Thou Shalt Not Muzzle the Ox: Written for Our Sakes
Old Testament: Deuteronomy 25:4
Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out thy corn on the floor.
Old Testament, also: Numbers 18:31
And you shall eat them in all your places, both you and your families: because it is your reward for the ministry, wherewith you serve in the tabernacle of the testimony.
New Testament: 1 Corinthians 9:9-10, 13-14; 1 Timothy 5:17-18
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? Or doth he say this indeed for our sakes? For these things are written for our sakes: that he that plougheth, should plough in hope; and he that thrasheth, in hope to receive fruit. ... Know you not, that they who work in the holy place, eat the things that are of the holy place; and they that serve the altar, partake with the altar? So also the Lord ordained that they who preach the gospel, should live by the gospel. ... Let the priests that rule well, be esteemed worthy of double honour: especially they who labour in the word and doctrine: For the scripture saith: Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn: and, The labourer is worthy of his reward.
The connection
The ox that walked the threshing floor, treading the grain from the ear, was not to be muzzled: "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out thy corn on the floor" (Deuteronomy 25:4). It could eat of the harvest it was working. The Levites, who had no land, were kept the same way: the tithes were "your reward for the ministry, wherewith you serve in the tabernacle" (Numbers 18:31). St Paul reads the ox as a figure and says so: "Doth God take care for oxen? Or doth he say this indeed for our sakes? For these things are written for our sakes: that he that plougheth, should plough in hope; and he that thrasheth, in hope to receive fruit" (1 Corinthians 9:9-10). Then he carries it from the ox to the Levites and on to the ministers of the Gospel: "they that serve the altar, partake with the altar? So also the Lord ordained that they who preach the gospel, should live by the gospel" (9:13-14). And he reads it again for the priests "who labour in the word and doctrine", setting the ox beside Christ's own saying, "The labourer is worthy of his reward" (1 Timothy 5:17-18; Luke 10:7), and calling both "the scripture". Paul does not cancel the letter. God does care for oxen, and "the just regardeth the lives of his beasts" (Proverbs 12:10); the Law was written for the ox and for us at once. The Apostolic Constitutions draw the line through the Levites: "so do you who labour in the threshing-floor, that is, in the Church of God, eat of the Church", as the Levites did in the tabernacle, "which was in all things a type of the Church." St Augustine: "of the preachers of the Gospel must be understood that which hath been written." The Catechism teaches that the Christian people ought to support the Church's ministers, for "the laborer deserves his food" (CCC 2122).
Moral sense
The ox eats at the floor because it treads there. The priests "that rule well" are worthy of double honour, "especially they who labour" (1 Timothy 5:17). The priests of Jason's day did the opposite: they "were not now occupied about the offices of the altar, but despising the temple and neglecting the sacrifices, hastened to be partakers of the games" (2 Machabees 4:14). Labour for one's own portion ends where Solomon's did: "I saw in all things vanity" (Ecclesiastes 2:11). And St Paul, having made the case for his right, would not use it: "we have not used this power: but we bear all things, lest we should give any hindrance to the gospel of Christ" (1 Corinthians 9:12).
Anagogical sense
The ploughman ploughs "in hope", and the thresher threshes "in hope to receive fruit". The hope is the last harvest: "the harvest is the end of the world" (Matthew 13:39), and "he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life everlasting: that both he that soweth, and he that reapeth, may rejoice together" (John 4:36). No one who laboured at the Lord's floor goes unfed at His table.
The Fathers
The Apostolic Constitutions, Book II: "As, therefore, the ox that labours in the threshing-floor without a muzzle eats indeed, but does not eat all up; so do you who labour in the threshing-floor, that is, in the Church of God, eat of the Church: which was also the case of the Levites, who served in the tabernacle of the testimony, which was in all things a type of the Church." St Augustine, on Psalm 65: "Oxen we find treading out corn, and the same are offered to God. The Apostle hath said, that of the preachers of the Gospel must be understood that which hath been written."
Warrant
Scriptural because St Paul reads Deuteronomy 25:4 as written "for our sakes" (1 Corinthians 9:10) and cites it again for the Church's priests (1 Timothy 5:18). St Paul applies it morally, to those who labour in the Gospel, and the entry follows him there rather than reaching for Christ Himself. The line from the ox to the Levites is Paul's own at 1 Corinthians 9:13, and the Apostolic Constitutions (Book II) draw it through the tabernacle as a type of the Church; St Augustine reads it the same way on Psalm 65. Checked in the Greek: the Septuagint of Deuteronomy 25:4 reads ou phimoseis boun aloonta, and 1 Timothy 5:18 has the same words; at 1 Corinthians 9:9 the edition used here prints kemoseis, another verb for muzzling, where many manuscripts read phimoseis. Aloao, to thresh, carries into 1 Corinthians 9:10, "he that thrasheth, in hope". 1 Timothy 5:18 calls both the Law and Christ's saying at Luke 10:7 "the scripture". The verses from 2 Machabees and Ecclesiastes in the moral sense were brought to the entry by Dunk.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2122.
The verses
Deuteronomy 25:4 · Numbers 18:31 · 1 Corinthians 9:9 · 1 Corinthians 9:10 · 1 Corinthians 9:13 · 1 Corinthians 9:14 · 1 Timothy 5:17 · 1 Timothy 5:18
