Proverbs 14:4

4. The crib is clean אבוס , ( ebhus,) crib, stall, or barn. It means a place for stabling and feeding. Hence, where no oxen are the “crib” may well be clean of both feed and manure.

Increase Income, profit. The words here rendered “oxen” and “ox” are not the same. The first is אלפים , ( alaphim,) and the second שׁור , ( shor,) which, to preserve the unity of the original, might be rendered bullock. Shor seems to be a more generic term than alaphim, and is applied to all bovine animals, whether old or young, male or female. Alaphim is never used in the singular, except in the name of the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, from which comes the Greek alpha, and from this and the second Greek letter, beta, our word alphabet, alpha, beta, the a’s, b’s, or, as we say, the abc’s. The root, אל Š , ( aleph,) among its significations has this: to be wonted, tame, gentle; thus the eleph (pl. alaphim) was the tame animal par excellence; and, as used here, may stand representatively for domestic animals in general. It is as true now as in the days of Solomon, so far as agricultural life is concerned. So “much increase” is by the strength of the ox, that is, results from the rearing, keeping, and skillful employment of domestic animals. A farm properly stocked with animals adapted to it not only brings in direct profit to the husbandman, but indirectly, in the fertilizing of the soil and its increased capabilities of production; consequently, in the increased value of the land.