THE OX. 67 



strong and cruel enemies is thus foretold : ' And the unicorns shall 

 come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls, and their 

 land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fat- 

 ness,' Isaiah xxxiv. 7. 



The ox is a heavy and sluggish animal, blunt in his feelings, and 

 almost destitute of sagacity ; yet he may be subdued to the yoke, 

 taught to recognise his master, and to persevere with patient indus- 

 try in his service. It is therefore, with peculiar force and beauty, 

 the prophet contrasts his character and actions with the dispositions 

 and behavior of Israel, who, although taught by God' more than 

 the beast of the field, had, by yielding to their vicious propensities, 

 become more brutish than the dullest and most stupid of the; lower 

 animals: 'The oxknoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; 

 but Israel doth not know, my people do not consider,' Isa. i. 3. 



The ox, like all the lower animals, is neither tormented by reflect- 

 ing on the past, nor guessing at the future ; he grazes without fear 

 or doubt, amidst the green pastures, and fattens for the knife, uncon- 

 scious of the doom that awaits him ; and when his owner comes and 

 leads him away to the slaughter, his brute imagination only figures 

 a richer meadow, or a^ more agreeable companion. Equally uncon- 

 scious and cheerful is the miserable youth, who is entangled in the 

 toils of sin, and led away to forbidden pleasures. He is not aware 

 of his danger and his misery : he goes with blind infatuation, and 

 pitiable mirth to his. destruction : ' He goeth after her straightway, 

 as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of 

 the stocks,' Prov. vii. 22. 



Under the law, Jehovah commanded a red heifer (the prevailing 

 color in the east,) to be offered as a kind of sin offering, to purify 

 from certain legal defilements. The animal was killed and then 

 burnt without the camp (as the sin offering was upon the great day 

 of atonement,} and the blood sprinkled seven times directly before 

 the tabernacle, although it was not shed at the altar. The law of 

 Moses only required, that the heifer should be red, and young, with- 

 out spot and blemish ; and which had never been subjected to the 

 yoke. To these plain instructions, the Jews added an infinite num- 

 ber of niceties and exceptions, in choosing a heifer, for this offer- 

 ing. If she was not perfectly red, without the mixture of any oth- 

 er color; if she had but two haii-s black or white, she was reckon- 

 ed unfit for the purpose. 



Why the law demands a young cow rather than a bullock, (which 

 was commonly preferred by the divine legislator,} and why one 

 perfectly red, it is not easy to determine. Some pious expositors 

 consider the heifer as a type of our blessed Redeemer: its unblem- 

 ished perfection represented his immaculate purity and sinless excel- 

 lence ; its red color indicated the relation of Christ to our family, 

 descended from Adam, that is, a man formed of red earth ; the 

 shedding of his own blood for the sins of his people, and the com- 

 plete victory which he has gained over all their enemies, whose 

 blood he has sprinkled upon his vesture ; its freedom from the yoke, 



