Deuteronomy 24:6

6 `None doth take in pledge millstones, and rider, for life it [is] he is taking in pledge.

Deuteronomy 24:6 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 24:6

No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge,
&c.] The first word being of the dual number takes in both stones, wherefore Vatablus renders the words,

``ye shall not take for a pledge both the millstones, nor indeed the uppermost;''

which is the least; so far should they be from taking both, that they were not allowed to take the uppermost, which was the shortest, meanest, and lightest; and indeed if anyone of them was taken, the other became useless, so that neither was to be taken:

for he taketh [a man's] life to pledge;
or with which his life is supported, and the life of his family; for if he has corn to supply them with, yet if his mill or millstones are pawned, he cannot grind his corn, and so he and his family must starve: and in those times and countries they did, as the Arabs do to this day, as Dr. Shaw ^F4 relates,

``most families grind their wheat and barley at home, having two portable millstones for that purpose; the uppermost whereof is turned round by a small handle of wood or iron, that is placed in the rim;''

and these millstones being portable, might be the more easily taken for pledges, which is here forbidden, for the above reason; and this takes in any other thing whatever, on which a man's living depends, or by which he gets his bread ^F5.

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FOOTNOTES:

F4 Travels, p. 231. Edit. 2.
F5 Misn. Bava Metzia, c. 9. sect. 13.

Deuteronomy 24:6 In-Context

4 `Her former husband who sent her away is not able to turn back to take her to be to him for a wife, after that she hath become defiled; for an abomination it [is] before Jehovah, and thou dost not cause the land to sin which Jehovah thy God is giving to thee -- an inheritance.

5 `When a man taketh a new wife, he doth not go out into the host, and [one] doth not pass over unto him for anything; free he is at his own house one year, and hath rejoiced his wife whom he hath taken.

6 `None doth take in pledge millstones, and rider, for life it [is] he is taking in pledge.

7 `When a man is found stealing a person, of his brethren, of the sons of Israel, and hath tyrannized over him, and sold him, then hath that thief died, and thou hast put away the evil thing out of thy midst.

8 `Take heed, in the plague of leprosy, to watch greatly, and to do according to all that the priests, the Levites, teach you; as I have commanded them ye observe to do;