, they 
 were not deported but were favored by the Babylonian 
 Conquerors. 
 
 The record, after reciting the classes that were de¬ 
 ported, adds: None remained save the dallat ^am ha- 
 ares^^^ or as they are otherwise called dallat-ha-ares, who 
 were left to be vine-dressers and husbandmen.^^6 
 
 The policy of the Babylonian conquerors was to 
 deport the magnates and the powerful, but to leave the 
 dal at home to continue the cultivation of the land. 
 
 And now to sum up the result of our inquiries: 
 
 At the final conquest of Canaan, the Hebrews took 
 the land of the Canaanites and divided it among them¬ 
 selves, retaining the previous inhabitants as workingmen. 
 Most of these remained settled on the land as a peasant 
 
 i«Amos 5.11. Jud. 6.15. Kings 24.14. 
 
 i*«Ibid. 25.12; Jer. 52.15, 16. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 117 
 
 population and these were called toshabim, while those 
 who were not so settled worked for daily wage as sekirim. 
 The general term applied to both classes was ger (literally, 
 stranger). When one of these gerim died his family were 
 not driven out of their humble cottage, but remained on 
 the land and worked on it. Hence the locution ger^ yatom 
 we-almanah which occurs so frequently as descriptive of 
 the conquered population. 
 
 This word ger has undergone curious transformations. 
 At first and for many centuries it simply meant stranger. 
 When Abraham, in addressing the Hittites, called himself 
 a ger he used the word in that sense. After the Hebrew 
 conquest had subjected the Canaanites, it acquired the 
 additional meaning of laborer, and this it retained during 
 the whole period covered by the Biblical writings, even 
 to a time when the ger had been thoroughly absorbed in 
 Israel and the distinction had no application in real life. 
 The Book of Proverbs so replete with keen observation 
 and profound reflection on social conditions never mentions 
 the word, while it speaks abundantly of the ebyon, the 
 dal and the ^ani classes of workingmen. When it was 
 written, say three hundred years before the present era, 
 the descendants of the ger were undoubtedly classed with 
 the Hebrew workingmen and were not known by any other 
 name. The only way in which the word survived was 
 that in consequence of the historical facts, it gradually 
 and insensibly came to mean a proselyte. It had acquired 
 that meaning more than two thousand years ago when the 
 Greek translation of the Bible, called the Septuagint, was 
 made. Wherever the text refers to the geri?n we have been 
 considering^ the Greek version, without much regard for 
 historic probability, but evidently in accord with current 
 speech, renders proselyte. Its earliest use in that sense 
 in any Hebrew writing that I know of, is in the Mishnah, 
 
118 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 written probably about the year 200 of our present era, 
 though it had probably been used in common speech for 
 centuries before, to designate individuals of foreign stock 
 coming in to adopt the religion of the Hebrews. That 
 meaning it retains to this day. It is a curious philological 
 phenomenon that while this use persisted in speech, it 
 was eschewed in Hebrew writing. When, in the Book of 
 Esther (written perhaps contemporaneously with the 
 Septuagint) such proselytes are spoken of, they were not 
 
 4 
 
 called ger nor indeed by any other substantive. They 
 were described by the action taken by them, for which 
 purpose the Hebrew writer invented a new reflexive verb. 
 There is but one instance of its use: Esther 8.17, and this 
 in the form of a participle: mityahadim or as we might 
 say “judaizing themselves.” 
 
 Closely associated with this ger in the records, is 
 another class called the ezrah. They are not mentioned 
 as being either workmen or as belonging to the poor. 
 Their position as regards civil status seems to be on a 
 parity with that of the whole body of Israel. The only 
 difference is in religious matters. From what the texts 
 tell us we may fairly infer that they were a large and com¬ 
 pact body of voluntary proselytes, and the only clue to 
 such a movement leads us back to the very beginning of 
 the Hebrew nation. At the Exodus from Egypt, a con¬ 
 siderable body of Egyptian natives attached themselves 
 to Israel with the determination to become a part thereof 
 and to share its fate. The records give us two contemptuous 
 names for them: 'ereh rah and asafsuf, both fairly rendered 
 by “the rabble.” That there should have been no right 
 name for them seems impossible. When we reflect that 
 the Israelites looked upon themselves as gerim in Egypt, 
 the probability that by way of contrast they called these 
 Egyptians ‘‘natives” seems reasonable. In their language. 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 119 
 
 ezrah meant native and the conclusion is easy to reach 
 that this body of proselytes was called ezrah. 
 
