Isaiah 1:3

The ox knoweth his owner,.... Knows his voice, when he calls him, and follows him where he leads him, whether to plough in the field, or feed in the meadows; and the ass his masters crib, or

The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.

The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’ s crib; the most stupid brute beasts acknowledge and obey their Lord and Benefactor, as experience showeth. Israel doth not know, to wit, me, their Owner and Master, which is easily and necessarily understood out of the former clause. Knowing is here taken practically, as it is usually in Scripture, and includes reverence and obedience.

Isaiah 1:3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’ s crib: [but] Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.Ver. 3. The ox knoweth his owner.] Yea, helpeth him; whence these creatures are called iumenta a iuvando, and the ass hath his name in Greek from his usefulness. Yea, the most savage creatures will be at the beck and check of those that feed them. Disobedience, therefore, is against the principles of nature, and God’ s rebels fall below the stirrup of reason, yea, of sense, so great cause was there that our prophet, tantas tragoedias ageret, should begin his sermon with such a solemn contestation, "Hear, O heavens," &c. O coelum, O terram! "But Israel doth not know" - quo est stupore. He needeth to he set to school to these dullest of creatures to learn the knowledge of God and of his will, of himself and his duty. Oh, the brutish ignorance of many profligate professors! "They are a people of no understanding." So Isaiah 44:18. My people doth not consider.] Though "them only have I known of all the families of the earth," culling and calling them, owning and honouring them, adopting and accepting them for my people, when I had all the world before me to choose in, yet they value not my benefits; they stir not up themselves, as the Hebrew word signifieth, to apprehend them, and to be affected with them. All is lost that I have laid out upon them. Unthankfulness is as a grave, which receiveth dead bodies, but rendereth them not up again without a miracle. But "should ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise?" ενος from ονημι.

(3) The ox knoweth his owner . . .—As in Exodus 20:17; 1 Samuel 12:3, the ox and the ass rather than, as with us, the horse and the dog, are the representative instances of the relation of domesticated animals to man. These know that relation, and act according to it; but Israel did not, or rather would not, know. So Jeremiah dwells, turning to a different region of animal life, on the instinct which leads the stork, the swallow, and the crane to fulfil the law of their being (Jeremiah 8:7), while Israel “knew not”—i.e., did not acknowledge—the law of Jehovah.

Verse 3. The ox knoweth] An amplification of the gross insensibility of the disobedient Jews, by comparing them with the most heavy and stupid of all animals, yet not so insensible as they. Bochart has well illustrated the comparison, and shown the peculiar force of it. "He sets them lower than the beasts, and even than the most stupid of all beasts, for there is scarcely any more so than the ox and the ass. Yet these acknowledge their master; they know the manger of their lord; by whom they are fed, not for their own, but for his good; neither are they looked upon as children, but as beasts of burden; neither are they advanced to honours, but oppressed with great and daily labours. While the Israelites, chosen by the mere favour of God, adopted as sons, promoted to the highest dignity, yet acknowledged not their Lord and their God; but despised his commandments, though in the highest degree equitable and just." Hieroz. i., col. 409. Jeremiah's comparison to the same purpose is equally elegant, but has not so much spirit and severity as this of Isaiah. "Even the stork in the heavens knoweth her season; And the turtle, and the swallow, and the crane, observe the time of their coming: But my people doth not know the judgment of JEHOVAH. Jeremiah 8:7. Hosea has given a very elegant turn to the same image, in the way of metaphor or allegory: - "I drew them with human cords, with the bands of love: And I was to them as he that lifteth up the yoke upon their cheek; And I laid down their fodder before them." Hosea 11:4. Salomo ben Melech thus explains the middle part of the verse, which is somewhat obscure: "I was to them at their desire as they that have compassion on a heifer, lest she be overworked in ploughing; and that lift up the yoke from off her neck, and rest it upon her cheek that she may not still draw, but rest from her labour an hour or two in the day." But Israel] The Septuagint, Syriac, Aquila, Theodotion, and Vulgate, read וישראל veyisrael, BUT Israel, adding the conjunction, which being rendered as an adversative, sets the opposition in a stronger light. Doth not know] The same ancient versions agree in adding ME, which very properly answers, and indeed is almost necessarily required to answer, the words possessor and lord preceding. ΙσραηλδεΜΕουκεγνω; Sept. "Israel autem ME non cognovit," Vulg. ΙσραηλδεΜΟΥουκεγνω; Aquil., Theod. The testimony of so scrupulous an interpreter as Aquila is of great weight in this case. And both his and Theodotion's rendering is such as shows plainly that they did not add the word ΜΟΥ to help out the sense, for it only embarrasses it. It also clearly determines what was the original reading in the old copies from which they translated. It could not be ידעני yedani, which most obviously answers to the version of the Septuagint and Vulgate, for it does not accord with that of Aquila and Theodotion.

3. Israel’s ingratitude is rebuked by the instinctive fidelity of the dumb animals to their human benefactors (cf. Jeremiah 8:7). Ox and ass are mentioned, not as the most stupid animals, but as the only thoroughly domesticated animals of the Hebrews,—lodged probably under the same roof as their owner and his family.

The ox ... - The design of this comparison is to show the great stupidity and ingratitude of the Jews.

3. Rebelling thus they virtually declared God’s proprietorship in them is at an end. So they stand in poor contrast with the stupidest animals. Jeremiah 8:7. The ox… the ass — Dr. Thomson, (The Land and the Book, vol. ii, p.