GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 10:9
Yoke
The yoke is not a common sight in Western culture, but it was familiar in the biblical era. The horse collar gradually replaced the ox yoke as farmers switched to the faster and more versatile horse as a work animal during the Western Middle Ages. When oxen or horses are yoked, the yoke links them side by side, requiring them to move in step and share the load equally.
When Jesus quoted Genesis 2:24 to his Pharisee critics, Mark rendered the Aramaic words into Greek: “Because of this, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. And the two will be one flesh, so that they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let a man not separate.” (Mark 10:7-9) Here, Jesus shifted his metaphor from glue in verse 8 to yoke in verse 9—a word everyone understood. The word translated “joined together” (συζεύγνυμι, suzeugnumi) is the compound word “with yoke.” The word is used twice in the New Testament (cf. Matthew 19:6), and both instances refer to marriage.
Jesus reminded the Pharisees of Moses’ description of the ideal marriage relationship. Whatever the metaphor—glue or yoke—the marriage relationship is meant to be strong and permanent. In the traditional Western marriage ceremony, the officiant usually uses the phrase “till death us do part” to affirm the permanence of the new union.
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