 From the texts it plainly appears that their reception 
 was cold. Willing as they undoubtedly were to assume 
 all the duties, civil, military and religious, imposed on 
 Israelites, the latter would not at once admit them to full 
 religious equality, but insisted that they should rise to 
 that height, by degrees. Notwithstanding this repugnance, 
 their full assimilation to Israel must have been achieved 
 at a very early period, since they were held up to the ger- 
 as an example and a model whom they should imitate 
 and might hope to reach. It is significant that none of the 
 prophets ever mentions the ezrah save only Ezekiel in the 
 course of a vision replete with learned historical memories. 
 
 The stages of the advance of the ezrah and of the ger 
 to full membership in Israel, I have endeavored to sketch. 
 At all events, the end was reached, though the memory 
 of their different origins was not quite effaced for centuries. 
 To the great body of Canaanite workmen and their progeny, 
 there was finally added a large Hebrew element. 
 
 The dream of an equality of property and of prosperity 
 indulged in by the conquerors was, naturally, not realized. 
 
 Whether there was a piece of land assigned to every 
 householder is doubtful. There were probably many who 
 never received any. But even if this were not so, there 
 would be not only differences of soil and climate but dis¬ 
 parity of ability and efficiency, both causes of varying 
 results. Despite the best intentions, some grew rich and 
 others slid into poverty. 
 
 It was inevitable that classes of Hebrew laborers 
 would be formed, and to these were given names: ehyon^ 
 'ani, dal and finally rea'. Of all these classes only one, 
 the dal came to mean the unsuccessful farmer, who, though 
 he did not prosper, was still able to hold on to his land 
 
120 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 cultivating it by the aid of his wife and children and in 
 many cases supplementing its insufficient returns by work¬ 
 ing part of the time for others, and receiving wages therefor. 
 
 Needless to say, extreme prosperity in some raised a 
 brood of greedy and avaricious men ready to tyrannize 
 over their poorly-endowed neighbors. 
 
 The whole Biblical literature shows an age-long struggle 
 against this class and in behalf of the poor, and establishes 
 the fact that the movement in favor of the latter was 
 largely successful, so that not only the Hebrew laborer 
 but the ger were greatly improved in condition, more 
 especially after the Return from Babylon. 
 
 Classes of beggars or paupers there were none. The 
 frequent use of words denoting poverty meant no more 
 than to mark out the line between the rich and those who 
 had to earn their living by manual labor. 
 
 In a word the stranger and the poor of our versions, 
 were both important and useful constituent parts of the 
 body of Israel, and were, in the last analysis, neither strange 
 nor poor, because they fully shared in the intimate life of 
 the community and earned an honest living by their labor 
 in its behalf. 
 
 So that we may fairly say that a great movement for 
 the protection and improvement of the laboring mass 
 was initiated in Israel more than three thousand years 
 ago and continued to permeate its life and its literature, 
 becoming indeed a part of the mental constitution of 
 the people. 
 
 While the records of the Bible on the subject may 
 not have been fully appreciated, the main fact could not 
 be ignored and by the wide diffusion of the Book it has 
 penetrated into every nook and corner of the civilized 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 121 
 
 world and changed institutions and governments. To 
 close with the words of Zangwill, the Bible “transcends the 
 race that produced it, like all great literature, though 
 none other has, in the same degree carried a message to 
 every race and grade of mankind. 
 
 Voice of ferusnlem. p. 67 (London, 1920). American Edition p. 71 
 
INDEX OF BIBLICAL PASSAGES 
 
 Genesis 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Exodus 
 
 
 page 
 
 9. 25 . . 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 21. 
 
 8 . . . 
 
 
 7 
 
 15. 3 . . 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 21. 
 
 9 . . . 
 
 
 7 
 
 17. 9, 11, 12, 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 21. 
 
