Baara's Dreams

Chapter 6

The punishment instituted by Maacah initially was good for the household because the forced interaction with Baara gave the slave women an opportunity to spend time with the young girl. The first few chose to use the time to make amends and build a relationship as they toiled over the grinding mill for several hours in the morning.

The two-person mill was composed of two stones about a foot and a half in diameter. Two women operated the stones by means of a handle while sitting facing one another. They alternately pulled and pushed the handle that turned the upper stone on the lower one. The upper stone rotated around a wooden pivot fixed in the center of the lower stone. A funnel shaped opening in the upper stone received the grain while the resulting flour was caught in a sheepskin placed under the mill.

In Naaman's household, wheat was ground for bread. Baara had come from a poorer background where all bread was made from barley, but the grinding process was the same. Here, Barley was also ground, but the meal obtained was used in cooking various soups and other dishes that needed some sort of thickener, not for making bread. Food was prepared fresh each day because if left overnight it would usually spoil in the heat. Thus, each morning enough grain had to be ground to feed Namaan's large household including slaves and family, and so the chore required hours of labor by the women who toiled at the mill each morning.

All of the female slaves except Baara, Timna and the two women assigned to help care for the children of the household took turns grinding grain. As Maacah had mentioned, the chore was not a favorite among the slaves because it was tedious, boring work. Still, it did give the women an opportunity to visit with one another, and so Timna rotated the chore among the women on a regular schedule. She decided that Baara would work for two mornings in succession with each of the fifteen female slaves in order to fulfill her punishment. Timna assigned the women to her by age, starting with the oldest and working to the youngest. This meant Baara would work first with Rhoda, who was a graying older woman and had been in Naaman's household for many years. She would work last with Zipporah, a woman in her early twenties who had been in the household only three years.

In deciding how to match Baara with grinding partners, Timna had chosen age because it appeared to show no favoritism, but allowed her to pair Baara with the most sympathetic slave first and reserved the most difficult for last. In this way, Timna hoped peer pressure would diffuse Zipporah's obvious loathing of Baara. If the other women followed Rhoda's example as they had during the weaving, Zipporah would find herself an outcast if she continued her harassment of Baara. Timna expected this ploy to take care of the situation without the need for confrontation.

Baara was relieved the first morning to find herself paired with Rhoda for the grinding. Because Rhoda had been the first to offer thanks and make an overture of friendship the previous day, Baara felt a kinship for her. She and the older woman conversed easily about trivial matters for a while before Rhoda asked Baara about her home and family. In a low, grieved voice, Baara briefly told the woman of her capture and the death of her parents and brother. Because of Rhoda's empathic nature, Baara also told her of her capture and Naaman's rescue. She admitted that her nightmares after she arrived had been caused by what she suffered at the hands of the soldiers. Seeing her haunted eyes as she spoke, and knowing the grief was still raw, Rhoda asked Baara's permission to share the story with the other slaves so that she would be spared further questions as she worked with the other women. In gratitude, Baara gave her permission, asking only that Rhoda leave out the part about the soldiers casting lots for her favors before being rescued by Naaman.

Baara also told Rhoda about meeting Serah. She asked Rhoda to seek out Serah when it was her turn to go for water and tell her why Baara would not be joining her at the well for the coming month. She asked Rhoda to memorize and give Serah a specific message: "This was meant for evil against me, but Yahweh meant it for good."