Family Based

Following the conquest, the ideal plan for cultivation was for each family to work its own land and sustain itself independently. The family would sow, tend the land, harvest the grain, thresh, and winnow. Threshing and winnowing seem to have been the task of the men at one time (see Ruth 3:14). Women would grind the grain and make bread from it in their families’ ovens (Gen 18:6; Exod 11:5; 2 Sam 13:6, 8).

Grinding grain was a labor-intensive job normally assigned to women and sometimes to male prisoners (see Judg 16:21; Lam 5:13; Isa 47:2). Millstones were important family heirlooms and were not allowed to be taken as a pledge (Deut 24:6; see also Josephus, Antiquities 4.270: “It is also not lawful to take a millstone, nor any utensil thereto belonging, for a pledge, that the debtor, may not be deprived of instruments to get their food with, and lest they be undone by their necessity”). Judges tells the story of a woman who threw a millstone in defense against attackers and crushed the head of Abimelech (Judg 9:53; 2 Sam 11:21). Millstones were also mentioned in foreign trade (see Leemans, Foreign Trade, 6–8).