 18, 19 
 
 
 72 
 
 17. 13 . . 
 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 21. 
 
 23, 24, 25 
 
 
 10 
 
 23. 4 . . 
 
 
 
 
 48 
 
 21. 
 
 26, 27 
 
 
 8 
 
 23. 5-20 . 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 48 
 
 22. 
 
 13 . . . 
 
 
 100 
 
 24. 2 . . 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 22. 
 
 13, 14 
 
 
 .39. 47 
 
 42. 53 . . 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 22. 
 
 20 . . . 
 
 16, 20, 45, 61, 83 
 
 27. 42-45 . 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 43 
 
 22. 
 
 20, 21 
 
 
 88 
 
 29. 14 . . 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 44 
 
 22. 
 
 20-26 . . 
 
 
 43 
 
 29. 15 . . 
 
 « 
 
 
 
 44 
 
 22. 
 
 24 . . . 
 
 97, 98, 
 
 100, 102 
 
 29. 20 . . 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 44 
 
 22. 
 
 25 . . . 
 
 
 97 
 
 31. 38 . . 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 44 
 
 22. 
 
 25, 26 
 
 
 100 
 
 41. 56 . . 
 
 • 
 
 
 . . 106 
 
 22. 
 
 27 . . 
 
 
 57 
 
 49. 7 . . 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 22. 
 
 30 . . . 
 
 
 21 
 
 49. 15 . . 
 
 
 
 . . 16, 
 
 17 
 
 23. 
 
 2, 3, 6 . 
 
 
 115 
 
 Exodus 
 
 
 
 
 
 23. 
 
 3 . . . 
 
 
 97, 100 
 
 1. 11 . . 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 23. 
 
 6 . . . 
 
 
 100 
 
 1. 11, 14 . 
 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 23. 
 
 6, 11 . . 
 
 
 97 
 
 ch. 12 
 
 
 
 
 34 
 
 23. 
 
 9 . . 
 
 .16, 20, 
 
 61, 83 
 
 12. 6 . . 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 23. 
 
 10, 11 
 
 
 104 
 
 12. 15 . . 
 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 23. 
 
 11 . . . 
 
 
 98, 107 
 
 12. 16 . . 
 
 
 
 
 51 
 
 23. 
 
 12 . . . 
 
 . .25,, 52, 80 
 
 12. 18 . . 
 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 23. 
 
 14-17 . . 
 
 
 95 
 
 12. 19 . . 
 
 
 
 . 50, 51, 
 
 82 
 
 23. 
 
 16 . . . 
 
 
 83 
 
 12. 38 . . 
 
 
 
 
 61 
 
 23. 
 
 23, 28 
 
 
 15 
 
 12. 39, 51 
 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 23. 
 
 29 . . . 
 
 
 15 
 
 12. 43 . . 
 
 
 
 . .21, 
 
 34 
 
 28. 
 
 43.. . . 
 
 
 77 
 
 12. 44 . . 
 
 
 
 . .34, 
 
 35 
 
 29. 
 
 33 . . . 
 
 
 4 
 
 12. 45 . . 
 
 
 
 
 34 
 
 30. 
 
 15 . . . 
 
 
 97, 101 
 
 12. 47 . . 
 
 
 
 . . 34, 
 
 65 
 
 30. 
 
 33 . . . 
 
 
 4 
 
 12. 48 . . 
 
 
 
 36, 59, 66, 
 
 82 
 
 31. 
 
 13-16 . . 
 
 
 80 
 
 12. 48, 49 
 
 
 
 
 34 
 
 34. 
 
 21 . . . 
 
 
 80 
 
 12. 49 . . 
 
 
 
 . .50, 
 
 65 
 
 34. 
 
 22 . . . 
 
 
 82 
 
 13. 7 . . 
 
 
 
 
 51 
 
 34. 
 
 23 . . . 
 
 
 95 
 
 16. 3 . . 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 35. 
 
 2, 3 . . 
 
 
 80 
 
 16. 22, 23 
 
 
 
 
 80 
 
 Leviticus 
 
 
 
 16. 26, 29 
 
 
 
 
 80 
 
 4. 13, 14, 21 . 
 
 
 74 
 
 20.8-11 . 
 
