Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - 1 Corinthians 9:9 - 9:9
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn (ou phimōseis boun aloōnta). Quotation from Deu 25:4. Prohibition by ou and the volitive future indicative. Phimoō, to muzzle (from phimos, a muzzle for dogs and oxen), appears first in Aristophanes (Clouds, 592) and not again till lxx and N.T., though in the papyri also. Evidently a vernacular word, perhaps a slang word. See metaphorical use in Mat 22:12, Mat 22:34. Aloōnta is present active participle of the old verb aloaō, occurs in the N.T. only here (and 1Co 9:10) and 1Ti 5:18 where it is also quoted. It is probably derived from halos or halon, a threshing-floor, or the disc of a shield or of the sun and moon. The Egyptians according to the monuments, used oxen to thresh out the grain, sometimes donkeys, by pulling a drag over the grain. The same process may be found today in Andalusia, Italy, Palestine. A hieroglyphic inscription at Eileithyas reads:
“Thresh ye yourselves, O oxen, Measures of grain for yourselves, Measures of grain for your masters.”
Note mē melei expects the negative answer, impersonal verb with dative and genitive cases (theoi, God, boōn, oxen).
Altogether (pantōs). But here probably with the notion of doubtless or assuredly. The editors differ in the verse divisions here. The Canterbury Version puts both these questions in 1Co 9:10, the American Standard the first in 1Co 9:9, the second in 1Co 9:10.