Mill

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In the East two "circular stones" (reechahim), 2 ft. diameter, the lower fixed, and with the upper surface slightly convex, fitting into the upper stone's concavity. This stone has a hole through which the grain passes, above a pivot rising from the lower stone. About the pivot the "upper stone" (recheb, "the rider") is turned by a handle. Being moveable it could be thrown as a missile (Jdg_9:53 Gesenius translated "a cut piece of millstone," not a fragment, but the whole with its carefully cut surface; Rev_18:21).
Two women (Mat_24:41) facing one another, seated on the ground, both turned it round by the handle, the one supplying the grain through the hole. It was hard servile labor (Exo_11:5; Jdg_16:21; Isa_47:1-2; Lam_5:18). The mill stones were so essential for preparing food that they were forbidden to be taken in pledge (Deu_24:6). The cessation of the sound of grinding was a sign of desolation (Jer_25:10; Rev_18:22; Ecc_12:3-4, "the grinders cease because they are few ... the sound of the grinding is low".) Larger millstones were turned by asses; Mat_18:6 "a donkey millstone" (Greek).
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

Mill. The mills of the ancient Hebrews probably differed but little from those at present in use in the East. These consist of two circular stones, each about eighteen inches or two feet in diameter, the lower of which is fixed, and has its upper surface slightly convex, fitting into a corresponding concavity in the upper stone. In the latter is a hole thorough which the grain passes, immediately above a pivot or shaft which rises from the centre of the lower stone, and about which the upper stone is turned by means of an upright handle fixed near the edge.
It is worked by women, sometimes singly and sometimes two together, who are usually seated on the bare ground, Isa_47:1-2, "facing each other; both have hold of the handle by which the upper is turned round on the 'nether' millstone. The one whose right hand is disengaged throws in the grain as occasion requires, through the hole in the upper stone. It is not correct to say that one pushes it half round and then the other seizes the handle. This would be slow work, and would give a spasmodic motion to the stone. Both retain their hold, and pull to or push from, as men do with the whip or cross-cut saw. The proverb of our Saviour, Mat_24:41 is true to life, for women only grind.
I cannot recall an instance in which men were at the mill." — Thomson, "The Land and the Book," c.34. So essential were millstones for daily domestic use that they were forbidden to be taken in pledge. Deu_24:6. There were also larger mills that could only be turned by cattle or asses. Allusion to one of these is made in Mat_18:6. With the movable upper millstone of the hand-mill the woman of Thebez broke Abimelech's skull. Jdg_9:53.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

