Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them:
Make a new cart, х `ªgaalaah (H5699)] - a wain, or wagon; an ox-cart. Such carts were the ordinary vehicles in times of peace, as appears from the monuments of Egypt. A Hindu epic of great antiquity, called the Ramayana, describes vehicles covered with woollen cloth, drawn by white oxen, for the conveyance of great and opulent ladies. Their object in making a new one for the purpose seems to have been, not only for cleanliness and neatness, but from an impression that there would have been an impropriety in using one that had been applied to meaner or more common services. It appears to have been a covered wagon (see the note at 2 Samuel 6:3).
Two milch kine. Such untrained heifers, wanton and vagrant, would pursue no certain and regular path, like those accustomed to the yoke, and therefore were most unlikely, of their own spontaneous motion, to prosecute the direct road to the land of Israel.
Bring their calves home. The strong natural affection of the dams might be supposed to stimulate their return homewards, rather than direct their steps in a foreign country.