Yoke
(1.) Fitted on the neck of oxen for the purpose of binding to them the traces by which they might draw the plough, etc. (Num 19:2; Deut 21:3). It was a curved piece of wood called ’ol.
(2.) In Jer 27:2; Jer 28:10, Jer 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 (Lev 26:13; 1 Kgs 12:4; Isa 47:6; Lam 1:14; Lam 3:27). In the New Testament the word “yoke” is also used to denote servitude (Matt 11:29, Matt 11:30; Acts 15:10; Gal 5:1).
(3.) In 1 Sam 11:7, 1 Sam 11:1 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 Sam 14:14 it represents as much land as a yoke of oxen could plough in a day, like the Latin jugum. In Isa 5:10 this word in the plural is translated “acres.”
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), by Matthew George Easton.
