Hand
The hand carries an unusual amount of work in the UPDV. The same noun names a literal organ, a measure of strength, a place of honor at the king's side, a gesture by which a covenant is ratified, the channel through which a priest blesses or a sacrifice is consecrated, the figure by which Yahweh saves or chastises his people, and a hold so secure that nothing can pry the saved away from God. Hands are lifted in oath, in prayer, and in benediction; they are clasped to seal a contract or to extend friendship; they are washed in token of innocence; and they are laid on the head of a sacrificial victim, an offender, a Levite, an apostle's successor, or a sick person. The vocabulary is concrete, but the actions are highly conventional, and the canon teaches the conventions by repetition.
The Hand of Yahweh
The earliest narratives of Israel's deliverance speak of Yahweh's hand as the agent of judgement on Egypt and rescue of Israel. "Egypt will know that I am Yahweh, when I stretch forth my hand on Egypt, and bring out the sons of Israel from among them" (Ex 7:5). Deuteronomy summarises the whole exodus in the same idiom: "Yahweh your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm" (De 5:15). Joshua names the figure as the canonical lesson of the Jordan crossing: "that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of Yahweh, that it is mighty" (Jos 4:24). Isaiah turns the same image into a rebuke of unbelief: "Look, Yahweh's hand is not shortened, that it can't save; neither his ear heavy, that it can't hear" (Is 59:1). The same point is made positively to Moses at Kibroth-hattaavah: "Is [the Speech of] Yahweh's hand waxed short? Now you will see whether my word will come to pass to you or not" (Nu 11:23).
The figure runs in two directions. Yahweh's hand falls on enemies and on disobedient Israel as chastisement: "the hand of Yahweh was against them, to destroy them from the midst of the camp, until they were consumed" (De 2:15); "the hand of Yahweh has gone forth against me" (Ru 1:13); "the hand of Yahweh was heavy on them of Ashdod" (1Sa 5:6); "for day and night your hand was heavy on me" (Ps 32:4). Job uses the same idiom for affliction borne from God's own people: "the hand of God has touched me" (Job 19:21), and his answer to his wife is built on the same noun: "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2:10).
The same hand is the channel of blessing and providence. "Also on Judah came the hand of God to give them one heart" (2Ch 30:12); "according to the good hand of his God on him" (Ezr 7:9); "according to the good hand of our God on us" (Ezr 8:18); "the hand of my God which was good on me" (Ne 2:18). The Psalter uses the figure of an open hand to describe God's daily provision: "You give to them, they gather; You open your hand, they are satisfied with good" (Ps 104:28). The same Psalter pictures the hand that holds the falling: "Though he falls, he will not be completely cast down; For Yahweh upholds him with his hand" (Ps 37:24).
Sirach folds creator and creature into the same image: "As the clay of the potter in his hand, All his ways are according to his good pleasure; So men are in the hand of him who made them, To render to them according to his judgement" (Sir 33:13). The prophets specialise the hand into the right hand: "You have a mighty arm; Strong is your hand, and high is your right hand" (Ps 89:13); "His right hand, and his holy arm, has wrought salvation for him" (Ps 98:1); "The right hand of Yahweh does valiantly" (Ps 118:15). Isaiah promises that the same right hand will hold Israel: "I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness" (Is 41:10). The same right hand stretches over the sea to break Tyre: "He has stretched out his hand over the sea, he has shaken the kingdoms" (Is 23:11).
The hand of Yahweh also rests on individuals as empowerment. "The hand of Yahweh was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel" (1Ki 18:46). Peter's first letter takes the figure into pastoral counsel: "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you+ in due time" (1Pe 5:6). The Fourth Gospel gives the figure its strongest form. The Son's hand and the Father's hand together hold the saved against the threat of being snatched away: "I give to them eternal life; and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given to me is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch out of the Father's hand" (Jn 10:28-29).
Hands Laid on the Head
The most ritually formal use of the hand in the UPDV is the gesture of laying it on a head. The verb is reserved for moments where authority, identity, guilt, blessing, or the gift of God is being transferred from one party to another, and the canon distinguishes several distinct uses.
In the offerings, the worshipper or the priest lays a hand on the animal's head, and the animal is then accepted on his behalf. "He will lay his hand on the head of the burnt-offering; and it will be accepted for him to make atonement for him" (Le 1:4). The same formula governs the peace-offering: "He will lay his hand on the head of his oblation, and kill it at the door of the tent of meeting" (Le 3:2). The collective offering is governed by the same rule: "the elders of the congregation will lay their hands on the head of the bull before Yahweh" (Le 4:15). The consecration of the priesthood follows: "And you will bring the bull before the tent of meeting: and Aaron and his sons will lay their hands on the head of the bull" (Ex 29:10). On the Day of Atonement the gesture is doubled and the transfer is named: "Aaron will lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the sons of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their sins; and he will put them on the head of the goat" (Le 16:21). The same gesture is used by witnesses against a blasphemer, transferring the testimony from the witness to the condemned: "let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him" (Le 24:14).
Patriarchal blessing uses the same gesture without an animal. "Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it on Ephraim's head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh's head, guiding his hands wittingly; for Manasseh was the firstborn" (Ge 48:14). The right hand is deliberate: it carries the firstborn's portion, and Jacob crosses his hands rather than let the gesture follow birth-order. The same gesture in Jesus' ministry continues the patriarchal use: "He took them in his arms, and blessed them, laying his hands on them" (Mr 10:16).
