Deuteronomy 24:6
Thou shalt not take the nether, nor the upper millstone to pledge: for he hath pledged his life to thee.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Non accipies loco pignoris inferiorem, et superiorem molam : quia animam suam opposuit tibi.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Οὐκ ἐνεχυράσεις μύλον οὐδὲ ἐπιμύλιον, ὅτι ψυχὴν οὗτος ἐνεχυράζει.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- לֹא יַחֲבֹ֥ל רֵחַ֖יִם וָרָ֑כֶב כִּי נֶ֖פֶשׁ ה֥וּא חֹבֵֽל
Haydock's commentary
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 ([Natural History?] 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."
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.