The millstone
"Greatest Hits" 24: Another near-universal symbol
This is the twenty-fourth in a series revisiting insights that have hit me hardest in the last two years.
Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more….” (Revelation 18:21)
The millstone symbolizes divine judgment. The Bible frequently gives us the symbol—not as metaphor, but with actual millstones!—as a pattern of divine justice/retribution:
“And a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull.” Judges 9:53 (After Abimelech had killed his 70 brothers “on one stone.” More here.)
Samson “ground at the mill in prison” (Judges 16:21) before bringing divine judgment on the Philistines by collapsing their pillars on them and himself.
David reminds Joab of Abimelech’s fate from the millstone… unknowingly anticipating God’s judgment on his murder of Uriah through Joab! (2 Samuel 11:21)
“His [Leviathan’s] heart is hard as a stone, hard as the lower millstone.” (Job 41:24) This may refer to God unleashing Satan—often symbolized by Leviathan—to bring justice.
“Take the millstones and grind flour….” (Isaiah 47:2) The context is judgment on Israel, as is Lamentations 5:11.
“… it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6; and also in Mark 9:42 and Luke 17:2)
At the end of the age, “Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left.” (Matthew 24:41)
“Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, ‘So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more’” (Revelation 18:21) Final judgment.
The symbol is surprisingly widespread, in folklore across cultures, usually expressed something like this:
The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.
See “Mills of God” in history and across cultures.
Some even compare the turning heaven above us, day and night, to a providential upper millstone.
So…
Think of a story that sees justice done through surprising and satisfying turns of events. (Few great stories do not.) These all declare the justice of God, implicitly.
Pray:
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
,
Coming soon!
Thanks for that. I'd never realised there was an upper and a lower mill-stone. The idea of that which is above moving horizontally against that which is below feels kind of frightening. In a sense its like a tearing across the hierarchy. It's like the breaking of the world.