Note A — No. 4 THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER. THE BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY. AN INQUIRY INTO THE PATRIARCHAL AND MOSAIC SYSTEMS ON THE SUBJECT OF HUMAN RIGHTS. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, NO. 143 NASSAU STREET. 1837. (continued 2)

: Perhaps it will be objected, that the preservation of the Gibeonites, and of Rahab and her kindred, was a violation of the command of God. We answer, if it had been, we might expect some such intimation. If God had straitly commanded them to exterminate all the Canaanites, their pledge to save them alive, was neither a repeal of the statute, nor absolution for the breach of it. If unconditional destruction was the import of the command, would God have permitted such an act to pass without severe rebuke? Would he have established such a precedent when Israel had hardly passed the threshhold of Canaan, and was then striking the first blow of a half century war? What if they had passed their word to Rahab and the Gibeonites? Was that more binding upon them than God's command? So Saul seems to have passed his word to Agag; yet Samuel hewed him in pieces, because in saving his life, Saul had violated God's command. This same Saul appears to have put the same construction on the command to destroy the inhabitants of Canaan, that is generally put upon it now. We are told that he sought to slay the Gibeonites "in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah." God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. In assigning the reason, he says, "It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites." When David inquired of them what atonement he should make, they say, "The man that consumed us, and that devised against us, that we should the destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel let seven of his sons be delivered," &c. 2 Samuel xxii. 1-6.