Verse 18 These servants were in bondage. They are required to be submissive to their masters, and patient under the ills of their lot; for, however great may have been the wrongs they suffered, either in the very fact of being unjustly held in bondage by their masters, or in the particular acts of oppression which individuals endured, resistance, disobedience, or sullenness, on their part, would only have aggravated the evil.