Handwashing
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October 11, 2021
It really is a shame that I often miss how clever the biblical writers can be. Sometimes these points of cleverness are sometimes illusions or call backs to other stories. Other times the cleverness shows up in the language. If I were a more avid reader of Greek and Hebrew I would hope I could see these clever moments. One of these clever points came in my studies the other day around Mark 7. Specifically the first three verses:
Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders;
What is clever about these verses? It is the word pygme which is translated above as “wash their hands”. Pygme is a bit of an obscure word and it could mean a few things. It could mean the part of the body that is from the wrist down. It can also mean the area of the body that extends from fingertip to forearm. The note may be that the Pharisees don’t stop at their wrist when they wash, but they wash all the way up their arm as though they were super hand washers. More generally though the word pygme means “fist”.
Rather than being super hand washers, this note from Mark could suggest that the Pharisees wash their hands with closed fists or with hands clenched together. I don’t know about you, but it is very difficutl to wash ones hands with clenched fists. Sure the outside of the hands may be clean, but the inside is not.
Perhaps the disciples did wash their hands, but they did so in a different manner than what had become the custom of the Pharisees. The disciples washed with open hands.