Luke 14:5-6

The Ox Falls in a Pit and the People of God are Deceived by a False Church

5: And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day? 6: And they could not answer him again to these things.

• Jesus continues to illustrate that the Church leaders (lawyers and Pharisees) do not understand the keeping of the Sabbath. He illustrates His point by using an ox, and ass and a pit which they have fallen into. An ox or an ass represents a man, or God’s people:

Isaiah 66:3 He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man;
Isaiah 1:3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
Proverbs 7:22 He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter

• A pit represents an unfaithful woman:

Proverbs 23:27 For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.
Proverbs 2:16-17 To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.

• A woman represents a Church

Isaiah54:5-6 For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name . . . : For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth

• An unfaithful woman or whore (deep ditch) or strange woman (pit) represents a false Church. With the illustration of an ox and an ass falling into a pit, Jesus was describing how the people of God would be deceived by a false Church. Just as the ox and ass needed to be physically pulled out of the pit on the Sabbath Day, so the people of God need to be spiritually freed from the deception of the false Church with regard to the Sabbath Day. According to Jesus, the Church leaders would pull their own ox or ass out of a physical pit but they will not respond to the illustration of Jesus and spiritually free their own people from the deception regarding the Sabbath day.