Matthew Chapter 24 verse 41 Holy Bible
two women `shall be' grinding at the mill; one is taken, and one is left.
read chapter 24 in ASV
Two women will be crushing grain; one is taken, and one let go.
read chapter 24 in BBE
two [women] grinding at the mill, one is taken and one is left.
read chapter 24 in DARBY
Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
read chapter 24 in KJV
read chapter 24 in WBT
two women grinding at the mill, one will be taken and one will be left.
read chapter 24 in WEB
two women shall be grinding in the mill, one is received, and one is left.
read chapter 24 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 41. - Two women shall be grinding at (ἐν) the mill. In the absence of mills turned by wind or water, which were of much later invention, every household had its own little handmill, worked by women of the family or by slaves (Exodus 11:5; Judges 16:21; Isaiah 47:2). "Two stones, about eighteen inches or two feet across, rest one on the other, the under one slightly higher towards the centre, and the upper one hollowed out to fit this convexity; a hole through it, in the middle, receiving the grain. Sometimes the under stone is bedded m cement, raised into a border round it, to catch and retain the flour, or meal, as it falls. A stick fastened into the upper one served as a handle. Occasionally two women sit at the same pair of stones, to lighten the task, one hand only being needed where two work together, whereas a single person has to use both hands" (Geikie, 'Holy Land and Bible,' p. 155). "Two women were busy in a cottage at the household mill, which attracted me by its sound To grind is very exhausting work, so that, where possible, one woman sits opposite the other, to divide the strain, though in a poor man's house the wife has to do this drudgery unaided" (ibid., p. 661). St. Luke (Luke 17:34) adds a third situation to the cases mentioned by our Lord, viz. "two men in one bed," or on one dining couch.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(41) Two women shall be grinding at the mill.--The words bring before us the picture of the lowest form of female labour, in which one woman holds the lower stone of the small hand-mill of the East, while another turns the upper stone and grinds the corn. In Judges 16:21, and Lamentations 5:13, the employment appears as the crowning degradation of male captives taken in battle. It is probable that in this case, as in that of the fig-tree, the illustration may have been suggested by what was present to our Lord's view at the time. The Mount of Olives might well have presented to His gaze, even as He spoke, the two labourers in the field, the two women at the mill.
