The Georgians may alienate their children and their creditors have a right to sell the wives and children of their debtors, and thus exact the uttermost farthing of their debt. The people of Asia had the same custom, which Lucullus endeavoured to check, by moderating the laws respecting usury. The ancient Athenians had the same right over their children as the Romans but Solon reformed this barbarous custom. Ob aes alienum servire liberos creditoribus, jura non patiuntur. The emperors Diocletian and Maximilian forbade freemen to be sold on account of debt: Numa Pompilius first moderated this law, by enacting, that if a son married with the consent of his father, he should no longer have power to sell him for debt. They could cast them into prison, beat, employ them as slaves in agriculture, sell them for slaves, or even take away their lives!- Dionys. Romulus gave the Romans an absolute power over their children which extended through the whole course of their lives, let them be in whatever situation they might. The Romans, Athenians, and Asiatics in general had the same authority over their children as the Hebrews had: they sold them in time of poverty and their creditors seized them as they would a sheep or an ox, or any household goods. And our Lord alludes to it, Matthew 18:25, where he mentions the case of an insolvent debtor, Forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded HIM to be SOLD, and his WIFE and CHILDREN, and all that he had which shows that the custom continued among the Jews to the very end of their republic. Isaiah refers to it very evidently, where he says, Which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves Isaiah 50:1.

Although the law has not determined any thing precisely on this point, we see by this passage, and by several others, that this custom was common among the Hebrews. It was by an extension of this law, and by virtue of another, which authorized them to sell the thief who could not make restitution, Exodus 22:3, that creditors were permitted to take the children of their debtors in payment. And in cases of poverty, the law permitted them, expressly, to sell both themselves and their children Exodus 21:7, and Leviticus 25:39. Children, according to the laws of the Hebrews, were considered the property of their parents, who had a right to dispose of them for the payment of their debts. To take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. The Targum says he borrowed money to feed these prophets, because he would not support them out of the property of Ahab.

The creditor is come - This, says Jarchi, was Jehoram son of Ahab, who lent money on usury to Obadiah, because he had in the days of Ahab fed the Lord's prophets. Sons of the prophets - ЧЄЧњЧћЧ™Ч“Ч™ Ч Ч‘Ч™Ч™Чђ talmidey nebiyaiya, 'disciples of the prophets:' so the Targum here, and in all other places where the words occur, and properly too. Now there cried a certain woman - This woman, according to the Chaldee, Jarchi, and the rabbins, was the wife of Obadiah. He multiplies a scanty provision, so as to make it sufficient He comes to Gilgal, and prevents the sons of the prophets from He foretells to his hostess the birth of a son, 11-17.ДЄfter some years the child dies, and the mother goes to ElishaДЄt Carmel he comes to Shunem, and raises the child to life, His entertainment at the house of a respectable woman in Of which she pays her debt, abut subsists on the rest, 1-7. A widow of one of the prophets, oppressed by a mercilessД¬reditor, applies to Elisha, who multiplies her oil by a part

Soul 4 real for life rarely provides