Isaiah 47:2

2 Take millstones and grind meal; remove your veil, strip off [your] skirt, bare your thigh, wade through the streams.

Isaiah 47:2 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 47:2

Take the millstones, and grind meal
Foretelling that the Chaldeans should be taken captives, and used as such, and sent to prison houses, where they should turn the mill, and grind corn into meal; a very servile work, and which used to be done by captives and slaves, even by female ones, ( Exodus 11:5 ) ( 12:29 ) ( Judges 16:21 ) . The Targum is,

``go into servitude;''

of which this was a sign: uncover thy locks:
the attire and dress of the head, by which the locks were bound up and kept together; but being taken off, would hang loose, and be dishevelled, as in captives and mourners. The Targum is,

``uncover the glory of thy kingdom:''

make bare the leg;
or the shoulder, as the Vulgate Latin version, to be scourged by the Persians: uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers:
they are bid to tuck up their clothes so high, that they might pass over the rivers which lay between them and Persia, whither they were carried captives. The Targum is,

``thy princes are broken, the people of their army are scattered, they pass away as the waters of the river.''

Isaiah 47:2 In-Context

1 "Go down and sit in the dust, Virgin Daughter Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, Daughter Chaldea! For you will no longer be called pampered and spoiled.

2 Take millstones and grind meal; remove your veil, strip off [your] skirt, bare your thigh, wade through the streams.

3 Your nakedness will be uncovered, and your shame will be exposed. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.

4 The Holy One of Israel is our Redeemer; the Lord of Hosts is His name.

5 "Daughter Chaldea, sit in silence and go into darkness. For you will no longer be called mistress of kingdoms.