Is Deuteronomy 22:10 a Double-Entendre?

Deuteronomy 22:10 reads, You shall not plow with an ox and an ass together. Scholars over the centuries have offered differing interpretations of the verse. Its problematic nature is due to the Torah’s specificity regarding the animals involved (an ox and an ass), the specificity of the action (plowing), and the absence of any reasoning for the prohibition. Further, other legislation regarding animals in the Torah influences the interpreter’s understanding of Deuteronomy 22:10; some commentators link it with other laws which concern the compassionate treatment of animals, while others connect it to the ban on mixed breeding. While these two explanations should not be dismissed, references to “plowing” in the ancient Near East and Rabbinic literature, along with Ben Sira’s employment of the verse in his marital advice, suggests that the verse can also be understood as a witty or playful warning against inappropriate sexual liaisons.

Compassion for Animals

The most common interpretation of the verse links it with the Torah’s compassion for animals, in this case, the donkey who represents the smaller and weaker animal. Examples of Torah legislation evincing concern for animals include Exodus 20:10, 23:11-12 and Deuteronomy 25:4, but other laws often interpreted as such are more ambiguous.¹

Despite Varro’s opinion, perhaps the ox deserves compassion because it is compelled to pull a much larger load when it is yoked to a smaller, less powerful partner. The larger animal may suffer from having to bear the more difficult burden to compensate for the weakness of its partner. Thus, uncertainty regarding the true object of compassion creates some doubt regarding this explanation.

The Ruminant Ox Makes the Nonruminant Ass Envious

Several commentators point to the specificity of the animals and note that the ox is a ruminant and so constantly chews while the ass is not. Thus, the latter might become jealous and suffer because of the former’s seeming constant access to food. Chizkuni writes that the ox is a ruminant and is always eating, and the ass is not, so that one eats and the other is being tortured — an issue of compassion for animal life. Baal HaTurim similarly explains that because the ox chews its cud and the ass does not, the latter will imagine the former to be constantly engaged in eating, and will therefore feel frustrated and angry as it labors hungrily alongside the chewing ox.

The obvious fault of this interpretation is ascribing human perception and emotions to animal life. On the other hand, studies from the animal world have shown that animals do perceive and react to inequitable treatment — a TED talk shows two Capuchin monkeys receiving different rewards for handing their trainer pebbles, and the monkey who received the lesser reward responded aggressively.² Further, medieval commentators lived closer to the pastoral landscape and perhaps had some justification for their views, which seem far-fetched to modern city-dwellers.

To Prevent Mating

This interpretation is based on Leviticus 19:19: My statutes you shall keep. Your beasts you shall not mate with a different kind. Your field you shall not sow with different seeds. And a garment of different kinds of thread, sha’atnez, shall not be donned by you. This verse bears an obvious relationship with Deuteronomy 22:9-11, which similarly deals with sowing mixed seeds, combining animals, and wearing sha’atnez. According to Milgrom, the ban on mixtures is based on their belonging to the sacred sphere, evident in the case of cherubim and other hybrid animals consigned to the realm of the holy.

Several authoritative commentators view Deuteronomy 22:10 in the context of Leviticus 19’s prohibition of cross-mating, which is also reflected in the Mishnah (Kilaim 8:2). Rambam, in the Guide for the Perplexed (III:49), writes that the prohibition against joining two species in any kind of work is a preventive against their intercourse — Scripture mentions the ox and ass as an instance of regular occurrence, but the principle extends to any two kinds. Among moderns, Driver writes that the underlying principle of Deuteronomy 22:9-11 is the same as Leviticus 19:19: species are designed by God to be distinct, and a principle thus visibly impressed by the Creator upon nature is not to be interfered with by man.

As is evident from the above, this category, “to prevent mating,” breaks down into two different rationales: to prevent the creation, via crossbreeding, of a hybrid which would then belong to the sacred sphere; or to preserve the various species intact, as God intended. As for objections to this interpretation, Tigay comments that the ox and ass are very unlikely to attempt mating, and that if the goal was to prevent mating, they would not only be isolated at work, but after work as well.

