Chette, you have been of immeasurable help to me in the way of checking my attitude and reactions...I hope that will be noticable in this post! I sure do feel it, and I want to THANK YOU!
Now, back on topic...
WOW, I do apologize folks; I thought we were all done with Samson! But I really shouldn't leave off with anyone having the impression that I am "ADDING to the words of God," so I'll try to clarify.
Here is Samson's phrase from Judges 14:18 - "If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle." The whole point is that any time in the Bible when plowing and animals (oxen or asses) are mentioned together, there are always at least TWO animals doing the plowing; I cannot find a reference to plowing (or any form of the word) where there is only one animal doing the plowing. There are five such references in the Bible:
Deut. 22:10
I Sam. 14:14
Amos 6:12
I Kings 19:19
Job 1:14
These, of course, are in addition to Judges 14:18 where "plowed" and "heifer" are in the same passage. By simply running references (which is what the original post of this thread was all about) I was able to learn that in every other place in the Bible (listed above,) oxen that are being plowed with ARE YOKED (when there are two, they must be yoked to work together)...So, if Samson's heifer was NOT yoked, she would have to be THE ONLY WORKING OX IN THE BIBLE that wasn't yoked. So, I reached the conclusion that Samson's heifer was yoked by logical deduction...I have never tried to say that the passage SAYS she was yoked, and I fully admit that MAYBE SHE WASN'T YOKED. I just proved that the Biblical pattern for working oxen is that they ARE ALWAYS YOKED!
Be that as it may, the Judges verse was JUST A SIDE NOTE, an afterthought (not going "to ridiculously extreme lengths to pervert the clear Biblical teaching on the word 'yoked'.") In my post #22, I have SEVENTEEN 'proof texts' (plus practical info) that show that the original post of this thread is SERIOUSLY FLAWED! Now, in that same post, I did say something to the effect that I did not expect a response, but it is downright deceitful for someone to act as if the Judges verse was the only Biblical reply that I could come up with; in other words, if one is going to try to refute ONE of my verses, how about a refutation of the OTHER SEVENTEEN?
Again, POST #22 contains factual practical information about oxen AND seventeen verses of scripture that DIRECTLY CONTRADICT the findings of the original 'word study' of this thread, and I would HONESTLY, SINCERELY like to see how ANYONE can reconcile the facts and scripture with those opening assertions.
Pam
www.custerfamilyfarm.com