 
 
 
 80 
 
 14. 21 . . . 
 
 
 108 
 
 20. 10 . . 
 
 
 
 . 25, 52, 
 
 80 
 
 16. 29 . . . 
 
 
 .26, 81 
 
 20. 11 . . 
 
 
 
 
 52 
 
 16. 32-34 . . 
 
 
 82 
 
 123 
 
124 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 Leviticus 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Leviticus 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 17. 3, 4, 8, 9 . 
 
 • ■ 
 
 55 
 
 25. 45 . . . 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 49 
 
 17. 9 . . . 
 
 
 56 
 
 25. 47 . . . 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 49 
 
 17. 10 . . . 
 
 
 56 
 
 25. 47-54 . . 
 
 
 
 
 38 
 
 17. 12 . . . 
 
 
 56 
 
 25. 50 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 17. 15 . . . 
 
 
 21 
 
 25. 50, 53 
 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 17. 15, 16 
 
 
 77 
 
 25. 53 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 34 
 
 18. 21 . . . 
 
 
 56 
 
 26. 25 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 18. 26 . . . 
 
 . 56 
 
 79 
 
 Numbers 
 
 
 
 
 
 18. 27 . . . 
 
 
 56 
 
 1. 2, 3 
 
 
 
 
 41 
 
 19. 3, 30 . . 
 
 
 80 
 
 1. 51 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 19. 9, 10 . . 
 
 . . 84, 
 
 108 
 
 3. 10, 38 . . 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 19. 13 . . . 
 
 .43, 85, 90 107 
 
 9. 1-14 . . 
 
 
 
 
 34 
 
 19. 15 . . . 
 
 .98, 108, 
 
 115 
 
 9. 14 . . . 
 
 
 
 .50, 
 
 85 
 
 19. 16, 17, 18 
 
 
 98 
 
 10. 7 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 19. 33 . . . 
 
 . . .45, 
 
 83 
 
 11. 4 . . . 
 
 
 
 .61, 
 
 62 
 
 19. 34 . 16, 20, 
 
 61, 63, 86, 
 
 98 
 
 12. 1-5 . . 
 
 
 
 
 61 
 
 20. 2 . . . 
 
 • • • 
 
 56 
 
 14. 5 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 20. 4, 5 . . 
 
 
 57 
 
 15. 2, 13-16 . 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 22. 10 . . . 
 
 
 37 
 
 15. 16 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 85 
 
 22. 10, 11 
 
 
 36 
 
 15. 25 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 76 
 
 22. 10, 12, 13 
 
 
 4 
 
 15. 26 . . . 
 
 
 
 .74, 
 
 76 
 
 22. 13 . . 
 
 . 
 
 92 
 
 15. 29 . . . 
 
 
 63, 65, 76, 
 
 85 
 
 22. 25 . . . 
 
 
 21 
 
 15. 30 . . . 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 65 
 
 23. 3 . . . 
 
 
 80 
 
 16. 3, 33 . . 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 23. 7, 8 . . 
 
 
 51 
 
 16. 29 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 51 
 
 23. 16-21 . . 
 
 
 82 
 
 17. 5 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 23. 21 . . . 
 
 
 54 
 
 17 12 . . . 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 23. 22 . . . 
 
 . . 84, 
 
 108 
 
 18. 4, 7 . . 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 23. 24 . . . 
 
 
 82 
 
 18. 22 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 77 
 
 23. 24, 25 
 
 
 52 
 
 ch. 19 . . . 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 76 
 
 23. 27-32 . . 
 
 . . .51, 
 
 82 
 
 19. 20 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 23. 34, 39-43 
 
 
 83 
 
 20. 4, 6, 10, 12 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 23. 40, 42, 43 
 
 
 55 
 
 20. 14-24 . . 
 
 
 
 
 24 
 
 23. 42 . . . 
 
 
 62 
 
 21. 22-31 . . 
 
 
 
 
 24 
 
 23. 43 . . . 
 
 
 63 
 
 22. 4 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 24. 10-16 . . 
 
 
 57 
 
 28. 18, 25 
 
 
 
 
 51 
 
 24. 17-22 . . 
 
