*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Two women - Grinding in the East was performed, as it is now, chiefly by hand. The millstones were about 2 feet in diameter and 12 foot in thickness. The lower one was fixed, and the upper one was turned by a handle or crank. This was done by two persons, who sat opposite to each other. One took hold of the mill-handle and turned it half-way round; the other then seized it and completed the revolution. This was done by women - by servants of the lowest order - and was a very laborious employment. See Exodus 11:5; Job 31:10; Isaiah 47:2; Judges 16:21. The meaning of this verse is similar to the former. Of two persons sitting near each other, one shall be taken and the other. left. The calamity would be sudden, and would come upon them before they were aware.
(x) Two [women shall be] grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
(x) The Greek women and the barbarians ground and baked.
Two women shall be grinding at the mill,.... Though the word women is not in the Greek text, yet it is rightly supplied by our translators, as it is in the Persic version; for the word rendered grinding, is in the feminine gender, and was the work of women, as appears both from the Scripture, Exodus 11:5 and from several passages in the Jewish writings, concerning which their canons run thus (p),
"These are the works which a woman is to do for her husband, "she must grind", and bake, and wash, and boil, and make his bed, &c.
And elsewhere it is asked (q),
"how does she grind? she sits at the mill, and watches the flour, but she does not grind, or go after a beast, that so the mill may not stop; but if their custom is to grind at a hand mill, she may grind. The sanhedrim order this to poor people; for if she brings one handmaid, or money, or goods, sufficient to purchase, she is not obliged to grind, &c.
Frequent mention is made, of women grinding together at the same mill: a case is put concerning two women grinding at an hand mill (r), and various rules are given about it; as, that (s).
"a woman may lend her neighbour that is suspected of eating the fruits of the seventh year after time, a meal sieve, a fan, a mill, or a furnace, but she may not winnow, nor "grind with her".
Which it supposes she might do, if she was not suspected: again (t),
"the wife of a plebeian, "may grind" with the wife of a learned man, in the time that she is unclean, but not when she is clean.
Nor was this the custom of the Jews only, for women to grind, but also of other countries, as of the Abyssines (u), and of both Greeks and Barbarians (w):
the one shall be taken, and the other left; as before, one shall be taken by the Romans, and either put to death, or carried captive; and the other shall escape their hands, through the singular providence of God. The Ethiopic version, and Munster's Hebrew Gospel add, "two shall be in one bed, one shall be taken, and the other left"; but these words are not in the copies of Matthew in common, but are taken out of Luke 17:34 though they are in the Cambridge copy of Beza's, and in one of Stephens's,
(p) Misn. Cetubot, c. 5. sect. 5. Vid. T. Bab. Bava Kama, fol. 47. 9. & 48. 1. (q) Maimon. Hilch. Ishot. c. 21. sect. 5, 6. (r) T. Bab. Nidda, fol. 60. 2. (s) Misn. Sheviith, c. 5. 9. & Gittin, c. 5. sect. 9. (t) T. Hieros. Teruinot, fol. 46. 3. T. Bab. Gittin, fol. 61. 2. & Cholin, fol. 6. 2. Misn. Taharot, c. 7. sect. 4. (u) Ludolph. Hist. Ethiop. l. 4. c. 4. (w) Plutarch apud Beza. in loc.
Two women shall be grinding - Which was then a common employment of women.
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