יואל, פרק ד׳, פסוק ג׳

The aftermath of defeat brings a horrifying reality where human life is stripped of its dignity and reduced to cheap currency. The humiliation of the Israelite captives reaches an agonizing low, as their captors view them merely as tools to satisfy fleeting, trivial desires.

The primary approach among commentators is that the conquerors treated the Israelites as nothing more than everyday property. They callously threw lots, much like tossing stones, to divide the captives among themselves as slaves and maidservants [מצודת דוד, מלבי״ם, רד״ק]. This degradation was so severe that a person's worth was dictated by the immediate, petty cravings of the captors. Young children, lacking the physical strength required for hard labor, held an exceptionally low economic value [ביאור שטיינזלץ].

Consequently, an Israelite boy was handed over simply as payment for the services of a prostitute. In the same cruel manner, a young girl was traded away for wine. [מלבי״ם] highlights the chilling reality of this exchange: the wine was not purchased for commercial trade, but for immediate consumption. A human life was exchanged for the price of a single drink for one man. Tying these tragic events together, [אבן עזרא] explains that the girl was sold specifically to buy the wine used to get drunk alongside that very same prostitute.