20, 21.

From these laws we learn that Hebrew men servants were bound to serve
their masters _only six_ years, unless their attachment to their
employers their wives and children, should induce them to wish
to remain in servitude, in which case, in order to prevent the
possibility of deception on the part of the master, the servant was
first taken before the magistrate, where he openly declared his
intention of continuing in his master's service, (probably a public
register was kept of such) he was then conducted to the door of the
house, (in warm climates doors are thrown open,) and _there_ his ear
was _publicly_ bored, and by submitting to this operation he testified
his willingness to serve him _forever_, i.e. during his life, for
Jewish Rabbins who must have understood Jewish _slavery_, (as it is
called,) "affirm that servants were set free at the death of their
masters and did _not_ descend to their heirs:" or that he was to
serve him until the year of Jubilee, when _all_ servants were set at
liberty. To protect servants from violence, it was ordained that if a
master struck out the tooth or destroyed the eye of a servant, that
servant immediately became _free_, for such an act of violence
evidently showed he was unfit to possess the power of a master, and
therefore that power was taken from him. All servants enjoyed the rest
of the Sabbath and partook of the privileges and festivities of the
three great Jewish Feasts; and if a servant died under the infliction
of chastisement, his master was surely to be punished. As a tooth
for a tooth and life for life was the Jewish law, of course he was
punished with death. I know that great stress has been laid upon the
following verse: "Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he
shall not be punished, for he is his money."