 
 71 
 
 29. 1 . . . 
 
 
 
 .52, 
 
 82 
 
 24. 20 . . . 
 
 
 10 
 
 29. 7 . . . 
 
 • 
 
 
 .51, 
 
 81 
 
 24. 22 . . . 
 
 
 85 
 
 29. 12, 35 
 
 
 
 
 54 
 
 25. 2-7, 19-22 
 
 
 105 
 
 29. 12-39 . . 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 83 
 
 25. 4-6 . . 
 
 
 37 
 
 29. 35 . . . 
 
 
 
 
 54 
 
 25. 6 . . . 
 
 
 85 
 
 32. 1-42 . . 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 25. 10 . . . 
 
 
 48 
 
 35. 15 . , . 
 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 25. 23 . . . 
 
 
 48 
 
 35. 22-29 . . 
 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 25. 34, 40 
 
 
 37 
 
 Deuteronomy 
 
 
 
 
 
 25. 35-37 . . 
 
 • • • 
 
 102 
 
 1. 16 . . . 
 
 
 
 .26, 
 
 85 
 
 25. 44 . . . 
 
 • « • 
 
 48 
 
 1. 16, 17 . . 
 
 
 
 
 115 
 
THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 Deuteronomy 
 
 5. 14 .. . 
 
 5. 15 . . 
 
 6. 10, 11 . 
 
 7. 22 . . 
 
 8. 7, 8, 9 . 
 
 9. 10 . . 
 
 10. 4 , . 
 
 10. 8, 9 . 
 
 10. 18 . . 
 10. 18, 19 
 
 10. 19 . . 
 
 11. 10, 11 
 
 11. 17 . . 
 
 12. 5-14, 21, 
 
 14. 3, 21 . 
 
 14. 21 . . 
 
 14. 23-25 . 
 
 14. 23-27 . 
 
 14. 28, 29 
 
 14. 29 . . 
 
 15. 1-4 . 
 
 15. 7 
 
 15. 9 . . 
 
 15. 11 . . 
 
 15. 16 . . 
 
 15. 18 . . 
 
 15. 20 . . 
 
 16. 2-16 . 
 
 16. 3 . . 
 
 16. 4 . . 
 
 16. 8 . . 
 
 16.9-11 . 
 
 16. 11 . . 
 
 16. 11, 14 
 16. 13-17 . 
 16. 14 . . 
 
 16. 15 . . 
 
 16. 16 . . 
 
 16. 19 . . 
 
 17. 8-10 . 
 
 18. 6 . . 
 
 18. 6, 7 8 
 
 18. 16 . . 
 
 19. 14 . . 
 
 19. 21 . . 
 
 20. 17 . . 
 
 125 
 
 26 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Deuteronomy 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 25, 52, 80, 81 
 
 23. 2, 3, 4, 9 . 
 
 
 74 
 
 
 52 
 
 23. 8 . . . 
 
 
 .16, 61 
 
 
 14 
 
 23. 16, 17 
 
 
 45 
 
 
 15 
 
 23. 20, 21 
 
 
 102 
 
 
 14 
 
 23. 21 . . . 
 
 
 21 
 
 
 74 
 
 24. 10-13 . . 
 
 
 109 
 
 
 74 
 
 24. 12, 15 
 
 
 109 
 
 
 13 
 
 24. 14 . . . 
 
 
 98 
 
 
 91 
 
 24. 14, 15 . . 
 
 
 .41, 85 
 
 
 86 
 
 24. 15 . . . 
 
 
 .90, 107 
 
 16, 20, 
 
 61 
 
 24. 17 . . . 
 
 . 85 
 
 91, 115 
 
 
 13 
 
 24. 19 . . . 
 
 
 91 
 
 
 1A 
 
 24. 19, 20, 21 
 
 
 84, 108' 
 
 
 1 J . 
 
 24. 20 . . . 
 
 
 91 
 
 
 
 24. 20, 21 
 
 
 90 
 
 
 76 
 
 24. 21 . . . 
 
 
 92 
 
 . .21, 
 
 77 
 
 25. 5 . . . 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 14 
 
 26. 2 . . . 
 
