Isaiah 47:2
New International Version
Take millstones and grind flour; take off your veil. Lift up your skirts, bare your legs, and wade through the streams.

New Living Translation
Take heavy millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, and strip off your robe. Expose yourself to public view.

English Standard Version
Take the millstones and grind flour, put off your veil, strip off your robe, uncover your legs, pass through the rivers.

Berean Standard Bible
Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams.

King James Bible
Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.

New King James Version
Take the millstones and grind meal. Remove your veil, Take off the skirt, Uncover the thigh, Pass through the rivers.

New American Standard Bible
“Take the millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, strip off the skirt, Uncover the leg, cross the rivers.

NASB 1995
“Take the millstones and grind meal. Remove your veil, strip off the skirt, Uncover the leg, cross the rivers.

NASB 1977
“Take the millstones and grind meal. Remove your veil, strip off the skirt, Uncover the leg, cross the rivers.

Legacy Standard Bible
Take the millstones and grind flour. Uncover your veil, strip off the skirt, Uncover the leg, cross the rivers.

Amplified Bible
“Take millstones [as a female slave does] and grind meal; Remove your veil, strip off the skirt, Uncover the leg, cross the rivers [at the command of your captors].

Christian Standard Bible
Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil, strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, wade through the streams.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Take millstones and grind meal; remove your veil, strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, wade through the streams.

American Standard Version
Take the millstones, and grind meal; remove thy veil, strip off the train, uncover the leg, pass through the rivers.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Take a millstone, grind flour, open your veil, cut your white hair, reveal your lower legs, pass over the rivers

Brenton Septuagint Translation
Take a millstone, grind meal: remove thy veil, uncover thy white hairs, make bare the leg, pass through the rivers.

Contemporary English Version
Start grinding grain! Take off your veil. Strip off your fancy clothes and wade across rivers.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Take a millstone and grind meal: uncover thy shame, strip thy shoulder, make bare thy legs, pass over the rivers.

English Revised Version
Take the millstones, and grind meal: remove thy veil, strip off the train, uncover the leg, pass through the rivers.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Take millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil. Take off your skirt. Uncover your legs, and cross the river.

Good News Translation
Turn the millstone! Grind the flour! Off with your veil! Strip off your fine clothes! Lift up your skirts to cross the streams!

International Standard Version
Take millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, strip off your robes, bare your legs, and wade through the rivers.

JPS Tanakh 1917
Take the millstones, and grind meal; Remove thy veil, Strip off the train, uncover the leg, Pass through the rivers.

Literal Standard Version
Take millstones, and grind flour, | Remove your veil, draw up the skirt, | Uncover the leg, pass over the floods.

Majority Standard Bible
Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams.

New American Bible
Take the millstone and grind flour, remove your veil; Strip off your skirt, bare your legs, cross through the streams.

NET Bible
Pick up millstones and grind flour! Remove your veil, strip off your skirt, expose your legs, cross the streams!

New Revised Standard Version
Take the millstones and grind meal, remove your veil, strip off your robe, uncover your legs, pass through the rivers.

New Heart English Bible
Take the millstones, and grind meal; remove your veil, strip off the train, uncover the leg, pass through the rivers.

Webster's Bible Translation
Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.

World English Bible
Take the millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, uncover your legs, and wade through the rivers.

Young's Literal Translation
Take millstones, and grind flour, Remove thy veil, draw up the skirt, Uncover the leg, pass over the floods.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
The Fall of Babylon Predicted
1“Go down and sit in the dust, O Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, O Daughter of Chaldea! For you will no longer be called tender or delicate. 2Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams. 3Your nakedness will be uncovered and your shame will be exposed. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.”…

Cross References
Matthew 24:41
Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.

1 Corinthians 11:5
And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for it is just as if her head were shaved.

Genesis 24:65
and asked the servant, "Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?" "It is my master," the servant answered. So she took her veil and covered herself.

Exodus 11:5
and every firstborn son in the land of Egypt will die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, to the firstborn of the servant girl behind the hand mill, as well as the firstborn of all the cattle.