The Ox and the Ass as Symbol and Metaphor

The ox is a ritually pure animal and the most desirable sacrifice; its image ornaments Solomon’s Temple and serves as one of the four animals of the cherub, the composite creature of Ezekiel’s divine chariot. In contrast, the donkey is ritually impure. It was a very common possession because of its status as the primary beast of burden in the ancient Near East, yet the disdain it could evoke is indicated by Jeremiah’s prediction that King Jehoiakim’s corpse would receive “the burial of a donkey.” Thus, some commentators view the ox and ass as sharply contrasting symbols. Baal HaTurim writes, “One is impure and the other pure, an indication that a righteous person should not associate with an evildoer.” The problem with symbolic lessons such as these is that they have no real controls and can’t be disproven, and at the same time mitigate the legal force of the verse.

An Allusion to Improper Sexual Behavior

That Deuteronomy 22:10 alludes to improper sexual behavior also hinges, like the previous category, on a metaphorical interpretation of the verse, but in this case the focus is on “plowing” rather than the nature of the animals involved. Since Scripture is primarily intended for a listening rather than a reading audience, wordplay, especially if witty and suggestive, kept the audience attentive and provided a useful mnemonic. Deuteronomy, presented as Moses’ final address to the Israelite nation, is distinctive regarding the various rhetorical techniques employed to engage the listener.

Wordplay in Deuteronomy

That suggestive wordplay, in this case a double-entendre, was one such rhetorical technique may be suggested by two other passages in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 24:6 forbids taking in pawn the upper or lower components of a portable grain mill, immediately after the requirement in v.5 that a newly married man not leave his bride for the first year of marriage because of his obligation to make his wife “happy” — usually understood as sexual gratification. The terms rekev (“rider,” the upper millstone) and re’hayim (the lower stone, sharing consonants with rehem, “womb”) point to a sexual interpretation, one Ibn Ezra strongly rejects but nonetheless records. Deuteronomy 25:11-12, dealing with a woman who grasps the genitals of her husband’s opponent in a street fight, is likewise juxtaposed to a prohibition of deceptive weights and measures — an evocative pairing.

Plowing as an Allusion to Sexual Relations

Plowing a field in the traditional sense involved the insertion of a wooden or metal tip into the earth to create a linear furrow, in ways that tend to emphasize the receptive nature of female genitals. The metaphor of sexual relations as “plowing” is therefore common in ancient Near Eastern, including Jewish, literature. Marten Stol notes that the likening of a woman to a fertile field to be worked by a man is ubiquitous and found in all ages and regions. Shakespeare uses the term “plough” for sexual intercourse twice in his plays, and Marvin Pope notes that “the plowing and cultivation of a field is a natural figure for sexual intercourse.”

From the Bible: Judges 14 has Samson pose a riddle to his Philistine wedding companions, and when they solve it by coercing the answer from his wife, Samson retorts, “Had you not plowed with my heifer, you would not have guessed my riddle” (v.18) — an accusation of infidelity. The Wisdom of Ben Sira (25:16), written in Hebrew around 180 BCE, praises “the man who lives with a sensible wife, and the one who does not plow with ox and ass together” — Ben Sira’s earliest application of the verse demonstrates that he understood “plowing,” and indeed the whole verse, in a sexual sense.

From the Sumerian/Akkadian world: Sumerian texts of the second millennium BCE have Inanna, goddess of love, ask, “Who will plow my vulva? Who will plow my high field? Who will plow my wet ground?” Several Akkadian tablets from El-Amarna similarly liken a field without someone to plow it to a woman without a husband.

From rabbinic literature: the Jerusalem Talmud (Yevamot 1:1) describes Rabbi Yose ben Halafta’s levirate marriage to his brother’s wife using explicitly agricultural language of plowing and planting. Genesis Rabbah 85:4 describes Er’s use of coitus interruptus, in the story of Judah and Tamar, as “plowing in the gardens and discharging in the waste.” BT Gittin 90a likewise uses “plow” (Devise not evil, lit. “plow not evil,” Prov 3:29) in a discussion of ongoing marital relations.

Conclusion

Deuteronomy 22:10 may well be concerned with the incompatibility of an ox and an ass in plowing a field and the resulting harm that may befall either or both of them. Alternatively, its location in Deuteronomy 22, between laws concerned with forbidden mixtures in fields and clothing, validates the opinion of classical commentators who see it in the halakhic context of proscribed combinations. At the same time, the erotic use of “plowing” in ancient Near Eastern texts, along with Deuteronomy’s penchant for this kind of witticism, suggests that Deuteronomy 22:10 may constitute an intentional double-entendre which warns against unwise and inappropriate sexual behavior.