 
 14 
 
 
 83 
 
 26. 12, 13 
 
 . 77, 85, 90 
 
 . .77, 
 
 85 
 
 27. 7 . . . 
 
 
 83 
 
 . .90, 
 
 94 
 
 27. 17 . . . 
 
 
 93 
 
 
 105 
 
 27. 19 . . . 
 
 .85, 
 
 91, 115 
 
 
 98 
 
 28. 43, 44 
 
 
 78, 102 
 
 . 98, 
 
 105 
 
 29. 1 . . . 
 
 
 78 
 
 . 98, 
 
 109 
 
 29. 1, 9, 10 . 
 
 
 25 
 
 
 45 
 
 29. 8 . . . 
 
 
 78 
 
 
 33 
 
 29. 9-11 . . 
 
 
 78 
 
 
 14 
 
 29. 13, 14 
 
 
 78 
 
 
 14 
 
 31. 9 . . . 
 
 
 78 
 
 . .50, 
 
 82 
 
 31. 10 . . . 
 
 
 63, 105 
 
 
 51 
 
 31. 11 . . . 
 
 
 .14, 79 
 
 
 51 
 
 31. 12, 13 
 
 
 79 
 
 
 54 
 
 32. 16 . . . 
 
 
 4 
 
 . .83, 
 
 94 
 
 33. 4 . . 
 
 
 74 
 
 
 90 
 
 
 
 
 
 63 
 
 Joshua 
 
 
 
 . .54, 
 
 94 
 
 6. 22-25 . . 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 83 
 
 8. 26 . . . 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 95 
 
 8. 32, 33, 35 . 
 
 
 79 
 
 
 115 
 
 8. 35 . . . 
 
 
 75 
 
 
 14 
 
 9. 3-15 . . 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 14 
 
 9. 19 . . . 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 96 
 
 9. 20, 21 . . 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 74 
 
 9. 23 . . . 
 
 
 . 6, 16 
 
 
 92 
 
 9. 25-27 . . 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 10 
 
 14. 11 . . . 
 
 
 41 
 
 
 15 
 
 20. 9 . . . 
 
 
 73 
 
126 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 Judges 
 
 1. 19 . 
 
 1. 19-25 
 1. 21 . 
 
 3. 5 . 
 
 5. 1-31 
 
 5. 15 . 
 
 6. 15 . 
 
 10. 1 . 
 
 ch. 17 . 
 
 17. 5-15 
 17. 7-13 
 17. 10 . 
 
 19. 12 . 
 
 1 Samuel 
 1. 28 . 
 
 ch. 1-3 . 
 
 2. 8 . 
 
 2. 11, 18 
 2. 21 . 
 
 3. 1 . 
 
 11. 15 . 
 
 2 Samuel 
 
 20. 24 . 
 
 1 Kings 
 
 4. 6 . 
 
 5. 28 
 
 8. 2, 65 
 8. 14, 22 
 
 8. 41 . 
 
 9. 15-19 
 9. 20, 21 
 9. 20-22 
 11. 26 . 
 
 11. 40 . 
 
 12. 3 . 
 12. 3, 4 
 12. 14, 16 
 12. 18 . 
 12. 29-33 
 12. 42 . 
 
 2 Kings 
 4. 23 . 
 
 23. 23 . 
 
 24. 14 . 
 
 25. 12 . 
 Isaiah 
 
 1. 7 . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Isaiah 
 
 18 
 
 2. 2-4 . 
 
 17 
 
 2. 6 . 
 
 18 
 
 3. 14, 15 
 
 19 
 
 5. 8 . 
 
 18 
 
 10. 1, 2 
 
 18 
 
 10. 2 . 
 
 116 
 
 11. 4 . 
 
 18 
 
 16. 14 . 
 
 95 
 
 23. 17 . 
 
 54 
 
 29. 19, 20 
 
 46 
 
 43. 12 . 
 
 45, 96 
 
 58. 13, 14 
 
 21 
 
 61. 5 . 
 Jeremiah 
 
 46 
 
 5. 19 . 
 
 46 
 
 5. 28 . 
 
 114 
 
 7. 5 . 
 
 46 
 
 7. 5, 6 
 
 45 
 
 7. 6 . 
 
