The former dainty queen has now become a servant girl, grinding grain to make flour, taking off some of her clothes, and crossing rivers. This pictures the complete humiliation of the Babylonians.
Take the millstones and grind meal means the servant girl is to grind grain into flour by using a mill. In Old Testament times the normal mill was relatively small and operated by hand. The grain was placed on a stationary bottom stone, and a top stone was pressed down on top of the grain and scraped back and forth to grind the grain into flour. Meal refers to roughly ground grain, not flour. New International Version and New American Bible render grind meal as “grind flour,” but it is more correct to say “grind grain into flour.” Bible en français courant provides a helpful model for this whole line with “Take the two stones of the mill and prepare the flour.”
Put off your veil, strip off your robe, uncover your legs: There are two ways of understanding the removal of clothes here. According to the first understanding, the girl makes herself comfortable to grind grain by removing her outer clothes and pulling up her skirt. According to the second one, she removes some of her clothes in order to pass through rivers (so Good News Translation, Bible en français courant). For New International Version and Revised English Bible she takes off her veil to make flour, but she lifts up her skirt to cross rivers, so they have a combination of the two views. Contemporary English Version has a footnote here that tries to make some sense of the relationship between this part of the verse and the rest of it: “This may be a command to get ready for work that requires wading in the river, or it may be a warning that they are going to be taken away as slaves.” Since it is not clear how the commands in this verse link to each other, we encourage translators to render them as separate commands.
Put off your veil calls on the girl to take off the veil that normally covers her face. Veil translates a Hebrew term that is found only here and in Song 4.1, 3 and 6.7. Its precise meaning is not clear, but some have thought it might mean “hair.” However, most translations opt for veil. The Hebrew term rendered “veils” in 3.23 is different, but translators can use the same expression here. The significance of taking off the veil is uncertain, though there is a suggestion that the veil was an upper-class garment. If so, a call to remove it points to the woman’s lowered status as a servant girl. On the other hand, taking off the veil could simply be the girl’s way of getting ready for hard work by removing some of her clothing.
Strip off your robe calls on the girl to take off another item of clothing. Since this is the only place in the Old Testament where the Hebrew word translated robe occurs, its meaning is also uncertain. It probably refers to the girl’s long robe or skirt that she has to gather up and tie into her belt in order to work. New Jerusalem Bible expresses this sense by rendering strip off your robe as “tie up your skirt.” For others the robe is another type of upper-class garment that a servant girl would not wear. Some translations hint at the fact that the action implies humiliation; for example Revised English Bible has “strip off your skirt,” and New International Version says “Lift up your skirts.”
Uncover your legs may refer to the result of the girl pulling up her skirt in order to do some manual work (such as grinding), or it may point to her preparation to wade through rivers. The baring of her legs hints strongly at her low social status.
Clearly, the meaning of the three actions referring to the removal of clothing is that the former royal lady, in a complete change of role, takes on the general appearance of a servant. It paints a picture of humiliation for the former majestic nation of Babylonia. Nakedness often symbolizes thorough humiliation. In this case it is the humiliation of the once proud Babylonians. To emphasize this humiliation, Hebrew repeats a verb, which is rendered put off and uncover.
Pass through the rivers: This command to cross rivers is unexpected, so its precise meaning and relevance is unclear. It is completely unknown why she is told to do this. Translators should render the Hebrew here literally without trying to give one particular interpretation. As noted above, the connection between this command and the previous three is not clear, though Good News Translation and others make crossing rivers the reason for removing clothes. However, the approach we recommend is to retain each of the commands as separate calls rather than linking them too closely with this final one since the purpose of passing through rivers is uncertain.
Translation examples for this verse are:
• Take the millstones! Grind the grain [into flour]!
Remove your veil! Strip off your skirt!
Remove the clothes from your legs!
Pass through the streams!
• Grind the grain between the millstones!
Take off your veil! Remove your robe!
Uncover your legs! Cross the streams!
Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .