The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: [but] Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
Ver. 3. The ox knoweth his owner.] Yea, helpeth him; whence these creatures are called iumenta a iuvando, and the ass hath his name in Greek a from his usefulness. Yea, the most savage creatures will be at the beck and check of those that feed them. Disobedience, therefore, is against the principles of nature, and God's rebels fall below the stirrup of reason, yea, of sense, so great cause was there that our prophet, tantas tragoedias ageret, should begin his sermon with such a solemn contestation, "Hear, O heavens," &c. O coelum, O terram! "But Israel doth not know" - quo est stupore. He needeth to he set to school to these dullest of creatures to learn the knowledge of God and of his will, of himself and his duty. Oh, the brutish ignorance of many profligate professors! "They are a people of no understanding." Psa 53:4 So Isaiah 44:18 .
My people doth not consider.] Though "them only have I known of all the families of the earth," Amo 3:2 culling and calling them, owning and honouring them, adopting and accepting them for my people, when I had all the world before me to choose in, Deu 10:14-15 yet they value not my benefits; they stir not up themselves, as the Hebrew word signifieth, to apprehend them, and to be affected with them. All is lost that I have laid out upon them. Unthankfulness is as a grave, which receiveth dead bodies, but rendereth them not up again without a miracle. But "should ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise?" Deu 32:6 See Trapp on " Deu 32:6 "
a ενος from ονημι .