 46 
 
 16. 18 . 
 
 83 
 
 17. 21-27 
 22. 3 . 
 
 26 
 
 22. 13 . 
 22. 15-17 
 
 27 
 
 22. 16 . 
 
 27 
 
 22. 17 . 
 
 95 
 
 26. 17 . 
 
 74 
 
 34. 17 . 
 
 22 
 
 34. 19 . 
 
 26 
 
 34. 20 . 
 
 27 
 
 39. 10 . 
 
 30 
 
 51. 2 . 
 
 28 
 
 52. 15, 16 
 
 29 
 
 Ezekiel 
 
 74 
 
 11. 9 . 
 
 29 
 
 14. 7, 8 
 
 29 
 
 16. 3 
 
 27 
 
 18. 2 . 
 
 29 
 
 18. 12 . 
 
 27 
 
 18. 13 . 
 22. 7 . 
 
 53 
 
 22. 7, 29 
 
 95 
 
 22. 12 . 
 
 116 
 
 22. 12,13 
 
 116 
 
 22. 29 . 
 27. 3 . 
 
 4 
 
 28. 7, 10 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . . 23 
 
 . . 21 
 
 . . no 
 
 . . 93 
 
 . . no 
 
 . . 115 
 
 . . Ill 
 
 . . 33 
 
 . . 103 
 
 . . Ill 
 
 . . 4 
 
 . . 53 
 
 . . 4 
 
 . . 4 
 
 111, 115 
 . . 97 
 
 42, 89, 111 
 
 . . 85 
 
 . . 76 
 
 . . 53 
 
 .45, 85, 89 
 42, 97, 111 
 
 . . 42 
 
 . . Ill 
 
 . . 97 
 
 . . 74 
 
 , 42, 111 
 
 . . 42 
 
 . . Ill 
 
 . . 98 
 
 . . -'4 
 
 . . 116 
 
 . . 4 
 
 . . 79 
 
 . . 19 
 
 . . 112 
 
 . . 45 
 
 . . 103 
 
 . .42, 89 
 
 . .45, 85 
 
 . .42, 97 
 
 . . 112 
 
 . 97, 112 
 
 . . 103 
 
 . . 4 
 
THE 
 
 STATUS 
 
 OF LABOR IN ANCIENT 
 
 ISRAEL 
 
 127 
 
 Ezekiel 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Proverbs 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 30. 12 . . 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 5. 10 . . 
 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 31. 12 . . 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 6. 24 . . 
 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 44. 1 , 9 . 
 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 7. 5 . . 
 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 47. 22 
 
 
 
 
 .63, 66 
 
 14. 21 . . 
 
 
 
 
 42 
 
 Hosea 
 
 
 
 
 
 14. 31 . . 
 
 
 
 
 112 
 
 5. 10 . . 
 
 
 
 
 93 
 
 15. 25 . . 
 
 
 
 
 92 
 
 7. 9 . . 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 19. 17 . . 
 
 
 
 
 113 
 
 8. 7, 12 . 
 
 
 
 
 . . 4 
 
 20. 16 . . 
 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 12. 10 . . 
 
 
 
 
 63 
 
 21. 24 
 
 
 
 
 99 
 
 Amos 
 
 
 
 
 
 22. 16 . . 
 
 
 
 
 113 
 
 2. 6 . . 
 
 
 
 
 no 
 
 22. 20 . . 
 
 
 
 
 93 
 
 2. 7 . . 
 
 
 
 
 93, no 
 
 22. 22 . . 
 
 
 
 
 113 
 
 4. 1 . . 
 
 
 
 
 no 
 
 23. 10 . . 
 
 
 
 
 . ' 92 
 
 5. 11 . . 
 
 
 , 
 
 , 
 
 no, 116 
 
 27. 13 . . 
 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 5. 12 . . 
 
 
 
 
 no 
 
 28. 8 . . 
 
 
 
 
 103 
 
 7. 13 . . 
 
 
 
 
 29 
 
 28. 11 . . 
 
 
 
 
 99 
 
 8. 4 . . 
 
 
 
 
 no 
 
 29. 14 . . 
 
 
 
 
 113 
 
 8. 6 . . 
 
