Deuteronomy 25:4 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ver. 4. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox, &c.— In Judea, as well as in Egypt, Greece, and Italy, they made use of beeves to tread out the corn; and Dr. Shaw tells us, that the people of Barbary continue to tread out their corn after the custom of the East. Instead of beeves, they frequently make use of mules and horses, by tying by the neck three or four together in like manner, and whipping them afterwards round about the nedders, as they call the treading floors, (the Libycae areae. Hor.) where the sheaves lie open and expanded, in the same manner as they are placed and prepared with us for threshing. This, indeed, is a much quicker way than ours, though less cleanly: for, as it is performed in the open air, (Hosea 13:3.) upon any round level plat of ground, dawbed over with cows' dung, to prevent, as much as possible, the earth, sand, or gravel from rising; a great quantity of them all, notwithstanding this precaution, must unavoidably be taken up with the grain: at the same time the straw, which is their chief and only fodder, is hereby shattered to pieces; a circumstance very pertinently alluded to, Exodus 13:7 where the king of Syria is said to have made the Israelites like the dust by threshing. Travels, p. 138. While the oxen were at work some muzzled their mouths, to hinder them from eating the corn, which Moses here forbids; instructing the people, by this symbolical precept, to be kind to their servants and labourers, but especially to those who ministered to them in holy things. So St. Paul applies it, 1 Corinthians 9:8-9. 1 Timothy 5:18.