Deuteronomy

The Unmuzzled Ox

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: 90-110

Genre: Talk

Track: 90

Dictation Name: RR187AW90

Location/Venue:

Year: 1993

Let us worship God. Oh come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Praise Ye the Lord, sing unto the Lord a new song and His praise in the congregation of saints for the Lord taketh pleasure in His people. He will beautify the meek with salvation. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God we give thanks unto Thee that all the days of our life Thy hand is ever upon us for good. Give us grace therefore to see all things as coming from Thy hand, to know our duty in the face of each adversity. To know that Thy will shall be done and that we must always unite ourselves with Thy will, Thy word, Thy purpose. Make us joyful therefore in Thee for Thou art greater than all the ills and adversities of this world. Keep our hearts faithful and joyful in Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is Deuteronomy 25:4. Our subject: The Unmuzzled Ox. Deuteronomy 25:4.

“Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.”

This is a verse with a long history of attention and neglect. If it were used as often as it is cited the world would be very different. This text is cited more than once in the New Testament. Although Saint Paul supported himself he insisted on the duty of Christians to support their leaders. In First Corinthians 9:7-11 he writes:

“Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?

8 Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also?

9 For it is written in the law of Moses, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen?

10 Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope.

11 If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?”

Paul declares that a soldier must be paid, a farmer or a rancher gain a living from their work. God’s law requires that an ox threshing corn is entitled to have some corn. The point of this law is that as creatures we are dependent upon our work for our sustenance. As a result those who work as ministers of the word of God are entitled to be paid for their work. Parenthetically let me say two or three years ago at I believe our next to the last Seattle conference those of you who were there may recall that Dr. Thomas Sharmarker [sp?] of Germany made a tremendous point in which he said that no God of paganism is ever associated with work. But the God of scripture is associated with and gives dignity to work. So it is not surprising that we have laws like this in scripture. If the law of Deuteronomy 25:4 validates the duty to feed the ox how much more does it not vindicate due pay to all men and especially the paying of God’s servants. Paul again discusses this law in First Timothy 5:17-18 where we read:

“Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.

18 For the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.”

Paul in the final sentence was quoting our Lord’s application of this law in his charge to the disciples in Matthew 10:9-10:

“Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses,

10 Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat.”

The word translated into English as script here in verse ten is an old word and it refers to a leather pouch for carrying food. They were not to carry food ,they were not to carry an extra change of clothing, those whom they served were to provide for them; in other words our Lord required of those ministered to that they fully support the ministers. If they would not they were commanded to shake the dust off their feet and move on. When Paul speaks of those who minister well that they receive double honor the Greek word translated as honor means at one and the same time both pay and honor. When we pay someone for what they do we are honoring them, not defrauding them. Thus double pay is required. Paul uses this law of Deuteronomy 25:4 as does our Lord. It is very clearly a law about payment for work, the value of the work must determine the pay, all work must be rewarded but because there is a degradation of importance there is a degradation of pay. Now God knows that what we truly want we will pay dearly for. His concern is that we recognize in the things we need the ministry of His word in particular, that we recognize our moral obligation to pay well for it.

Paul does not mean in First Corinthians 9:10 that God’s only focus is on us. Deuteronomy 22:6-7 make clear that his protection extends to birds. Rather the point is that God’s law here requires us above all else to see our duty to our fellow men. We have an aspect of this law in Proverbs 12:10:

“A righteous man regardeth the life of his beasts but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.”

There is a clear cut pattern here. We are told that the practice of gleaning that we dealt with recently is required by God and that animals that help with the work must be permitted to eat freely. No right to glean is given to the poor, there is a duty to permit gleaning to the deserving poor. Thus both the needy persons and working animals are required by God to be provided for. No man can live unto himself or only for himself in God’s law. Now this law historically is basic to what we now call labor relations. Morecraft summed up the matter very ably when he said and I quote:

“Animals are not to be robbed of what is due them. How much more heinous is it to rob a man of the honor or wages due him.” Unquote.

We have here a very important premise with regard to the treatment of animals and at the same time the treatment of all workers. We need to look again at First Corinthians 9:9-10 where Paul insists that this law is given for our sakes. The meaning is: important as the fair treatment of animals and people certainly is, obedience to God is more important. God is saying your obedience is going to be revealed not only in how you pay people or you pay those who serve me but in your treatment of animals.

For the sake of our growth in the faith and our growth in obedience God requires that we be mindful of the ox and of all animals. His laws are for our sakes in order that we may live a happier and more blessed life. A few people have used this text to say that the worker should share in the profits. Nothing of the sort is even implied. We are simply commanded to be just in the recompense of both animals and men. A couple of centuries ago Thomas Scott’s observation on this text is noteworthy, he said and I quote:

“Kindness is due not only to men but even to the beasts and every living creature which contributes to our ease, pleasure or advantage should receive from us such reciprocal satisfactions as it is capable of in proportion to the benefits conferred. Much more than should servants and laborers be suitably recompensed and by parody of reason ministers who are instrumental to men’s salvation should be maintained comfortably at their expense.” Unquote.

What Scott is affirming is a harmony of interests under God of men and of men and their domestic animals. Scott writing as long ago as he did presupposed a harmony of interests. Now this harmony is a moral harmony whose premise is God’s total and providential government. The direction of humanistic thinking is to stress a radical conflict of interests. The pagan world believed in the total conflict of interests, the Renaissance revived that pagan doctrine and with Darwin this belief has become dominant in our culture. It has done much to promote this belief in conflict because it is a presupposition of the idea of natural selection and the struggle for survival. The influence of the evolutionary mythology has therefore been anti-capitalistic because of this stress on conflict.

