Word study

Millstone

4 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: millstone, millstones. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.

At a glance

How often each original word is translated “millstone” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • רֵחֶה rêchehmilltranslated this way 3 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s H7347Noun  ·  Translated: millstones 2, hand mill 1, handmill 1, take a pair of millstones 1

    Deuteronomy 24:6 Do not take a pair of millstones or even an upper millstone as security for a debt, because that would be taking one’s livelihood as security.

    Isaiah 47:2 Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams.

    Full study and all 5 verses →
  • רֶכֶב rekebchariotry, chariot, mill-stonetranslated this way 2 times of its 116 uses · Strong’s H7393Noun  ·  Translated: chariots 77, chariot 25, riders 4, charioteers 3

    Deuteronomy 24:6 Do not take a pair of millstones or even an upper millstone as security for a debt, because that would be taking one’s livelihood as security.

    Judges 9:53 But a woman dropped an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head, crushing his skull.

    Full study and all 103 verses →
  • פֶּלַח pelachcleavage, mill-stonetranslated this way 2 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H6400Noun  ·  Translated: like a slice 2, upper 1, piece 1, upper millstone 1

    2 Samuel 11:21 Who struck Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth? Was it not a woman who dropped an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ If he asks you this, then you are to say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead as well.’”

    Job 41:24 His chest is as hard as a rock, as hard as a lower millstone!

    Full study and all 6 verses →
  • טְחוֹן ṭechôngrinding-mill, hand-milltranslated this way 1 time of its 1 use · Strong’s H2911Noun  ·  Translated: millstones 1

    Lamentations 5:13 Young men toil at millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood.

    Full study and its 1 verse →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • μύλος mýlosa millstonetranslated this way 4 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s G3458Noun  ·  Translated: millstone 4, mill 1

    Matthew 18:6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

    Mark 9:42 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea.

    Full study and all 5 verses →
  • λίθος líthosa stonetranslated this way 1 time of its 53 uses · Strong’s G3037Noun  ·  Translated: stone 36, stones 14, millstone 1, stone's 1

    Luke 17:2 It would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

    Full study and all 53 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
  2. Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.

What the Bible says about millstone: passages by topic →

Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.