Yoke

From Bible Exegesis

yōk:

(1) Fitted on the neck of oxen for the purpose of binding to them the traces by which they might draw the plough, etc. (Numbers 19:2; Deuteronomy 21:3). It was a curved piece of wood called 'ol. The usual word is עול, ‛ōl (Genesis 27:40, etc.), less commonly the (apparently later) form מוטה, mōṭāh (Isaiah 58:6, etc.; in Nahum 1:13 מוט, mōṭ), which the Revised Version (British and American) in Jeremiah 27; 28 translates “bar” (a most needless and obscuring change). The Greek in Apocrypha (Sirach 28:19, etc.) and in the New Testament (Matthew 11:29 f, etc.) is invariably ζυγός, zugós. Egyptian monuments show a yoke that consisted of a straight bar fastened to the foreheads of the cattle at the root of the horns, and such yokes were no doubt used in Palestine also; but the more usual form was one that rested on the neck (Genesis 27:40, etc.). It was provided with straight “bars” (mōṭōth in Leviticus 26:13; Ezekiel 34:27) projecting downward, against which the shoulders of the oxen pressed, and it was held in position by thongs or “bonds” (mōṣērōth in Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 5:5; Jeremiah 27:2; Jeremiah 30:8; 'ăghuddōth in Isaiah 58:6, “bands”), fastened under the animals' throats. Such yokes could of course be of any weight (1 Kings 12:4 ff), depending on the nature of the work to be done, but the use of “iron yokes” (Deuteronomy 28:48; Jeremiah 28:13 f) must have been very rare, if, indeed, the phrase is anything more than a figure of speech.

In Jeremiah 27:2; Jeremiah 28:10, Jeremiah 28:12 the word in the King James Version rendered “yoke” is motah, which properly means a “staff,” or as in the Revised Version, “bar.”

These words in the Hebrew are both used figuratively of severe bondage, or affliction, or subjection (Leviticus 26:13; 1 Kings 12:4; Isaiah 47:6; Lamentations 1:14; Lamentations 3:27). In the New Testament the word “yoke” is also used to denote servitude (Matthew 11:29, Matthew 11:30; Acts 15:10; Galatians 5:1).

What is meant by “the yoke on their jaws” in Hosea 11:4 is quite obscure. Possibly a horse's bit is meant; possibly the phrase is a condensed form for “the yoke that prevents their feeding”; possibly the text is corrupt. See Jaw.

The figurative use of “yoke” in the sense of “servitude” is intensely obvious (compare especially Jeremiah 27, 28). Attention needs to be called only to Lamentations 3:27, where “disciplining sorrow” is meant, and to Jeremiah 5:5, where the phrase is a figure for “the law of God.” This last use became popular with the Jews at a later period and it is found, e.g. in Apocrypha Baruch 41:3; Psalter of Solomon 7:9; 17:32; Ab. iii. 7,. and in this sense the phrase is employed. by Christ in Matthew 11:29 f. “My yoke” here means “the service of God as I teach it” (the common interpretation, “the sorrows that I bear,” is utterly irrelevant) and the emphasis is on “my.” The contrast is not between “yoke” and “no yoke,” but between “my teaching” (light yoke) and “the current scribal teaching'; (heavy yoke).

(2) “Yoke” in the sense of “a pair of oxen” is צמד, cemedh (1 Samuel 11:7, etc.), or ζεῦγος, zeúgos (Luke 14:19). In 1 Samuel 11:7, 1 Kings 19:21, Job 1:3 the word thus translated is צמד, tzemed, which signifies a pair, two oxen yoked or coupled together, and hence in 1 Samuel 14:14 it represents as much land as a yoke of oxen could plough in a day, like the Latin jugum. In Isaiah 5:10 this word in the plural is translated “acres.”

See also Unequal; Yoke-Fellow.