We have as a result racial, economic and political conflict all over the world and we have the people who are defenders of capitalism stripped of the intellectual, the spiritual armor because they accept the whole of the Darwinian worldview which militates against capitalism, which denies that there can be a harmony of interests between workers and owners, between laborer in the cities and farmers in the field. Freedom has receded in the twentieth century because of these conflicts and it is sad that the free market people and conservative generally embrace a Darwinian perspective that is fatal to their thinking. This has been pointed out by more than one or two scholars in this century and yet they persist in affirming a faith in evolution which is like a pointed gun at their head. In an evolutionary universe there is only struggle and conflict, truth is tentative and the development of man may render each days truth irrelevant in the days to come. We live in a conflict world today, not under God’s harmony, and in terms of this perspective which governs the whole world there is only conflict. A title dealing with the political scene summed it up very well: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. It’s that kind of idiocy. Our legal systems have echoes of this in other laws. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox which treadeth out the corn. But these systems are steadily eroding. One legal scholar has said that perhaps by twenty five, eleven years away or ten and a half years away, every trace of Christian culture in our legal system will have been dismantled.

We are moving into a culture of the muzzled ox and the muzzled man. Freedom is associated by the modern mind with license, not with morality, and the desire for freedom has come to mean the desire to sin, the freedom to sin. We have thinkers who claim to be Christian who insist on seeing God and Christ as process in terms of Darwinian thinking. We find this in both protestant and Catholic circles. In fact, an important study, process theology, basic writings was issued by the Newman Press. In such thinking, in such books, the trinity of Orthodox faith is gone, God’s law is gone, any harmony of interests is gone. What we have instead is a cosmic process. Is it any wonder that the followers of such thinking have been the pioneers of our present lawlessness? No God, no law, nor truth, nor true morality in their world. The wasteland now surrounds us; the law of the unmuzzled ox is a reminder of God’s order and harmony. The book of Deuteronomy sums up the whole of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. It sums it up with added emphasis. It is a book as I’ve said before that has been a particular target of hostility in our age because while unlike the other books there is no element of the miraculous, which is so offense to modern scholars, the offense here is the clear cut statement by God of what constitutes order, that there can be no order apart from His law, that only in terms of His law can we have a society marked by a harmony of interests. And so Deuteronomy is a target, it is hated; it is treated with disrespect and animosity. It is important therefore for us to recognize how the world is showing better sense than too many of our church men because in this book we have in concise form a charter for freedom. Freedom under God in Christ. Antinomianism has thrown away its charter of freedom. Let us pray.

Our Father we thank Thee for this Thy word, we thank Thee that in Christ Jesus we have been called to freedom, that Thy word is our charter of freedom in Christ. But it is the expression of His being, of Thy being, Spirit breathed and given as a blessing to us. Make us joyful and strong by Thy spirit in Thy word that we may be more than conquerors in Christ. In His name we pray, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Question] The inability of unions to organize the middle class has led to the decline in American wages in comparison to every other industrial country.

[Rushdoony] Yes. And the unions have been advocates of conflict of interest in a very sharp form and the result today is that it is destroying them as well as our society. And the acceptance of social Darwinism by the industrialists of the last century and into this certainly has made them helpless and it has led to a great deal of destructiveness to the fabric of society. A book could be written tracing the acceptance of Darwinism by the various groups in society it has been done by a few where the capitalists are concerned but nobody has done a job on the labor unions, on political philosophies and so on where this belief in the conflict of interests is concerned. It’s only been in one direction. Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes that idea is gone; it only survives in cultures that have a background of some kind of patriarchalism as in Japan. In most of the world it is eroding with great rapidity and it is eroding in Japan also. The acceptance of evolution has been devastating to the belief in the harmony of interests. We spread it around the world and we have been destroying it ever since all over the world. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] yes, I referred not too long ago, I think fairly recently, to the fact that both Sam Blumenfeld of our staff and Dwight [unknown] have said that the great deposit of cultural Calvinism was the old Princeton review of the last century. And that in this century cultural Calvinism is all but gone, apart from us there really is no one maintaining it. So the result is that all they’re interested in is a narrow definition of theology which includes points of doctrine and no application of the meaning of theology across the board. As a result the idea of the harmony of interests has dropped out because there are no longer cultural Calvinists with the result that the field has been surrendered to the enemy and the results are deadly. This is why I believe that what we are doing is something that has needed to be done. Any other questions or comments?

Let me add that while this text has been used in this century quite often the broader implications are not touched upon. The harmony of interests and it is curious because the text is so obvious. It says we need each other, we need the ox, we take care of the ox. We need one another and we should never forget that. So there is a blindness that has come over men. Paul speaks of the blindness that had come over Israel in his day, their eyes were veiled so they could not see the truth. And it seem as though God has given blindness to the nations of this century so that the most obvious facts they will not see. Well if there are no further questions or comments let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father we thank Thee that in Thy providence and in terms of Thine eternal decree even the evil that men do, the falsities they proclaim, shall work together for good for Thy kingdom and for those who are the called according to thy purpose. Grant that day by day we see that Thy purpose prevails, that Thy will shall be done, not the will of man and that we recall men and nations to Thy word and to Thy grace. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.