Bible Strands
Isaiah 47:2
Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet addresses the Virgin Daughter of Babylon, commanding her to abandon royal dignity and perform the manual labor of a captive. This instruction follows God's declaration that she will no longer be called tender or delicate.
The words — The imperative גַּלִּי (galli) commands the uncovering of the צַמָּתֵךְ (tzammatekh), translated as veil or skirt. The verb חֶשְׂפִּי (chespi) immediately follows to strip off the שֹׁבֶל (shovel), a skirt, to bare the thigh.
The thread — This pattern of forced exposure and stripped status appears in Isaiah 20:4, where captives are led away naked and barefoot, and in Judges 16:21, where humiliation precedes bondage. The sudden reversal of earthly security also mirrors the judgment on Egypt's firstborn in Exodus 11:5.
Why it lands — The text records the literal removal of ceremonial coverings and the demand to wade through streams as concrete markers of lost sovereignty. It requires the reader to acknowledge that political pride and social status will be dismantled by divine action without metaphorical softening.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.
Cross-references
- 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.
- Judges 16:21 Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze shackles and forced to grind grain in the prison.
- Isaiah 20:4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old alike, naked and barefoot, with bared buttocks—to Egypt’s shame.
- Matthew 24:41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.
- 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.
- Job 31:10 then may my own wife grind grain for another, and may other men sleep with her.
- Isaiah 32:11 Shudder, you ladies of leisure; tremble, you daughters of complacency. Strip yourselves bare and put sackcloth around your waists.
- Ezekiel 16:37 therefore I will surely gather all the lovers with whom you found pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and expose you before them, and they will see you completely naked.
- Hosea 2:3 Otherwise, I will strip her naked and expose her like the day of her birth. I will make her like a desert and turn her into a parched land, and I will let her die of thirst.
- Nahum 3:5 “Behold, I am against you,” declares the LORD of Hosts. “I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show your nakedness to the nations and your shame to the kingdoms.