 
 
 
 no 
 
 30. 14 . . 
 
 
 
 
 113 
 
 Obadiah 
 
 
 
 
 
 31. 9 . . 
 
 
 
 
 113 
 
 1 . 11 . . 
 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 31. 24 . . 
 
 
 
 
 103 
 
 Micah 
 
 
 
 
 
 Job 
 
 
 
 
 
 2.1,2 
 
 
 
 
 94 
 
 2. 9 . . 
 
 
 
 
 58 
 
 2. 5 . . 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 7. 1 . . 
 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 4. 1-4 . . 
 
 
 
 
 23 
 
 14. 6 . . 
 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 Zephaniah 
 
 
 
 
 
 19. 15 . . 
 
 
 
 
 . 4, 22 
 
 1 . 8 . . 
 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 24. 3 . . 
 
 
 
 
 92 
 
 Zechariah . 
 
 
 
 
 
 24. 3, 4 . 
 
 
 
 
 113 
 
 7. 9, 10 . 
 
 
 
 
 112 
 
 24. 3-12 . 
 
 
 
 
 88 
 
 7. 10 . . 
 
 , , 
 
 
 
 89 
 
 24. 9, 10, 11 
 
 
 
 
 113 
 
 Malachi 
 
 
 
 
 
 40. 30 . . 
 
 
 
 
 103 
 
 3. 5 . . 
 
 
 
 
 .85, 89 
 
 Ruth 
 
 
 
 
 
 Psalms 
 
 
 
 
 
 2. 8, 9 
 
 
 
 
 88 
 
 15. 5 . . 
 
 
 
 
 103 
 
 Lamentations 
 
 
 
 
 
 37. 11 . . 
 
 
 
 
 114 
 
 5. 2 . . 
 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 37. 14 . . 
 
 
 
 
 114 
 
 Ecclesiastes 
 
 
 
 
 
 37. 25 . . 
 
 
 
 
 114 
 
 6. 2 . . 
 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 44. 21 . . 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 Ezra 
 
 
 
 
 
 69. 9 . . 
 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 9. 1, 2 
 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 81. 10 . . 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 Nehemiah 
 
 
 
 
 
 90. 10 . . 
 
 
 
 
 41 
 
 5. 1-13 . 
 
 
 
 
 112 
 
 109. 10 . 
 
 
 
 
 114 
 
 8. 1-18 . 
 
 
 
 
 83 
 
 109. 16 . 
 
 
 
 
 114 
 
 8. 18 . . 
 
 
 
 
 95 
 
 144. 8, 11 
 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 10. 32 . . 
 
 
 
 
 106 
 
 Proverbs 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 Chronicles 
 
 
 
 
 
 2. 16 . . 
 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 13. 2, 4 . 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 3. 28 . . 
 
 
 
 
 113 
 
 28. 8 . . 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 3. 34 . . 
 
 
 
 
 99 
 
 29. 1, 10, 20 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
128 THE STATUS OF LABOR IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 Chronicles 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. 3, 5 .... 
 
 74 
 
 2. 16. 
 
 27 
 
 6. 3, 12, 13 . . . 
 
 74 
 
 6. 32. 
 
 22 
 
 7. 8, 9 .... 
 
 95 
 
 8. 1-6. 
 
 26 
 
 8. 7, 8 .... 
 
 27 
 
 8. 7-9. 
 
 30 
 
 10. 18. 
 
 27 
 
 20. 5. 
 
 74 
 
 2 Chronicles 
 
 PAGE 
 
 23. 3. 
 
 74 
 
 24. 6. 
 
 74 
 
 28. 14. 
 
 74 
 
 29.23,28,31,32. . 
 
 74 
 
 30.17,23,24,25. . 
 
 74 
 
 30. 25 . 
 
 .18, 75 
 
 Mishnah 
 
 Baba Mesi'a 8. 1 
 
 47 
 
 New Testament 
 
 Luke 10. 29-37 . 
 
 40 
 
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 J9 
 
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 F 13^ 
 
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 OT-^^iSiBPSBP* 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 if(3f* 
 
 
 
 
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 1 a 
 
 
 
 Mim^m 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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