STOCKS, as instruments of restraint and punishment are mentioned in both testaments. In the OT, several Heb. words are so tr. The more frequent term is מַהְפֶּ֫כֶת, H4551, the hiphi’il feminine participle of the verb הָפַכְ, H2200, while the verb means to “overturn,” “overthrow.” The nominal form means a pillory, or stock for punishment as in 2 Chronicles 16:10; RSV “stocks,” and Jeremiah 20:2, 3; 29:26. In Jeremiah 29:26 there also appears the unique term צִינֹק, H7485, “a metal collar,” KJV “stocks.” In Job 13:27; 33:11 we find the term סַד, H6040: This is prob. a restraining device like the stock, but the precise origin and meaning of the term is unknown. In the NT only one reference to stocks is found; like those in Job, it is the feet which are restrained. The word ξῦλον, actually means “wood,” but in the narrative of Acts 16:24, it is extended to objects made of wood, the posts to which prisoners’ limbs were held fast by iron bolts. Herodotus relates how a soothsayer, Hegesistratus of Elis, cut off his own instep with a concealed weapon after the Spartans had fastened his foot in “iron-bound stocks,” ξυλω σιδηροδετω.