patriarchal history, respecting their wealth, it seems that their slave property is mentioned, and mixed up with the inventory, the same as is the account of flocks and herds, making no difference between them.
From the reasoning of Adam Clarke on the meaning of the word servant, it appears that the term slave is the highest possible idea the word conveys, while the word servant is but a secondary, an accommodated, or lower application and meaning of the term. See his comment on the 1st chapter of the Romans, page 36, where he insists that to be the servant of Jesus Christ was, as St. Paul has said, to be his slave or property, and that he had no right to himself, or any of the powers of soul or body — all belonging to his master, Jesus Christ.
This, therefore, establishes that the term, bond servant, as used every where in the Bible, signifies a bond slave, and not a hired servant, or a servant of any other kind, but slave in the true property sense of the word. And who is the man who can gainsay the criticisms of Dr. Adam Clarke on the ancient languages, especially the Hebrew and Greek? Slavery, and the possession of slaves, in all Patriarchal, Jewish and Christian history, as given in the Bible, was as popular as was the possession of property of any other kind.
That the great store of servants possessed by Isaac, the son of Abraham, when he lived in Gerar, among the Philistines (south toward Egypt and not a great way from the place where, in after ages, the temple was built), were slaves of the negro race, is shown from the fact, that the people of Canaan, Egypt, Philistia,
