No distinction is made, however, between milk of cows, sheep and goats. (Ezek. 25:4; 1 Cor. 9:7) Sour or curdled milk was often mixed with honey and was regarded as a refreshing drink. David took “ten portions of milk” (“cheese,” Vg) to the “chief of the thousand” when taking food to his brothers in the army camp. These portions may have been in the form of fresh-milk cheese. Rotherham says “ten slices of soft cheese.”—1 Sam. 17:17, 18.

BOILING A KID IN ITS MOTHER’S MILK

Boiling “a kid in its mother’s milk” was a violation of the Mosaic law. (Deut. 14:21) Twice this prohibition is mentioned in connection with the festival of the firstfruits held around the beginning of June. (Ex. 23:19; 34:26) Many commentators therefore believe that the law was given because the Canaanites and other peoples observed an idolatrous ritual at this time of the year. A publication by a professor of Hebrew in the seventeenth century, Dr. Ralph Cudworth (who based his conclusions on an ancient Karaite commentary), is quoted as follows: “It was a custom of the ancient heathens, when they had gathered in all their fruits, to take a kid and boil it in the milk of its dam; and then, in a magical way, to go about and besprinkle with it all their trees and fields, gardens and orchards; thinking by this means to make them fruitful, that they might bring forth more abundantly in the following year.” (Clarke’s Commentary, Vol. I, pp. 421, 422; M’Clintock & Strong’s Cyclopædia, Vol. VI, p. 257) It is also noteworthy that one of the ancient Ras Shamra texts refers to cooking a kid in milk in connection with certain pagan offerings, perhaps the firstfruits of the harvest.

IN PROPHECY

Regarding Immanuel it was foretold: “Due to the abundance of the producing milk, he will eat butter; because butter and honey are what everyone left remaining in the midst of the land will eat.” This circumstance was to result from the devastation of Judah by the Assyrians. On account of this devastation, formerly cultivated land would become choked with weeds. Therefore those left remaining in the land would have to subsist to a considerable degree on dairy products and wild honey. There being ample pasturage, the animals that had been preserved alive would produce an abundance of milk for the greatly reduced population.—Isa. 7:20-25; compare 37:30-33.

ILLUSTRATIVE USE

Often milk is referred to in a figurative or an illustrative way. (Gen. 49:12; Song of Sol. 5:12; Lam. 4:7) Resources of nations and people are called milk. (Isa. 60:16) The Promised Land is repeatedly described as “flowing with milk and honey,” denoting abundance, fruitfulness and prosperity due to Jehovah’s blessing. (Ex. 3:8; Deut. 6:3; Josh. 5:6; Jer. 11:5; Ezek. 20:6; Joel 3:18) The shepherd of the Song of Solomon spoke of his beloved Shulammite as having honey and milk under her tongue, evidently meaning that her tongue gave expression to pleasant words.—Song of Sol. 4:11.

Since milk promotes physical growth to maturity, elementary Christian doctrine is likened to “milk” for spiritual babes, which will strengthen them to grow to the point of being able to assimilate “solid food,” the deeper spiritual truths. (1 Cor. 3:2; Heb. 5:12-14) The apostle Peter, speaking to mature Christians, says: “As newborn infants, form a longing for the unadulterated milk belonging to the word.” For what purpose? That they might keep on growing, not merely to maturity, but “to salvation,” that is, making their calling and choosing sure for themselves. (1 Pet. 2:2; 2 Pet. 1:10) At Isaiah 55:1, God calls on spiritually thirsty ones to buy this growth-promoting spiritual “milk,” which, through his undeserved kindness, they can obtain “without money and without price.”

MILL

A simple apparatus generally consisting of two circular stones (one placed atop the other), between which various edible threshed grains are ground into flour. It was possible to pound grain with a pestle in a mortar, rub it on a stone slab with a stone, or grind it with a hand mill, the method employed in most ancient Palestinian homes. Such devices were used from early patriarchal times, for Abraham’s wife Sarah made round cakes from “fine flour.” (Gen. 18:6) In the wilderness, the Israelites ground the divinely provided manna “in hand mills or pounded it in a mortar.”—Num. 11:7, 8.

