Yoke/scales
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Ζυγός names both the yoke placed on the neck of a working animal (connecting two animals to the same load) and the balance scale (a yoke-shaped instrument with two suspended pans). In the NT it appears in both senses, but its theological weight comes primarily from its yoke-meaning: the burden, obligation, or system under which a person lives and works.
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Full entry for ζυγός (G2218) · Open the biblical lexicon
Ζυγός names both the yoke placed on the neck of a working animal (connecting two animals to the same load) and the balance scale (a yoke-shaped instrument with two suspended pans). In the NT it appears in both senses, but its theological weight comes primarily from its yoke-meaning: the burden, obligation, or system under which a person lives and works.
The BSB source-word alignment has 6 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include yoke (2), [the] yoke (1), a pair of scales (1), a yoke (1), by a yoke (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 11:29. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (2), 1 Timothy (1), Acts (1), Galatians (1).
Ζυγός names both the yoke placed on the neck of a working animal (connecting two animals to the same load) and the balance scale (a yoke-shaped instrument with two suspended pans). In the NT it appears in both senses, but its theological weight comes primarily from its yoke-meaning: the burden, obligation, or system under which a person lives and works. A yoke places a person under an authority; the question the NT asks is whose yoke you are bearing.
Matthew 11:28-30 contains the NT's defining ζυγός statement: 'Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me... For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.' The invitation presupposes that the hearer is already bearing a yoke — the exhausted and burdened of 11:28 are not yoke-free; they are carrying the wrong ones. Jesus does not invite rest-as-retirement but rest-as-new-yoke: the one who comes to him takes up a different yoke, learning from the one who is gentle and humble in heart.
The paradox is precise: the rest comes through bearing the yoke, not by removing it. The easiness and lightness of Jesus's yoke is not a claim about effortlessness but about the character of the master and the life-giving quality of what is learned. Acts 15:10 deploys ζυγός in the Jerusalem Council's decision about Gentile believers: 'why do you test God by placing on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?'
Peter uses ζυγός for the Mosaic law as experienced burden — not to condemn the law but to describe the actual experience of those who tried to bear it as the ground of standing with God. The yoke that was unbearable in the hands of the law-as-earning-device is contrasted with grace (15:11). Galatians 5:1 extends this logic: 'do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery.'
Freedom from the law-as-earning-yoke is not freedom to do anything but freedom to live under a different yoke — the yoke of Christ (Matthew 11:29) and the leading of the Spirit (5:16-18). The ζυγός of slavery (law-keeping as the ground of acceptance) is precisely what Galatians opposes. Revelation 6:5 shifts to the scales sense: the rider on the black horse carries 'a pair of scales (ζυγόν),' associated with the economic scarcity of the third seal.
The balance scale measures and limits — in Revelation's symbolic world, it represents conditions of scarcity, rationing, and economic control.
Ζυγός appears 6 times in the New Testament, in two distinct senses: the yoke as symbol of obligation and subjection (Matthew 11:29, 30; Acts 15:10; Galatians 5:1; 1 Timothy 6:1) and the balance scale (Revelation 6:5). The yoke-sense dominates theologically: the NT consistently contrasts the unbearable yoke of the law-as-earning-device with the easy yoke of Christ, and the yoke of slavery with the freedom Christ brings.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
The invitation to the right yoke: Jesus does not offer yoke-freedom but yoke-exchange. The one who comes to him takes up a new ζυγός — one shaped by the character of the master (gentle, humble) rather than the weight of the system. The rest that is promised ('you will find rest for your souls') comes through learning from Jesus within the yoke, not by removing it. This places discipleship under the metaphor of shared labor rather than passive receiving.
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
The quality of Jesus's ζυγός: 'easy' (chrēstos — good, useful, pleasant) and 'light' (elaphron — not heavy). The contrast is with the yokes the weary are already bearing — the misrepresented burdens of religious obligation, the distortion of the law into a mechanism of earning rather than a guide for living. The lightness of Jesus's yoke is not the promise of a cost-free life; it is the promise of a master whose character makes the yoke bearable and whose companionship makes the load light.
Now then, why do you test God by placing on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?
Ζυγός as the experienced unbearability of law-as-earning: Peter does not condemn the Mosaic law itself but the particular use of it — placing it on Gentile believers as a precondition for standing with God. The word 'necks' is striking: the yoke placed on the neck is coercive, forced, not freely taken. The contrast with Matthew 11:29 ('take my yoke') is complete: one is invited freely; the other is forced onto others.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery.
Ζυγός as the slavery of law-as-earning: the freedom Christ brings is freedom from this specific ζυγός. The Galatian believers were in danger of returning to a yoke they had been freed from — not the yoke of Christ (Matthew 11:29) but the yoke of earning acceptance through legal observance. Paul's warning is structural: returning to this yoke is not a minor adjustment but a departure from the gospel's central claim about what Christ's death accomplished.