In the first ages they parched or roasted their grain; a practice which the people of Israel, as we learn from the Scriptures, long continued: afterward they pounded it in a mortar, to which Solomon thus alludes: “Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him,” Pro_27:22. This was succeeded by mills, similar to the hand mills formerly used in this country, of which there were two sorts; the first were large, and turned by the strength of horses or asses; the second were smaller, and wrought by men, commonly by slaves condemned to this hard labour, as a punishment for their crimes. Chardin remarks, in his manuscript, that the persons employed are generally female slaves, who are least regarded, or are least fitted for any thing else; for the work is extremely laborious, and esteemed the lowest employment about the house. Most of their corn is ground by these little mills, although they sometimes make use of large mills, wrought by oxen or camels. Near Ispahan, and some of the other great cities of Persia, he saw water mills; but he did not meet with a single wind mill in the east. Almost every family grind their wheat and barley at home, having two portable mill stones for that purpose; of which the uppermost is turned round by a small handle of wood or iron that is placed in the rim. When this stone is large, or expedition is required, a second person is called in to assist; and as it is usual for the women only to be concerned in this employment, who seat themselves over against each other, with the mill stone between them, we may see the propriety of the expression in the declaration of Moses: “And all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne even unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill,” Exo_11:5. The manner in which the hand mills are worked is well described by Dr. E. D. Clarke, in his Travels: “Scarcely had we reached the apartment prepared for our reception, when, looking from the window into the court yard belonging to the house, we beheld two women grinding at the mill, in a manner most forcibly illustrating the saying of our Saviour: ‘Two women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left.' They were preparing flour to make our bread, as it is always customary in the country when strangers arrive. The two women, seated upon the ground opposite to each other, held between them two round flat stones, such as are seen in Lapland, and such as in Scotland are called querns. In the centre of the upper stone was a cavity for pouring in the corn, and by the side of this an upright wooden handle for moving the stone. As this operation began, one of the women opposite received it from her companion, who pushed it toward her, who again sent it to her companion; thus communicating a rotatory motion to the upper stone, their left hand being all the while employed in supplying fresh corn, as fast as the bran and flour escaped from the sides of the machine.” When they are not impelled, as in this instance, to premature exertions by the arrival of strangers, they grind their corn in the morning at break of day: the noise of the mill is then to be heard every where, and is often so great as to rouse the inhabitants of the cities from their slumbers; for it is well known they bake their bread every day, and commonly grind their corn as it is wanted. The noise of the mill stone is therefore, with great propriety, selected by the prophet as one of the tokens of a populous and thriving country: “Moreover, I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of mill stones and the light of a candle, and their whole land shall be a desolation,” Jer_25:10. The morning shall no more be cheered with the joyful sound of the mill, nor the shadows of evening by the light of a candle; the morning shall be silent, and the evening dark and melancholy, where desolation reigns. “At the earliest dawn of the morning,” says Mr. Forbes, “in all the Hindoo towns and villages, the hand mills are at work, when the menials and widows grind meal for the daily consumption of the family: this work is always performed by women, who resume their task every morning, especially the forlorn Hindoo widows, divested of every ornament, and with their heads shaved, degraded to almost a state of servitude.” How affecting, then, is the call to the daughter of Babylon!—”Come down, and sit in the dust, O daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take the mill stones, and grind meal; uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers,”
Isa_47:1-2.
The custom of daily grinding their corn for the family, shows the propriety of the law: “No man shall take the nether or the upper mill stone to pledge, for he taketh a man's life to pledge;” because if he take either the upper or the nether mill stone, he deprives him of his daily provision, which cannot be prepared without them. That complete and perpetual desolation which, by the just allotment of Heaven, is ere long to overtake the mystical Babylon, is clearly signified by the same precept: “The sound of the mill stone shall be heard no more at all in thee,” Rev_18:22. The means of subsistence being entirely destroyed, no human creature shall ever occupy the ruined habitations more. In the book of Judges, the sacred historian alludes, with characteristic accuracy, to several circumstances implied in that custom, where he describes the fall of Abimelech. A woman of Thebez, driven to desperation by his furious attack on the tower, started up from the mill at which she was grinding, seized the upper mill stone, פלה דכב , and, rushing to the top of the gate, cast it on his head, and fractured his skull. This was the feat of a woman, for the mill is worked only by females; it was not a piece of a mill stone, but the rider, the distinguishing name of the upper mill stone, which literally rides upon the other, and is a piece or division of the mill: it was a stone of two feet broad, and therefore fully sufficient, when thrown from such a height, to produce the effect mentioned in the narrative. It displays, also, the vindictive contempt which suggested the punishment of Samson, the captive ruler of Israel, that the Philistines, with barbarous contumely, compelled him to perform the meanest service of a female slave; they sent him to grind in the prison, Jdg_16:21, but not for himself alone; this, although extremely mortifying to the hero, had been more tolerable; they made him grinder for the prison, perhaps while the vilest malefactor was permitted to look on, and join in the mockery. Samson, the ruler and avenger of Israel, labours, as Isaiah foretold the virgin daughter of Babylon should labour: “Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon: there is no throne,” no seat for thee, “O daughter of the Chaldeans. Take the mill stones and grind meal,” but not with the wonted song; “Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness,” there to conceal thy vexation and disgrace, Isa_47:1-2; Isa_47:5. The females engaged in this operation, endeavoured to beguile the lingering hours of toilsome exertion with a song. We learn from an expression of Aristophanes, preserved by Athenaeus, that the Grecian maidens accompanied the sound of the mill stones with their voices. This circumstance imparts force to the description of the prophet, the light of a candle was no more to be seen in the evening; the sound of the mill stones, the indication of plenty, and the song of the grinders, the natural expression of joy and happiness, were no more to be heard at the dawn. The grinding of corn at so early an hour throws light on a passage of considerable obscurity: “And the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, went, and came about the heat of the day to the house of Ishbosheth, who lay on a bed at noon; and they came thither into the midst of the house, as though they would have fetched wheat, and they smote him under the fifth rib; and Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped,” 2Sa_4:5-7. It is still a custom in the east, according to Dr. Perry, to allow their soldiers a certain quantity of corn, with other articles of provisions, together with some pay; and as it was the custom, also to carry their corn to the mill at break of day, these two captains very naturally went to the palace the day before to fetch wheat, in order to distribute it to the soldiers, that it might be sent to the mill at the accustomed hour in the morning. The princes of the east in those days, as the history of David shows, lounged in their divan, or reposed on their couch, till the cool of the evening began to advance. Rechab and Baanah, therefore, came in the heat of the day, when they knew that Ishbosheth, their master, would be resting on his bed; and as it was necessary, for the reason just given, to have the corn the day before it was needed, their coming at that time, though it might be a little earlier than usual, created no suspicion, and attracted no notice.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.


