The Servant of God

Moses verily was faithful in all his house,* as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after”—Hebrews 3:5.

Moses, the great lawgiver of Israel, was a servant in a master’s house, and in considering the subject of service I am not ashamed to call it slavery. It must be slavery of a particular kind, however. The word used concerning Moses is not the word for slave, as in many cases of others, and once of Moses in the New Testament where he is called a “steward” of the manifold grace of God. Remember, however, that when the Bible was written, the steward in the house of an Eastern prince was as much a slave as the lowest menial in the household. He was a privileged slave, an intermediary between the other slaves and his master, but he was an absolute slave, liable for any offence to be castigated or destroyed. Eleazer was the steward of Abraham, and was

*“His house” means God’s house, as it says in Hebrews 3:6, “Christ as a Son over his own house, whose house are we.”