Bread was generally baked every day and usually each family possessed its own hand mill. The grinding of grain into flour was ordinarily a daily activity of the women in the household. (Matt. 24:41; Job 31:10; Ex. 11:5; Isa. 47:1, 2) They rose early in the morning to prepare the flour needed for the day’s bread. The sound of hand mills is referred to in the Bible as a symbol of normal peaceful conditions. Conversely, abandonment and desolation were indicated when “the sound of the hand mill” was absent.—Jer. 25:10, 11; Rev. 18:21, 22; compare Ecclesiastes 12:3, 4.

Like its modern counterpart in the Middle East, the common hand mill of ancient times consisted of two round stones, the upper grindstone made to fit and revolve on the lower one. (Deut. 24:6; Job 41:24) Today, the heavy lower (or nether) stone is usually made of basalt and is often about eighteen inches (c. 45.7 centimeters) in diameter and two to four inches (c. 5 to 10.2 centimeters) thick. A peg fitted into the center of the lower stone serves as a pivot for the upper stone. The grinding surface of the stationary lower stone is convex, allowing the pulverized grain to drift out to the mill’s perimeter. The concave lower surface of the upper millstone (the rider) matches the top of the lower stone. A funnel-like hole in the center of the upper stone accommodates the peg and also serves as a place to put the grain into the mill. Toward the outer edge of the upper stone there is a hole into which a wooden stick is inserted, this serving as a handle for the upper grindstone.

Two women generally operated this kind of hand mill. (Luke 17:35) They sat facing each other, each placing one hand on the handle to turn the upper stone. With her free hand, one woman fed unground grain in small amounts into the filler hole of the upper stone, while the other gathered the flour as it emerged from the rim of the mill and fell to the tray or the cloth spread beneath the mill.

Since bread was usually baked daily and grain was ground into flour frequently, God’s law given to Israel mercifully forbade the seizing of a person’s hand mill or its upper grindstone as a pledge. A family’s daily bread depended upon the hand mill. Hence, to seize it or its upper grindstone meant seizing “a soul” or “means of life.”—Deut. 24:6; compare NW, 1953 ed., ftn.

Larger mills are also mentioned in the Scriptures. Jesus Christ referred to a “millstone such as is turned by an ass” (Matt. 18:6), which may have been similar to the one that blind Samson was forced to turn for the Philistines when “he came to be a grinder in the prison house.”—Judg. 16:21.

During Abimelech’s attack on the town of Thebez “a certain woman pitched an upper millstone upon Abimelech’s head and broke his skull in pieces.” (Judg. 9:50, 53; 2 Sam. 11:21) In Revelation the sudden and final destruction of Babylon the Great is likened to the hurling of “a stone like a great millstone” into the sea.—Rev. 18:21.

[Picture on page 1158]

Women working at hand mill

MILLET

This translates the Hebrew word doʹhhan, generally understood to refer to common millet, if not also including other related or similar grasses such as sorghum. Common millet is distinguished by its broad leaves and bristly, extensively branched panicles or clusters of seeds. The stalks of the plant are commonly fed to livestock, and its tiny seeds, of which there are many in each panicle, are still used in the Near East for making bread, usually in combination with other cereals. (Ezek. 4:9) At Isaiah 28:25, the Hebrew term soh·rahʹ may also denote millet.

MILLO

(Milʹlo) [filling].

The “house of Millo” (“Beth-millo,” AT, JB, RS) may have been a fortress or citadel and was perhaps the same as the “tower of Shechem.” Apparently the men of the “house of Millo” shared in making Abimelech king. The prophetic words of Gideon’s son Jotham pointed to disaster for the “house of Millo” at the hands of Abimelech. This was fulfilled when Abimelech set the vault of the house of El-berith on fire and all those who had sought refuge there perished.—Judg. 9:6, 20, 46-49.

MILLSTONE

See MILL.

MINA

(miʹna).

A unit both of weight and of monetary value. (1 Ki. 10:17; Ezra 2:69; Neh. 7:71) According to the Hebrew text of Ezekiel 45:12, one mina (maneh) equals sixty shekels. The Septuagint (Alexandrine manuscript) rendering of the scripture, though, assigns a value of fifty shekels to the mina. (See RS, Mo.) Other Biblical evidence likewise points to a mina consisting of fifty shekels. Exodus 38:25, 26 indicates that there were 3,000 shekels to the talent (603,550 x ¹⁄2 shekel = 301,775 shekels, stated in the text to amount to 100 talents and 1,775 shekels). Since 3,000 is divisible by fifty or by sixty, this suggests that the talent was a multiple of the mina and the mina a multiple of the shekel (1 talent = either 50 or 60 minas, depending on whether a mina consisted of 60 or 50 shekels). The fact that values stated in terms of shekels are more often multiples of fifty than of sixty lends weight to the conclusion that the mina was fifty shekels.—Gen. 23:15; Ex. 30:24; 38:29; Num. 31:52; 1 Sam. 17:5.

