Where There are No Oxen, The Manger is Clean - Proverbs 14:4
Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean,
but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.
What are Proverbs for? To suck them and ask yourself whether this is going to be a chocolate drop or a boiled or hard boiled sweet – depending on where you come from in the English speaking world?
My parents had a small farm in England on which I was brought up. Unlike in New Zealand, in the winter in England the cows are kept inside because there is no grass in the fields and the fields get very wet and the cows trash the pasture. The cows were what are called young stock – bought in just a few months old and then on-sold in a year or two for beef. But keeping cows inside means that they needed to be cleaned out regularly. In some of the newer larger buildings this was done with a fork attached to tractor – but in the older buildings they had to be cleaned out by hand with a wheelbarrow and hand fork. And that was my job in the school holidays to earn my keep. I confess that I didn’t enjoy it. It was smelly and time-consuming and tiring when I wanted to do other things. The smell got into your clothes and hair and hands. Shovelling manure is not glamorous.
Cows can be messy eaters and we fed them with hay in mangers and they pulled out the hay trashing the whole place which I had spent my precious time cleaning. But I was pleased when I heard later on that those cows had been on sold for a good profit at markets. And I was pleased when I saw the green fields in Spring, fertilized by the manure from the cow sheds I had cleaned out.
But then my parents stopped farming, sold the cows and leased out the land but kept the farm buildings. The old cowsheds were now clean, there was no smell, no manure and best of all no work for me. But … there were no cows and of course no income and profits from cow sales.
Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean,
but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.
A clean manger is not a good sign – it means there are no cows! No cows, means no wealth and no income. In Old Testament context no oxen meant nothing to pull the plough in the fields to grow grain and feed the family, indeed ultimately the clean manger meant starvation for the family. I think this proverb meant to the first readers that the dirty manger meant prosperity, and what looks scruffy and run down is not a bad sign. As they say in Yorkshire, “Where there’s muck, there’s money!”
Why is this proverb in the Bible? Originally it was written as an observation and as a practical warning against the improvident farmer who mismanaged his farm and ended up with no oxen and thus a clean manger, that’s the chocolate drop interpretation. But proverbs always have a hard-boiled, hard candy, meaning to think about as well, otherwise they wouldn’t be in our Christian Old Testament.
We have to work hard, we sometimes have to do smelly dirty jobs if we want abundant long-term fruit. Likewise in Christian service there is little or no glamour and lots of hard grind which no-one but God sees. Sometimes the manger will not be clean. It happens here at college outreach as you work hard with an unresponsive youth group you may feel you’ve got little to write home about, but in 20 years time, when they are in trouble they recall that memory verse that you taught them and finally understand the gospel and believe and are saved. It happens in the hard graft of evangelism – indeed it happens in the countless Christian ministries in which you will all be involved with in the future.
It happens here as you learn to get along with the flatmate who drives you crazy – you probably make him or her crazy too, but we won’t go there now. The character-forming effects of the manger that is not clean are moulding you now for the better.
The word ‘manger’ has entered the English language through the King James Version of Luke’s Gospel. When Jesus was born he was laid in a manger because there was no room for him in the inn. It has turned into a sentimental little bed full of clean hay. But in reality real mangers are dirty things and the first readers of Luke would have understood just that! Jesus’ path to eternal glory was through a dirty manger not a clean one. Likewise it has to be for you and for me too!
I am sure I have barely touched on the meaning of this proverb this morning. Enjoy your hard candy. I need to suck on it longer too.
Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean,
but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.