Job 31:10
then may my own wife grind grain for another, and may other men sleep with her.

Ecclesiastes 12:4
when the doors to the street are shut and the sound of the mill fades away, when one rises at the sound of a bird and all the daughters of song grow faint,

Isaiah 3:23
and their mirrors, linen garments, tiaras, and shawls.


Treasury of Scripture

Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover your locks, make bore the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.

the milestones

Exodus 11:5
And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts.

Judges 16:21
But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house.

Job 31:10
Then let my wife grind unto another, and let others bow down upon her.

make bare

Isaiah 3:17
Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will discover their secret parts.

Isaiah 20:4
So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

Jeremiah 13:22,26
And if thou say in thine heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered, and thy heels made bare…

Jump to Previous
Bare Cross Crushed Draw Flour Grind Leg Lift Meal Millstones Remove Rivers Robe Skirt Skirts Streams Strip Thigh Train Uncover Uncovered Veil Wade
Jump to Next
Bare Cross Crushed Draw Flour Grind Leg Lift Meal Millstones Remove Rivers Robe Skirt Skirts Streams Strip Thigh Train Uncover Uncovered Veil Wade
Isaiah 47
1. God's judgment upon Babylon and Chaldea
6. For their unmercifulness
7. Pride
10. And over-boldness
11. Shall be irresistible














(2) Take the millstones.--Always the most servile form of female labour (Exodus 11:5; Job 31:10; Matthew 24:41).

Uncover thy locks.--The picture of suffering is heightened by the fact that the female slave has to wade unveiled, and bare-legged, all sense of shame outraged, to the scene of her labours. The picture is, of course, to be taken symbolically, not literally.

Verse 2. - Take the millstones, and grind meal. Do the hard work commonly allotted to female slaves. Turn the heavy upper millstone all day long upon the nether one (comp. Exodus 11:5). Babylon having been personified as a female captive, the details have to be in unison. Uncover thy locks. Babylonian women are represented in the Assyrian sculptures as wearing closefitting caps upon their heads (see 'Ancient Monarchies,' vol. 2, p. 500). Make bare the leg... pass over the rivers. On the way from their own city to the land of their captivity, they would have to wade through streams, and in so doing to expose parts of their persons which delicacy required to be concealed.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
Take
קְחִ֥י (qə·ḥî)
Verb - Qal - Imperative - feminine singular
Strong's 3947: To take

millstones
רֵחַ֖יִם (rê·ḥa·yim)
Noun - md
Strong's 7347: A mill-stone

and grind
וְטַ֣חֲנִי (wə·ṭa·ḥă·nî)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Imperative - feminine singular
Strong's 2912: To grind meal, to be a, concubine

flour;
קָ֑מַח (qā·maḥ)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 7058: Flour, meal

remove
גַּלִּ֨י (gal·lî)
Verb - Piel - Imperative - feminine singular
Strong's 1540: To denude, to exile, to reveal

your veil,
צַמָּתֵ֧ךְ (ṣam·mā·ṯêḵ)
Noun - feminine singular construct | second person feminine singular
Strong's 6777: (woman's) veil

strip off
חֶשְׂפִּי־ (ḥeś·pî-)
Verb - Qal - Imperative - feminine singular
Strong's 2834: To strip off, to make naked, to drain away, bail up

your skirt,
שֹׁ֛בֶל (šō·ḇel)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 7640: Flowing skirt, train

bare
גַּלִּי־ (gal·lî-)
Verb - Piel - Imperative - feminine singular
Strong's 1540: To denude, to exile, to reveal

your thigh,
שׁ֖וֹק (šō·wq)
Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 7785: The, leg

wade through
עִבְרִ֥י (‘iḇ·rî)
Verb - Qal - Imperative - feminine singular
Strong's 5674: To pass over, through, or by, pass on

the streams.
נְהָרֽוֹת׃ (nə·hā·rō·wṯ)
Noun - masculine plural
Strong's 5104: A stream, prosperity


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OT Prophets: Isaiah 47:2 Take the millstones and grind meal (Isa Isi Is)
Isaiah 47:1
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