Credit: National Gallery of Art
License: CC0 1.0
Credit URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org...
Comments: Oxen yoke
Credit: Jean
License: CC BY 2.0
Credit URL: https://www.flickr.com...
Comments: Yoke of Oxen
From Easton: (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_.
(2.) In Jeremiah 27:2; Jeremiah 28:10, Jeremiah 28:12 the word in the Authorized 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).
(3.) In 1 Samuel 11:7, 1 Kings 19:21, Job 1:3 the word thus translated is _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."
