What Does Deuteronomy 25:4 Mean in the King James?
Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse makes the worker’s share part of the work itself: the ox eats from the grain its labor uncovers.
THE MEANING
As the ox treads grain loose, it may eat while it works; its need is not separated from the provision emerging under its feet. The verse speaks now wherever labor produces what sustains life: the worker’s share belongs within the work’s order.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the one who produces provision must be kept from it until the work is finished.
THE ROOT
תַחְסֹם
taḥsōm
GROWS FROM
חסם
ḥ-s-m
to muzzle, restrain, or block
“muzzle” in this verse is taḥsōm. The command forbids blocking the ox’s mouth while grain is being made available under its feet. A related Hebrew word for a barrier keeps the root’s sense of obstruction in view: the ox’s access to the grain is what must not be blocked.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsam: to muzzle or restrain
חָסַם
This is the verb in the command: the prohibition is against restraining the ox’s mouth.
maḥsōm: barrier or roadblock in modern Hebrew
מַחְסוֹם
This related form carries the sense of a block, sharpening the image of grain within reach and a mouth deliberately kept from it.
בְּדִישׁוֹ
bedisho
GROWS FROM
דוש
d-w-sh
to thresh, beating grain loose from its stalk
“treadeth out” in this verse is bedisho. The Hebrew phrase names the ox’s threshing, placing its access to grain inside the work itself. The image is of provision being released as the ox works, not held back until the task is over.
ALSO GROWS
dāš: threshes
דָּשׁ
This verb form names the action the ox is performing.
dîš: threshing or threshing work
דִּישׁ
This noun is the form used in the verse, locating the permission within the threshing.
THE PATTERN
The fruit of labor is not to be withheld from the one whose work brings it forth.
Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.THE THREAD
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?Paul repeats the command and asks whether its concern stops at oxen, then carries its logic to the laborer. The verse’s concrete image opens into a wider pattern: those who produce provision are not meant to be cut off from its fruit.
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