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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comFausset Bible Dictionary: Heifer
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eglah, parah. Used, not for plowing, but for the easier work of treading out grain. Cattle were not yoked together but trod it singly, or drew a threshing sledge over it, and were free to eat of it, being unmuzzled (). An image of Israel's freedom and prosperity; but, saith God, "I passed over upon her fair neck," i.e. I will put the Assyrian yoke upon it (); in translated "Israel is refractory (tossing off the yoke) as a refractory heifer." She had represented God under the calf form (), but it is herself who is one, refractory and untamed (). "Ye kine (cows, feminine, marking effeminacy) of Bashan," richly fed, effeminate, nobles of Israel; compare -10; ; .
Jeremiah () says "Egypt is like a very fair heifer" appropriately, as Apis was worshipped there under the form of a fair bull with certain spots; in Septuagint and Vulgate read "thy valiant one," namely, Apis. As the gadfly attacks the heifer so "destruction cometh" on Egypt, namely, Nebuchadnezzar the destroyer or agitator sent by Jehovah; Vulgate translated suitably to the image of a heifer, "a goader," qerets. Harassing severely may be meant, rather than utter destruction. , Moab's "fugitives shah flee unto Zoar," on the extreme boundary S. of the Dead Sea, raising their voices as "an heifer of three years old," i.e. one in full vigor but not yet brought under the yoke, just as Moab heretofore unsubdued is now about to be subjugated. Maurer translated "Eglath shehshijah" as "the third Eglath", to distinguish it from two others of the name.