235. Grinding, a Punishment

From: Manners and Customs of the Bible By: James M. Freeman

• 1 min. read • grade level: 9

Judges 16:21²¹But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house. (Judges 16:21). The Philistines... bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house.

Grinding a hand mill was the lowest kind of slave labor. Among the Greeks and Romans slaves were sometimes compelled to do this as a punishment. It was doubtless considered equally degrading in the days of Samson, and for this reason the Philistines condemned him to it after they destroyed his sight. Some have endeavored to illustrate this scene by a pictorial representation of the Hebrew giant harnessed in leather bands to a huge wooden lever which is connected with a mill! Nothing of the sort is referred to in the text. The “ass’s mill” was probably the invention of a later age, and even if it existed in Samson’s day, how could he use it when he was “bound with fetters?” He was simply compelled to do the degrading work of a woman or a slave at the ordinary hand-mill, which is described in the note on Matthew 24:41⁴¹Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. (Matthew 24:41) (#706). Jeremiah laments the same fate which befell the young men of his people (Lam. 5:13¹³They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood. (Lamentations 5:13)).

Click here to show subject links in the text for more information.