Fig. 252?Woman grinding with a mill
The mill for grinding corn had not wholly superseded the mortar for pounding it in the time of Moses. The mortar and the mill are named together in Num_11:8. But fine meal, that is, meal ground or pounded fine, is mentioned so early as the time of Abraham (Gen_18:6): hence mills and mortars must have been previously known. The mill common among the Hebrews differed little from that which is in use to this day throughout Western Asia and Northern Africa. It consisted of two circular stones two feet in diameter, and half a foot thick. The lower is called the 'nether millstone,' Job_41:24, and the upper the 'rider' (Jdg_9:53; 2Sa_11:21). The former was usually fixed to the floor, and had a slight elevation in the center, or, in other words, was slightly convex in the upper surface. The upper stone had a concavity in its under surface fitting to, or receiving, the convexity of the lower stone. There was a hole in the top, through which the corn was introduced by handfuls at a time. The upper stone had an upright stick fixed in it as a handle, by which it was made to turn upon the lower stone, and by this action the corn was ground, and came out at the edges. As there were neither public mills nor bakers, except the king's (Gen_40:2; Hos_7:4-8), each family possessed a mill; and as it was in daily use, it was made an infringement of the law for a person to take another's mill or millstone in pledge (Deu_24:6). The mill was, as now, commonly turned by two persons, usually women, and these, the work being laborious, the lowest maid-servants in the house. They sat opposite each other. One took hold of the mill-handle, and impelled it half way round; the other then seized it, and completed the revolution (Exo_11:5; Job_31:10-11; Isa_47:2; Mat_24:41). As the labor was severe and menial, enemies taken in war were often condemned to perform it (Jdg_16:21; Lam_5:13). It will be seen that this millstone does not materially differ from the Highland quern; and is, indeed, an obvious resource in those remote quarters, where a population is too thin or too scattered to afford remunerative employment to a miller by trade. In the East this trade is still unknown, the hand-mill being in general and exclusive use among the corn-consuming, and the mortar among the rice-consuming, nations [BREAD].