There is also archaeological testimony for a mina of fifty shekels. An uninscribed weight of about 12.2 pounds troy (4,565 grams) found at Tell Beit Mirsim, if divided into eight minas of fifty shekels, would yield a shekel of 11.41 grams. This value basically corresponds to that of the average of some forty-five inscribed shekel weights found in Palestine. Therefore, in this publication the mina is calculated at fifty shekels or one-sixtieth of a talent, that is, 1.525 pounds troy (570 grams). Accordingly, in modern values, the silver mina would equal $23.73, and the gold mina, $644.35.

There is also a possibility that, as in the case of the cubit, two values were assigned to the mina, one perhaps for a royal mina (compare 2 Samuel 14:26) and the other for a common mina.—Compare Ezekiel 40:5.

The mina (mna) of the Christian Greek Scriptures (Luke 19:13-25) is reckoned at 100 drachmas, this being the value derived from ancient Greek writers. On this basis, the mina (silver) of that period would be worth $14.094 in modern values. This was a considerable sum in the first century C.E., amounting to about a fourth of the wages earned annually by an agricultural worker.

MIND

In some translations of the Christian Greek Scriptures this word is rendered from several related Greek words expressing the attributes of the mind, as, thinking faculties, mental perception, intelligence, reason, thought, mental state, and mental inclination, disposition or powers. Though, at times, in various translations, “mind” is used, in the same instances other translations employ the above descriptive and specific terms. In the Hebrew text, the words for “remember” and “remembrance” may be translated in certain places by such expressions as “keep in mind” and “be mindful.” In the Hebrew Scriptures, “mind” appears in some versions as a rendering of the Hebrew words which are, literally and properly, “heart,” “soul” and “spirit.”

“BE MADE NEW IN THE FORCE ACTUATING YOUR MIND”

The inclination of the mind of imperfect man is naturally toward wrong thinking. The Bible terms it the “fleshly frame of mind.” (Col. 2:18) Christians are reminded that formerly they were enemies of God because their minds had been on the works that were wicked.—Col. 1:21.

The mind of the “physical” (literally, “soulical”) man, as distinguished from the “spiritual” man, is inclined in the direction of materialistic things. The force that actuates his mind has been formed in him by the things he has been taught and has experienced. When a matter is presented to him, this force pushes or inclines his mind in a materialistic direction. Christians are commanded, therefore, to “be made new in the force [spirit] actuating your mind.” (Eph. 4:23) By a study of God’s Word of truth and by the operation of God’s spirit, this actuating force can be changed so that the mental attitude is inclined in a right direction. Then, when a matter is presented to the person, the mind will be inclined by this force toward a proper spiritual course. (1 Cor. 2:13, 15) In this process the heart also comes into play as approving and motivating the mind in receiving the right information, and in working together with the mind to achieve the getting of the new force or spirit and in making the mind over. (Rom. 12:2) A person doing this can come to have “the mind of Christ,” who was at all times actuated by the proper force, his mental inclination always being spiritual.—1 Cor. 2:16; Rom. 15:5; see HEART.

So mere knowledge or intellectual power is not enough to bring one into God’s favor. These things themselves will not make the mind over in the direction of God’s will. Jehovah says: “I will make the wisdom of the wise men perish, and the intelligence of the intellectual men I will shove aside.” (1 Cor. 1:19) It requires the help of God’s spirit to get true understanding (Prov. 4:5-7; 1 Cor. 2:11), wisdom and good sense. (Eph. 1:8, 9) The process must involve both the mind and the heart if one is to become a mature servant of God.

THE ‘LAW OF THE MIND’

The apostle Paul calls that which directs the operation of this renewed mind the law of the mind. It controls the new mind according to the “law of God,” and the new mind delights in this law. But “sin’s law” operating in fallen flesh fights against the ‘law of the mind,’ so that there is a constant conflict within the Christian. Can he be victorious? Yes, “thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” God’s undeserved