Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Deuteronomy 22:10
Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together.
10. an ox and an ass together ] This is frequently seen in Palestine, as also a camel with one or other of these two. Note that the ox was ‘clean,’ the ass ‘unclean.’ D does not, like H, prohibit cross-breeding. Mules were common in Israel from David’s time, see Jerus. i. 326 f. On cross-breeding at the present day in Palestine see Musil, Ethn. Ber. 291.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Deu 22:10
Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together.
A law for the ox and the ass
There was a reason for this prohibition. The step of an ox and an ass being different, they could not pull together without causing one another much exertion and weariness. The work would be nearly twice as hard for the ox and the ass as it would be for two oxen or two asses. The law teaches us to consider differences in human beings, and not to yoke those who differ from one another to the same tasks. The law forbidding the people to plough with an ox and an ass applies to children. Injury is done to children when they are treated as though they had precisely the same bodily and mental capabilities. Children are so variously constituted, that what one boy can do with case in school work is to another boy a difficult labour. The sum in arithmetic which is to one a pleasure is to another a torture. The seemingly dull boy is not to be reproached because he cannot do what his bright companion can do. Some day the apparently stupid fellow may awake to intellectual activity, and get a long way before the boy who, for a time, made rapid progress in scholarship. The ass, which could not keep pace with the ox in dragging the plough, has sometimes developed into a steed grand as the war horse described in the Book of Job. Children should not be put to trades Irrespective of their gifts and preferences. The timid, shrinking boy should not be mated with the bold, adventurous type in employments needing a daring spirit. The bold, adventurous boy, whose heart is already on the ships deck, and who dreams day and night of voyages over great spaces of ocean to the region of the walrus and white bear, or to the clime of the palm and the tamarind, should not be kept behind a grocers counter. What is right for one is not necessarily right for another. Fathers and mothers should honour individuality in their boys and girls, and not fret because their children do not pull together in the same yoke. The law forbidding the Israelites to plough with an ox and an ass applies to young people. They are not to be treated religiously as though they were all in the same condition, and had all to pass through a like process to become disciples of Christ. Hard theologians and unthinking revivalists have done harm to such young people by passing on them a sweeping condemnation, and insisting that there is no true conversion without agonies of repentance and ecstasies of joy. No distinction has been made between them and those guilty of flagrant sins, and they have been cruelly yoked with the very worst of mankind. The law forbidding the Israelites to plough with an ox and an ass applies to men and women. All the members of the Church are not to be expected to manifest their religion precisely in the same way. Some are naturally lively and joyful; before their conversion they were noted for their cheerful disposition. It is as impossible for them to be dull as it is for the sun to be dull when shining in the blue of an unclouded sky. It is as impossible for them to be silent as it is for larks and linnets to be silent when May is kissing the April buds into flower. It would be as bad as yoking the ox and the ass together to insist that they must repress their jubilant feelings and be quiet as Christians whose voices are never heard in religious demonstration. It would be equally cruel to insist that those quiet Christians must break through their natural gravity, and manifest the enthusiasm which is ever pealing out song after song, hallelujah after hallelujah. Violence is not to be done to natural feeling by forcing everyone to the same kind of Christian work. The timid and retiring are not to be compelled to pull in the same yoke with the brave and bold. (J. Marrat.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 10. Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass] It is generally supposed that mixtures of different sorts in seed, breed, c., were employed for superstitious purposes, and therefore prohibited in this law. It is more likely, however, that there was a physical reason for this two beasts of a different species cannot associate comfortably together, and on this ground never pull pleasantly either in cart or plough; and every farmer knows that it is of considerable consequence to the comfort of the cattle to put those together that have an affection for each other. This may be very frequently remarked in certain cattle, which, on this account, are termed true yoke-fellows. After all, it is very probable that the general design was to prevent improper alliances in civil and religious life. And to this St. Paul seems evidently to refer, 2Co 6:14: Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers; which is simply to be understood as prohibiting all intercourse between Christians and idolaters in social, matrimonial, and religious life. And to teach the Jews the propriety of this, a variety of precepts relative to improper and heterogeneous mixtures were interspersed through their law, so that in civil and domestic life they might have them ever before their eyes.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Either,
