No man shall take the lower or the upper millstone in pledge: for he takes a man's living in pledge.
All Commentaries on Deuteronomy 24:6 Go To Deuteronomy 24
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Life, or the means of supporting himself. (Haydock)
The upper millstone was deemed the less necessary. In more ancient times it was customary to dry the wheat by fire, and afterwards to pound it in a mortar. Then millstones were invented, which slaves of the meanest condition had to turn. Pliny ( xviii. 10,) mentions, that some few water-mills were used in his time. But this useful invention had been neglected, till Belisarius restored it again in the fifth century, when he was besieged in Rome by the Goths. (Procop.)
Jonathan, and the paraphrast of Jerusalem, explain this quite in a different sense: "Thou shalt not use any enchantment for the consummation of marriage, since it would be to destroy the lives of the children to be born."
