Taking a farmer's look at Elisha's annointing.

The LORD said to Elijah:

“You shall anoint Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah,

as prophet to succeed you.”

Elijah set out and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat,

as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen;

he was following the twelfth.

Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak over him.

Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said,

“Please, let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,

and I will follow you.”

Elijah answered, “Go back!

Have I done anything to you?”

Elisha left him, and taking the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them;

he used the plowing equipment for fuel to boil their flesh,

and gave it to his people to eat.

Then Elisha left and followed Elijah as his attendant.

1 Kgs 19:16b, 19-21

From this past Sunday's readings in the Catholic lectionary, and therefore probably also in quite a few Protestant churches as well. And a very interesting one as well, and in particular for people who know a little about animal agriculture.  Particularly the references to oxen.

First of all, what was Elisha doing at the time Elijah found him.  Plowing, we are informed.  More specifically:

Elijah set out and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat,
as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen;
he was following the twelfth.

We learn a little later the following:

. . .and taking the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them;
he used the plowing equipment for fuel to boil their flesh,
and gave it to his people to eat.

These passages tell us a lot about what Elisha was doing, how he was doing it, and how many people were with him.

First of all, we know he was plowing, and "twelve yoke of oxen" were being used.  Now, that doesn't say that he was using all twelve yokes.  Rather, "he was following the twelfth".  In other words, the field was being plowed with twelve plows.

Does that mean twelve teams of oxen?  Not necessarily, it might actually mean twelve oxen. While we commonly imagine yokes to be for teams of two, they aren't necessarily, and oxen can be singly yoked.  I attempted to learn what would have been the case in the Middle East at this time, but that attempt failed. There's surprisingly (I guess) little information on that topic.  So we know that at least twelve oxen were being used, and maybe twenty four.

That also means that he had at least eleven men working with him, one for each yoke.  But he likely also had a lot more people with him than that.

We are given a clue here in that after he determined that he would in fact follow Elijah, Elisha slaughtered the oxen and boiled their meat, distributing it to his "people to eat".  Twelve oxen would be a lot of food for just twelve people, but its a little odd, if we think he was just outside the farmhouse, for him to be doing that.  But he no doubt was not.

Indeed, the custom everywhere for people using oxen was to keep them at the field where you were using them, and sleep there.  Oxen are slow. And you are using up their energy if you are driving them around just to get somewhere.  Moreover, you can hardly take your plowing equipment out in the field and leave it there and expect to find it all in the morning. So, chances are very high that Elisha and his crew were staying where they were plowing. And chances are also very high that the men who were plowing had families that came along, and preformed domestic chores for them while they were there in the field. When the oxen were slaughtered and boiled, they were probably feeding at least thirty people, but probably something more like forty, or even fifty.

It should also be noted that the oxen probably weren't the giant steer type oxen depicted above.  Indeed, as I don't know the original word, I don't know if it has a gender context.  "Oxen", as a word, did not originally have a gender context in English actually, but merely referred to a bovine used as a beast of burden.  As a word, it descends from the word "aurochs", which was a type of European wold cow.  Aurochs became a world like "ochs", which became "ox".  Only over time did ox come to mean a steer used as a beast of burden. At first, it meant bovine.  Anyhow, beyond that, the really big cattle we have today haven't always been like that.  They weren't tiny by any means, but modern cattle are quite a bit bigger than some (but not all) of their predecessors.  Indeed, I have a packed longhorn in the freezer right now, and while longhorns aren't tiny, their steaks are itty bitty.  They're a skinny steer.

The more surprising thing is that the plowing equipment was sufficient to provide the fuel, although the text does not really say that.  It says he used the plowing equipment for fuel, not that it was all the fuel. And here the reference is probably to more than the yokes, but also the plows, as plows were made of wood at the time.  All in all, it would have been a fair amount of wood.

And it would have been an expensive feast.  Indeed, Elisha was truly committing himself in an irreversible way.

I suppose details like this don't fascinate everyone. But they do me.  A glimpse into the agriculture of the past.