1 Corinthians 9:8-10
8. as a man--I speak thus not merely according to human judgment, but with the sanction of the divine law also. 9. ox ... treadeth ... corn--(De 25:4). In the East to the present day they do not after reaping carry the sheaves home to barns as we do, but take them to an area under the open air to be threshed by the oxen treading them with their feet, or else drawing a threshing instrument over them (compare Mi 4:13). Doth God ... care for oxen?--rather, "Is it for the oxen that God careth?" Is the animal the ultimate object for whose sake this law was given? No. God does care for the lower animal (Psa 36:6; Mt 10:29), but it is with the ultimate aim of the welfare of man, the head of animal creation. In the humane consideration shown for the lower animal, we are to learn that still more ought it to be exercised in the case of man, the ultimate object of the law; and that the human (spiritual as well as temporal) laborer is worthy of his hire. 10. altogether--Join this with "saith." "Does he (the divine lawgiver) by all means say it for our sakes?" It would be untrue, that God saith it altogether (in the sense of solely) for our sakes. But it is true, that He by all means saith it for our sakes as the ultimate object in the lower world. Grotius, however, translates, "mainly" or "especially," instead of altogether. that--"meaning that" [Alford]; literally, "because." should plough--ought to plough in hope. The obligation rests with the people not to let their minister labor without remuneration. he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope--The oldest manuscript versions and Fathers read, "He that thresheth (should or ought to thresh) in the hope of partaking" (namely, of the fruit of his threshing). "He that plougheth," spiritually, is the first planter of a church in a place (compare 1Co 3:6, 9); "he that thresheth," the minister who tends a church already planted.
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