And when the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” Then I looked and saw a black horse, and its rider held in his hand a pair of scales.
Ζυγός as the balance scale of scarcity: the third horseman's scales (ζυγόν) are associated with measured, rationed provision — 'a quart of wheat for a denarius' (6:6). The instrument of measurement here is the symbol of economic control and judgment-scarcity. This use of ζυγός is distinct from the yoke-sense but related: the scale measures what the yoke earns; in the judgment context, neither is liberating.
All who are under the yoke of slavery should regard their masters as fully worthy of honor, so that God’s name and our teaching will not be discredited.
Ζυγός for the actual yoke of enslaved persons: Paul uses the word for the social-legal condition of enslaved people within the first-century household structure. The instruction is not an endorsement of slavery but a pastoral word about how the gospel is to be witnessed within it. The ζυγός here is literal and social, not metaphorical — a reminder that the word's NT range runs from social condition to theological metaphor.
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Greek word. A yoke symbolizing submission to authority; in NT theology, Christ's yoke represents gracious, liberating discipline.
A yoke symbolizing submission to authority; in NT theology, Christ's yoke represents gracious, liberating discipline.
(ζεύγνυμι), [in LXX for עֹל, מֹאזֵן, etc. ;]
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
6 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a yoke, heavy burden, pair of scales
Read versea yoke, heavy burden, pair of scales
Read versea yoke, heavy burden, pair of scales
Read versea yoke, heavy burden, pair of scales
Read versea yoke, heavy burden, pair of scales
Read versea yoke, heavy burden, pair of scales
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 3 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 6 lexical occurrence verses.
Illustrates the weight of law-based obligation for salvation. 1 Timothy 6:1-2
Paul acknowledges the weight of subjection while calling for faithful endurance. Acts 15:6-11
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Ζυγός is the NT's word for the fact that everyone is bearing something — everyone is under some form of obligation, some shaping force, some master whose character determines the weight they carry. Matthew 11:28-30 makes this explicit: the invitation to rest is not an invitation to set down all burdens but to exchange the wrong yoke for the right one. Jesus does not say 'come to me and put nothing on your shoulders.'
He says 'take my yoke.' The paradox is one of the most important in the NT: the rest is found through the yoke. That means preaching ζυγός must resist the drift toward a Christianity of no demands. The yoke of Christ is real — it involves learning from him, which means submission, formation, the shaping of life around his character. What makes it easy and light is not its absence of weight but the character of the one who bears it with the disciple: gentle and humble in heart.
The contrast with Acts 15:10 and Galatians 5:1 then gives the pastoral edge: there is a wrong yoke that masquerades as the right one, and it is the yoke of earning acceptance through religious performance. Paul's Galatian churches were in danger of putting it back on. That yoke is heavy not because its requirements are hard but because no one can bear it to completion — it is designed to produce what law-as-earning always produces: either despair (I cannot do enough) or pride (I have done enough).
The yoke of Christ produces neither. It produces rest — because the one who bears it with us has already fulfilled what we could not.
Matt.11.29
Ζυγός derives from ζεύγνυμι (to yoke, join) and can refer to (a) the crossbeam joining two draft animals, (b) the balance scale with its cross-beam and suspended pans, or (c) any metaphorical pair or coupling. Abbott-Smith notes all three senses and identifies Matthew 11:29-30, Acts 15:10, Galatians 5:1, and 1 Timothy 6:1 as using the yoke-sense, while Revelation 6:5 uses the scale-sense.
The LXX uses ζυγός extensively for both the literal agricultural yoke and the prophetic metaphor of subjection (Isaiah 9:4; Jeremiah 27:8-12; Sirach 51:26 — 'Put your neck into her yoke' — a wisdom text that Matthew 11 likely echoes).
The OT background of ζυγός is rich. The yoke was a dominant prophetic metaphor for subjection to foreign powers: Isaiah 9:4 ('for as in the day of Midian's defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them'), Jeremiah 27-28 (the contest between Jeremiah and Hananiah over the symbolic yoke of Babylon's dominion), and Lamentations 3:27 ('it is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young').
These uses establish the yoke as the symbol of real, lived subjection to a power greater than oneself. Sirach 51:23-27 then gives the wisdom tradition its version of the invitation: 'Draw near to me, you who are uneducated... put your necks under her yoke... I took pains to learn it.' Matthew 11:28-30 recasts this wisdom invitation in christological terms: Jesus himself is the wisdom who now makes the invitation, and his yoke is the formation that produces rest rather than the burden that produces exhaustion.
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