The Stray Ox and the People of Israel

Parashat Ki Teitzei, Deuteronomy 21:10 – 25:19

Haftarah of Consolation #5: Isaiah 54:1–10

Rachel Wolf, Congregation Beth Messiah, Cincinnati

You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep going astray, and hide yourself from them; you shall certainly bring them back to your brother. And if your brother is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it to your own house, and it shall remain with you until your brother seeks it; then you shall restore it to him.  (Deut 22:1–2)

A while back I saw an inspiring connection between this rather ordinary (though revolutionary) statute, and a seemingly unrelated section of Hosea. To explain the connection, I will focus on two Hebrew words and also make use of the Jewish literary technique called kal va-chomer, which literally means “light and heavy.”

One type of kal va-chomer appears in midrashic stories that make a teaching point using a commonplace situation most people would readily understand—the “light” part. This point is then used to help us understand something more complicated or far-reaching, perhaps a prophetic scripture or a particular commandment—the “heavy” part. In a kal va-chomer the commonplace story would be compared to the biblical point by saying, If this is true (that is, the moral or point of the commonplace situation), how much more is it true in the “heavy” parallel situation (the prophecy or commandment). 

The Hebrew word in this passage usually translated “going astray” is nidachim (root: נדח, nadach). “If you see your fellow Israelite’s ox [or sheep] straying, do not ignore it but be sure to take it back to its owner” (paraphrase). 

The verb form nadach means “to be thrust forth, impelled; to be expelled, driven out, cast away,” with the noun form nidach meaning “one expelled, driven out, an outcast. The lost ox or sheep that an Israelite may come upon was not merely a wanderer, a stray. These animals were driven from the flock—perhaps by a predator. I checked other references for this word and saw that nadach is most often applied to the people of Israel. Here are just two of many instances:  

Jer. 50:17 – Israel is like scattered sheep; the lions have driven him away.

Ezek 34:16 – I will seek the lost, bring back those driven away.

 (For a word study on nadach go to

 https://bethmessiah.net/rachel-wolf/f/word-study---nidach?blogcategory=Insights+and+Essays.)

We can easily apply this injunction of Torah in Deuteronomy 22:1–2 as a kal va-chomer: If this is true for your fellow Israelite’s oxen or sheep, how much more for your fellow Israelite? If you see your fellow Israelite straying, driven out, scattered or lost, be sure to take him back to his owner. That would be Hashem, the God of Israel himself! 

But the verse continues: “If your brother is not nearby, bring the ox or sheep to your own house until its proper owner seeks it and you shall restore it to him.”  

How does this apply to us, and to our brother Israelite who has been driven from the flock of his God, and how does it apply to the Haftarah portion? Another reading from the Prophets helps us see the connection.

Hosea and the Prostitute

Within the context starting at Hosea 2:14, God commands Hosea to show love to a woman who is a harlot “just like the love of the LORD for the children of Israel” (Hos 3:1). “So I bought her for myself. . . . And I said to her, ‘You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man—so, too, will I be toward you’” (Hosea 3:2–3). Hosea takes care of the harlot in his own house!

Then God immediately connects this with his ultimate Consolation and Restoration of Israel:

For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days. (Hosea 3:4–5)

The kal va-chomer would go something like this: If we are required to treat a stray ox or donkey as our own family member until its owner comes to claim it, how much more are we compelled to love, honor and protect the sons and daughters of Jerusalem until our God returns to redeem Jerusalem?

Haftarah of Consolation #5, Isaiah 54:1-10

This kal va-chomer connects us intimately to this week’s Haftarah of Consolation. Here we see Zion described as a barren and desolate woman, “a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit.”  

There are at least five different Hebrew roots used here in Isaiah 54 to connote barrenness and shame, all of which are predicated on rejection, on being an outcast (nidach). I am going to unpack the word translated “barren” in the opening verse, Isaiah 54:1: “Sing, O barren . . .” 

We see right away that the barren woman is told to sing; rejoice. But why? And, more, what does “barren” mean in this context? We know that all of the matriarchs were barren until Hashem visited them, but what does it mean when applied to Jerusalem, a metaphor for all of Israel? 

The Hebrew for “barren” here is עקרה (akara). In checking the origin of this word and more straightforward usages of it, I saw that עקר (akar) means an “offshoot” and the verb can mean “pluck or root up.” Aha! 

Zion/Jerusalem, the barren and forsaken woman, is barren (rejected, not able to bear fruit) specifically because she has been “plucked up” or “rooted out” of the soil in which God has planted her. She is a nidach, and an akara, captive in a foreign land. It is only the soil of Zion in which she can “expand her tents” and bear offspring for the blessing of the world. It is here she is called by the “God of the whole earth” (Isa 54:5) to be fruitful!  She cannot expand or bear among the nations. Zion and the people of Israel are intimately connected one with the other. One is not fruitful without the other. Each is barren without the other. 

The barren woman is called to sing, because her captivity is coming to an end! Her owner, her Maker, her husband is bringing her back home! 

“Sing, O barren,

You who have not borne!

Break forth into singing, and cry aloud,

You who have not labored with child!

For more are the children of the desolate

Than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord.

“For a brief moment I abandoned you,

but with deep compassion I will bring you back.

In a surge of anger

I hid my face from you for a moment,

but with everlasting kindness     

I will have compassion on you,”

says the Lord your Redeemer.

“Though the mountains be shaken

and the hills be removed,

yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken

nor my covenant of peace be removed,”

says the Lord, who has compassion on you.   (Isaiah 54:1-10 portions)

 Comfort Ye My People: No More Nidach, No More Akara

We are called to care for our fellow Israelite, even as we would care for his lost animal! We are to participate in God’s program of consolation and protection for the people of Israel until “the Lord, [our] Redeemer” returns to have compassion on her and take her back to his own home and bring all of her children back from captivity. This is the time, the era, of “favor for Zion” (Psa 102:13 [14]). It is the time for Zion to expand her tents for all of her offspring.

And if, as I believe, it is the time to favor Zion, how much more will this mean favor for all? “For if their being cast away [here Paul is reflecting the Hebrew word nidach] is the reconciling of the world, what will their [homecoming] be but life from the dead?” (Romans 11:15). 

Scripture references are from the New King James Version, NKJV.