Bible Strands
Isaiah 1:3
The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know; My people do not understand.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Yahweh addresses Israel directly, with heavens and earth summoned as witnesses (v. 2), in the opening of a lawsuit against a people who have rebelled after being raised and trained.
The words — יָדַע (yada') carries the sense of intimate, relational recognition, not mere factual awareness; the verse's force is that an ox's recognition of its owner is the minimal bar Israel fails to meet.
The thread — Jeremiah 8:7 deploys the same animal-knowledge argument (stork, turtledove); Jeremiah 4:22 repeats "they have not known Me" with the same charge of foolishness; Isaiah 44:18 attributes the failure to shut eyes and closed minds.
Why it lands — The comparison sets the bar at the level of a domesticated animal, leaving no room for intellectual or cultural excuse; the reader is asked to name whether their own "not knowing" is ignorance or refusal.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 8:7 Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons. The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush keep their time of migration, but My people do not know the requirements of the LORD.
- Jeremiah 4:22 “For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they know not how to do good.”
- Isaiah 44:18 They do not comprehend or discern, for He has shut their eyes so they cannot see and closed their minds so they cannot understand.
- Isaiah 5:12 At their feasts are the lyre and harp, tambourines and flutes and wine. They disregard the actions of the LORD and fail to see the work of His hands.
- Matthew 13:13 This is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.’
- Psalms 94:8 Take notice, O senseless among the people! O fools, when will you be wise?
- Romans 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
- Isaiah 27:11 When its limbs are dry, they are broken off. Women come and use them for kindling; for this is a people without understanding. Therefore their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor.
- Deuteronomy 32:28 Israel is a nation devoid of counsel, with no understanding among them.
- 2 Peter 3:5 But they deliberately overlook the fact that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water,