The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

Mill
(רֵחִיַם, recha'yim, the two millstones, from רָחָה, to bruise, Exo_11:5; “mills,” Num_10:8; “millstones,” Isa_47:2; Jer_25:10; “nether” millstone, Deu_24:6; μύλων, Mat_24:21. Each millstone was called פֶּלָח, pe'lach, a slice or piece, as of fruit, in Son_4:3; 1Sa_30:12; always “piece” of a millstone, Jdg_9:53; 2Sa_11:21; Job_41:24; Gr. μύλος, Mat_18:6; Luk_17:2; Rev_18:21-22). The mill (properly טִהֲנָה, tachanah', a “grinding,” Ecc_12:4; טְחוֹן, techon', “to grind,” Lam_5:13; Gr. μύλη) for grinding grain had not wholly superseded the mortar for pounding it in the time of Moses (Num_11:8). SEE MORTAR.
But fine meal-that is, meal ground or pounded fine — is mentioned so early as the time of Abraham (Gen_18:6): hence mills and mortars must have been previously known. SEE GRITS.
The mill common among the Hebrews differed little from that which is in use to this day throughout Western Asia and Northern Africa. It consisted of two circular stones, two feet in diameter and half a foot thick. The lower is called the “nether millstone” (Job_41:16 [24]), and the upper the “rider” (Jdg_9:53; 2Sa_11:21). The former was usually fixed to the floor, and had a slight elevation in the center, or, in other words, was slightly convex in the upper surface. The upper stone had a concavity in its under surface fitting to, or receiving, the convexity of the lower stone. There was a hole in the top, through which the grain was introduced by handfuls at a time. The upper stone had an upright stick fixed in it as a handle, which which it was made to turn upon the lower stone, and by this action the grain was ground, and came out at the edges. As there were neither public mills nor bakers, except the king's (Gen_40:2; Hos_7:4-8), each family possessed a mill;, and, as it was in daily use, it was made an infringement of the law for a person to take another's mill or millstone in pledge (Deu_24:6). SEE MILLSTONE.
On the second day, in warm climates, bread becomes dry and insipid; hence the necessity of baking every day, and hence also the daily grinding at the mills early in the morning. SEE BREAD.
It is worked by women, sometimes singly and sometimes two together, who are usually seated on the bare ground (Isa_47:1-2) facing each other; both have hold of the handle by which the upper is turned round on the ‘nether' millstone. The one whose right hand is disengaged throws in the grain as occasion requires through the hole in the upper stone. It is not correct to say that one pushes it half round, and then the other seizes the handle. This would be slow work, and would give a spasmodic motion to the stone. Both retain their hold, and pull to, or push from, as men do with the whip or cross-cut saw. The proverb of our Savior (Mat_24:41) is true to life, for women only grind. I cannot recall an instance in which men were at the mill” (Thomson, Land and Book, 2:295). The labor is very hard, and the task of grinding is in consequence performed only by the lowest servants (Exo_11:5; comp. Plaut. Merc. 2:3) and captives (Jdg_16:21; Job_31:10; Isa_47:1-2; Lam_5:13; comp. Homer, Od. 7:103; Suetonius, Tib. c. 51). Grinding is reckoned in the Mishna (Shabbath, 7:2) among the chief household duties, to be performed by the wife unless she brought with her one servant (Cethuboth, 5:5); in which case she was relieved from grinding, baking, and washing, but was still obliged to suckle her child, make her husband's bed, and work in wool. Among the Fellahs of the Hauran, one of the chief articles of furniture described by Burckhardt (Syria, page 292) is the “hand-mill, which is used in summer when there is no water in the wadies to drive the mills.” The operation occasions considerable noise, and its simultaneous performance in a great number of houses or tents forms one of the sounds as indicative of an active population in the East as the sound of wheel- carriages in the West.
Hence the sound of the mill is the indication of peaceful household life, and the absence of it is a sign of desolation and abandonment: “When the sound of the mill is low” (Ecc_12:4). No more affecting picture of utter desolation could be imagined than that conveyed in the threat denounced against Judah by the mouth of the prophet Jer_25:10 : “I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle” (comp. Rev_18:22). The song of the women grinding is supposed by some to be alluded to in the above passage of Ecclesiastes, and it was evidently so understood by the Sept.; but Dr. Robinson says (1:485), “We heard no song as an accompaniment to the work,” and Dr. Hackett (Bibl. Illust. page 49) describes it rather as shrieking than singing. It is alluded to in Homer (Od. 20:105-119); and Athenaeus (14, page 619a) refers to a peculiar chant which was sung by women winnowing corn, and mentioned by Aristophanes in the Thesmophoriazusae. The hand-mills of the ancient Egyptians appear to have been of the same character as those of their descendants, and like them were worked by women (Wilkinson, Anc. Eg. 2:118, etc.). “They had also a large mill on a very similar principle, but the stones were of far greater power and dimensions; and this could only have been turned by cattle or asses, like those of the ancient Romans and of the modern Cairenes.” It was the millstone of a mill of this kind, driven by an ass, which is alluded to in Mat_18:6 (μύλος ὀνικός), to distinguish it, says Lightfoot (Hor. Hebr. ad loc.), from those small mills which were used to grind spices for the wound of circumcision, or for the delights of the Sabbath, and to which both Kimchi and: Jarchi find a reference in Jer_25:10. Of a married man with slender means it is said in the Talmud (Kiddushin, page 29b), “With a millstone on his neck he studies the law,” and the expression is still proverbial (Tendlau, Sprichworter, page 181). The ordinary mill of the Romans, however, was essentially like the conical hand-mill of the East, as specimens preserved among the ruins of bake-houses in Pompeii show (see Smith's Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antiq. s.v. Mola).
It was the movable upper millstone of the hand-mill with which the woman of Thebez broke Abimelech's skull (Jdg_9:53). It is now generally made, according to Dr. Thomson, of a porous lava brought from the Hauran, both stones being of the same material; but, says the same traveller, “I have seen the nether made of a compact sandstone, and quite thick, while the upper was of this lava, probably because from its lightness it is the more easily driven round with the hand” (Land and Book, 2:296). The porous lava to which he refers is probably the same as the black tufa mentioned by Burckhardt (Syria, page 57), the blocks of which are brought from the Lejah, and are fashioned into millstones by the inhabitants of Ezra, a village in the Hauran. “They vary in price according to their size, from fifteen to sixty piastres, and are preferred to all others on account of the hardness of the stone.”
One passage (Lamenations 5:13) is deserving of notice, which Hoheisel (De Molis Manual. Vet. in Ugolini, volume 29) explains in a manner which gives it a point that is lost in our Auth. Vers. It may be rendered, “The choice (men) bore the mill (טְחוֹן, techen), and the youths stumbled beneath the wood;” the wood being the woodwork or shaft of the mill, which the captives were compelled to carry. There are, moreover, allusions to other apparatus connected with the operation of grinding — the sieve, or bolter (נָפָה, naphah', Isa_30:28; or כְּבָרָה, kgbarah', Amo_9:9), and the hopper, though the latter is only found in the Mishna (Zabim, 4:3), and was a late invention. We also find in the Mishna (Demai, 3:4) that mention is made of a miller (טוֹחֵן, tochen), indicating that grinding grain was recognised as a distinct occupation. Wind-mills and water-mills are of more recent date.

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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