1. Because the one was a clean beast, the other unclean; whereby God would teach men to avoid polluting themselves by the touch of unclean persons or things, 2Co 6:14. Or,
2. Because of their unequal strength, whereby the weaker, the ass, would be oppressed and overwrought. Or,
3. For mystical reasons, of which see on Deu 22:9; Lev 19:19.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. Thou shalt not plough with an oxand an ass togetherWhether this association, like the mixtureof seeds, had been dictated by superstitious motives and theprohibition was symbolical, designed to teach a moral lesson (2Co6:14), may or may not have been the case. But the prohibitionprevented a great inhumanity still occasionally practised by thepoorer sort in Oriental countries. An ox and ass, being of differentspecies and of very different characters, cannot associatecomfortably, nor unite cheerfully in drawing a plough or a wagon. Theass being much smaller and his step shorter, there would be anunequal and irregular draft. Besides, the ass, from feeding on coarseand poisonous weeds, has a fetid breath, which its yoke fellow seeksto avoid, not only as poisonous and offensive, but producingleanness, or, if long continued, death; and hence, it has beenobserved always to hold away its head from the ass and to pull onlywith one shoulder.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together,…. They might be used separately, but not together; nor was it uncommon in some countries for asses to be employed in ploughing as well as oxen. Pliny h makes mention of some fruitful land in Africa, which when it was dry weather could not be ploughed by oxen, but after showers of rain might be ploughed by a mean little ass; so Leo Africanus i says, the Africans only use horses and asses in ploughing. The reason why they were not to be put together was either (as some think) lest the law should be broken which forbids the gendering of cattle with a divers kind, Le 19:19 but Aben Ezra thinks the reason is, because the strength of an ass is not equal to the strength of an ox; and therefore he supposes this law is made from the mercy and commiseration of God extended to all his creatures; though perhaps the better reason is, because the one was a clean creature, and the other an unclean, and this instance is put for all others; and with which agree the Jewish canons, which run thus,
“cattle with cattle, wild beasts with wild beasts, unclean with unclean, clean with clean (i.e. these may be put together); but unclean with clean, and clean with unclean, are forbidden to plough with, to draw with, or to be led together k.”
The mystery of this is, that godly and ungodly persons are not to be yoked together in religious fellowship: see 2Co 6:14.
h Nat. Hist. l. 17. c. 5. i Descriptio Africae, l. 2. p. 104. k Misn. Celaim, c. 8. sect. 2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Ver. 10. Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together We refer to Lev 19:19 respecting these unnatural mixtures. This, as well as the other particulars, is thought to have respect to some idolatrous custom of the Gentiles, who were taught to believe, that their fields would be more fruitful if thus ploughed; for it is not likely that men would have yoked together two creatures so different in their tempers and motions, had they not been led to it by some superstition. This prohibition is supposed to extend to other animals of different species. Or rather, it prohibits the yoking clean and unclean animals together.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Deu 22:10 Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together.
Ver. 10. Thou shalt not plough. ] These laws were made to set forth how God abhorreth all mixtures in religion, and how carefully men should keep their minds from being “corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” 2Co 11:3
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Deu 22:10
10You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.
Deu 22:10 You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey Oxen were clean, donkeys were unclean, but this prohibition, so said the rabbis, was done as a humanitarian gesture to animals of different strengths and characteristics. However, in context, it is just one more example of do not mix things!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
ox and an ass. One clean, the other unclean; one tall, the other short, therefore cruel under the same yoke.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Two different species cannot associate comfortably together, nor pull pleasantly either in cart or plough; and the ass being lower than the ox, when yoked, he must bear the principal part of the weight. 2Co 6:14-16