millstone (illustration)

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “millstone” in English is illustrated for use in Bible translations in East Africa by Pioneer Bible Translators like this:

Image owned by PBT and Jonathan McDaniel and licensed with the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

See also a mill or an upper millstone.

complete verse (Deuteronomy 24:6)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Deuteronomy 24:6:

  • Kupsabiny: “A person must not take s grinding stone or mill stone as security. If he does that it is like taking the whole life of that home.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “If anything is given as a loan to someone, one must not take either lower or upper millstones as security on a loan, for that is like taking a life itself as security.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “‘Do- not -take as a guarantee for debt the millstone of the one-who-loan from you (sing.) for you (sing.) are-taking-away his source-of-living/livelihood.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “‘Anyone who lends money to someone else is allowed to require that person to give him something to guarantee that he will pay back the money that he borrowed. But he must not take from him his millstone/stone for grinding grain. That would be taking the millstone that his family needs to grind the grain to make the bread they need to stay alive.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Deuteronomy 24:6

Take … in pledge: an Israelite could not charge a fellow-Israelite any interest on a loan. In order to make sure that the loan would be repaid, however, the lender would take an object of value from the borrower and keep it until the loan had been repaid. This item would serve as a pledge, that is, a promise on the part of the borrower that the loan would be repaid.

A mill: this refers to the small mill in every household with which the housewife would grind the grain every day in order to make bread. It consisted of two stones; it was enough to take away the upper millstone to render the mill ineffective.

An alternative translation model for the first part of this verse is:
• When you lend money to a fellow Israelite, you are allowed to keep something of his as a guarantee that he will pay back the money. But don’t take either of the two stones used for grinding grain.

He would be taking a life in pledge: without the mill the family’s health would be in danger. Contemporary English Version has a helpful model: “they need those millstones for grinding grain into flour to make bread.” However, if the information about grinding grain has been put into the previous sentence, we may say something like “they [he] use that flour for making bread to eat.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .