Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/392

 378 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Despite the abrupt transitions of this impassioned poetry, or it may be just because of them, we feel the unutterable woe of the one who is thus reduced. It is to the praise of the prophets of Israel that in a time when captives were often, if not usually, shamefully treated, they demanded humaneness in the treatment of such.

As with captives, so with slaves and servants generally; they insisted on merciful oversight and treatment. They were wont to demand that the provisions of the early codes as to slavery and the care of servants be enforced, though they lifted their demands upon high ethical and religious grounds. At times they encouraged the emancipation of slaves, especially if they chanced to be Hebrews, and even demanded their liberation if their term of servitude had expired (Jer. 34:9-14; Isa. 58: 6; cf. Isa. 42:7); but usually their efforts were directed toward the amelioration of their lot. It is likely that nowhere did the ele- vation of their teaching run more directly counter to the com- mon practice of their people, especially the wealthier classes.

By the Hebrews aliens or foreigners " strangers" or "sojourn- ers" they were usually called were naturally regarded as infe- riors, though they might come from lands more cultured than their own. Inasmuch as they were so regarded, the prophets, as men whose sentiments led them to espouse the despised and the oppressed, seem to have insisted on mercy and kindness here. In insisting that aliens be not oppressed or unkindly treated, as they did (Jer. 7:6 ; 22: 3 ; Isa. 56: 3 ff.; Ezek. 44: 7, 9 ; 47: 22, 23; Zech. 7:10; Mai. 3:5), they placed themselves alongside of the deuteronomists. On the whole, the deuteronomic law had been friendly to such. At certain points, it is true, it favored the native at the expense of the foreigner, probably in part because their code represented the crystallization of certain time-honored customs, as well as the decisions delivered at old sanctuaries. They were not themselves to eat the carcass of any animal that had died of itself a natural death ; but they might give it, or sell it, to an alien (Deut. 14:21). They were not to charge their Hebrew brethren interest on money loaned them ; but they might collect interest of aliens (Deut. 23: IQ, 20). Nor were