Devotionals

No More Yokes

by Anne Adams
04/18/24
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I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high. Leviticus 26:13 (NIV)

Struggling against the metal rings of the yoke that encircled her neck, the young woman strained to look upward as she awakened to the morning light. However, the weight of her iron shoulder yoke made her lower her gaze and she audibly sighed in anguish. No, she thought, it must have just been a dream – and somehow her yoke was gone, she could hold up her head and stand erect. Of course it was a dream - slaves like her weren’t supposed to stand erect. No, her yoke would stay in place.   

This woman may be fictitious, but the iron slave yokes in the ancient world were very real since they were used to confine prisoners and slaves to keep them together and to prevent escape. 

Such a yoke was certainly familiar to the people of Israel and they would certainly understand the image used by the author of Leviticus when he wrote how as in our passagea broken yoke described how God had had delivered His people from Egyptian slavery.

Though we may not experience slavery and its yokes today we can still be captives - to our own imprisoning thoughts of guilt laden worry.  Because even after we’ve failed the Lord through sin and then even after our confession and assured of His forgiveness, we can be haunted by the unfortunate memories.

So what to do? Maybe the best way to find relief is to learn to leave past sins in the past, and then erase the memories, thus stepping away from the confining yoke of misery. And also with a new direction to serve God as His people did – when the yoke is broken and we can stand erect.