2. millstones--like the querns or hand-mills, found in this
country, before the invention of water mills and windmills: a convex
stone, made by the hand to turn in a concave stone, fitted to receive
it, the corn being ground between them: the office of a female slave in
the East; most degrading
(Job 31:10;
Mt 24:41).
uncover thy locks--rather, "take off thy veil" [HORSLEY]: perhaps the removal of the plaited hair
worn round the women's temples is included; it, too, is a
covering
(1Co 11:15);
to remove it and the veil is the badge of the lowest female
degradation; in the East the head is the seat of female modesty; the
face of a woman is seldom, the whole head almost never,
seen bare (see on
Isa 22:8).
make bare the leg--rather "lift up (literally, 'uncover'; as in
lifting up the train the leg is uncovered) thy flowing train." In
Mesopotamia, women of low rank, as occasion requires, wade across the
rivers with stript legs, or else entirely put off their garments and
swim across. "Exchange thy rich, loose, queenly robe, for the most
abject condition, that of one going to and fro through rivers as a
slave, to draw water," &c.
uncover . . . thigh--gather up the robe, so as to wade across.
JFB.
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