Who dreamed up grinding at a wheel as punishment?
Grinding a hand mill was the lowest kind of slave labor. Among the Greeks and Romans slaves were sometimes compelled to do this as a punishment. It was doubtless considered equally degrading in the days of Samson, and for this reason the Philistines condemned him to it after they destroyed his sight. Some have endeavored to illustrate this scene by a pictorial representation of the Hebrew giant harnessed in leather bands to a huge wooden lever which is connected with a mill! Nothing of the sort, is referred to in the text. The asss mill was probably the invention of a later age, and even if it existed in Samsons day, how could he use it when he was bound with fetters? He was simply compelled to do the degrading work of a woman or a slave at the ordinary handmill, which is described in the note on Matt. 24:41. Jeremiah laments the same fate which befell the young men of his people. Lam. 5:13. ibid.
