Cow

The cow appears in the UPDV in two registers: as a draft animal pressed into harness or trained to thresh grain, and as a figure of self-indulgent women in Samaria. The umbrella collects mainly the figurative side and one striking Philistine narrative in which the literal animal carries the ark.

Used for pulling: the milch kine and the ark

The literal use turns up at Beth-shemesh. The Philistines design a test for whether the plague on them is from Yahweh: they yoke two unbroken nursing cows to a new cart, separate them from their calves, and load the ark on top. "Now therefore you⁺ take and prepare a new cart, and two milch kine, on which there has come no yoke; and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them" (1Sa 6:7). The animals' instinct should be to circle back to their calves; if instead they go straight to Israel's territory, the Philistines will know "he has done us this great evil" (1Sa 6:9). The narrative records that "the kine took the straight way by the way to Beth-shemesh; they went along the highway, lowing as they went, and didn't turn aside to the right hand or to the left" (1Sa 6:12). The cows' deviation from natural behavior is the verdict.

Hosea picks up the same image of the trained draft animal: "And Ephraim is a heifer that is taught, that loves to tread out [the grain]; but I have passed by her fair neck: I will set a rider on Ephraim; Judah will plow, Jacob will break his clods" (Hos 10:11). Ephraim is figured as a heifer that already enjoys the lighter labor of treading; the prophecy moves her into the heavier yoke.

Figurative: the kine of Bashan

The strongest figurative use is Amos's address to the wealthy women of Samaria: "Hear this word, you⁺ kine of Bashan, who are in the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their lords, Bring, and let us drink" (Amos 4:1). The pasture of Bashan was famous for its fattened cattle, and the prophecy turns that fact into an indictment — well-fed bodies built on the oppression of the poor and on demands made of their husbands.