Ordination is a third distinct use. The Levites are presented before Yahweh, and "the sons of Israel will lay their hands on the Levites" (Nu 8:10). Joshua is commissioned by the same gesture: "Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him" (Nu 27:18); the formal investiture follows immediately, "and he laid his hands on him, and gave him a charge, as Yahweh spoke by Moses" (Nu 27:23). Deuteronomy reads the gift of wisdom back through the same gesture: "Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands on him: and the sons of Israel listened to him" (De 34:9). The Pastoral Epistles use the gesture identically of Timothy: "Don't neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the group of elders" (1Ti 4:14); "stir up the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands" (2Ti 1:6). Paul also makes the gesture a matter of ecclesial discipline: "Lay hands hastily on no man, neither share in other men's sins: keep yourself pure" (1Ti 5:22). Hebrews lists "the laying on of hands" alongside baptism and the resurrection of the dead among the foundational doctrines (Heb 6:2).
A fourth use, healing, runs through the gospels. "He laid his hands on a few sick folk, and healed them" (Mr 6:5); "they bring to him one who was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they urge him to lay his hand on him" (Mr 7:32); "he laid his hands on each one of them, and healed them" (Lu 4:40); "he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God" (Lu 13:13). The gesture is the same one Israel knew from priesthood and patriarch.
Hands Lifted Up
A second formal hand-gesture is to lift the hands. The Psalter treats the lifted hand as a posture of prayer and praise: "Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry to you, When I lift up my hands toward your holy oracle" (Ps 28:2); "I will lift up my hands in [the name of your Speech]" (Ps 63:4); "Lift up your+ hands to the sanctuary, And bless+ Yahweh" (Ps 134:2). The figure is parallel to incense: "May my prayer be placed as incense before you; The lifting of my hands as the evening sacrifice" (Ps 141:2). The same posture is used in lament: "I spread forth my hands to you: My soul [thirsts] after you, as a weary land" (Ps 143:6); "Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up your hands toward him for the soul of your young children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street" (La 2:19). Sirach gathers Hezekiah's deliverance under the same gesture: "they called to God Most High, And spread forth their hands to him, And he heard the voice of their prayer, And saved them by the hand of Isaiah" (Sir 48:20). The wisdom-poet does the same with his life: "I spread forth my hands to the heaven above, And forever and ever I will not swerve from her" (Sir 51:19). The First Letter to Timothy carries the gesture forward as Christian practice: "I desire therefore that the men pray in every place, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and disputing" (1Ti 2:8).
Lifted hands also belong to the priestly blessing. After Aaron's first sacrifice, "Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people, and blessed them; and he came down from offering the sin-offering, and the burnt-offering, and the peace-offerings" (Le 9:22). The lifted hand is also the gesture of a sworn oath. Abram refuses Sodom's spoils with it: "I have lifted up my hand to Yahweh, God Most High, possessor [by his Speech] of heaven and earth" (Ge 14:22). Yahweh swears in the same form: "Yahweh has sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give your grain to be food for your enemies" (Is 62:8).
Hands Washed and Hands Clean
A separate gesture is to wash the hands. In Deuteronomy the elders of the city nearest an unsolved killing wash their hands over the heifer broken in the valley as a public token of innocence: "all the elders of that city, who are nearest to the slain man, will wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley" (De 21:6). The Psalter takes the gesture into liturgy: "I will wash my hands in innocence: So I will go about your altar, O Yahweh" (Ps 26:6). It also takes it into bitter complaint, when the gesture seems to have failed: "Surely in vain I have cleansed my heart, And washed my hands in innocence" (Ps 73:13). Job presses the figure into a moral commonplace: "he who has clean hands will wax stronger and stronger" (Job 17:9).
A second, very different hand-washing is the Pharisaic ablution before meals. Mark stages a confrontation over the practice: "[the Pharisees] had seen that some of his disciples ate their bread with common hands, that is unwashed" (Mr 7:2); "the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands diligently, don't eat, holding the tradition of the elders" (Mr 7:3); "the Pharisees and the scribes ask him, Why don't your disciples walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with common hands?" (Mr 7:5). Here washed hands are not a token of innocence but a marker of conformity to a tradition the Lord rejects, and the contrast with Deuteronomy's elders and the Psalmist's altar is deliberate.
The Right Hand: Honor and Power
The right hand is the place of honor. At a royal wedding, "Kings' daughters are among your honorable women: At your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir" (Ps 45:9). The same Psalter pleads for the chosen king as the man of God's right hand: "Let your hand be on the man of your right hand, On the son of man whom you made strong for yourself" (Ps 80:17). The right hand is also the seat of power, both human and divine. Jacob deliberately moves his right hand to the head of the younger son (Ge 48:14, above), and the prophets describe Yahweh's saving acts in the same terms: "his own arm" and "the right hand of my righteousness" (Is 41:10).
Hands That Pledge
A small cluster of texts uses the hand as the body's seal on a contract or treaty. The penitents of Ezra's day use it to ratify a covenant of repentance: "they gave their hand that they would put away their wives" (Ezr 10:19). Wisdom warns against using the gesture lightly: "My son, if you have become surety for your fellow man, If you have stricken your hands for a stranger" (Pr 6:1); "[A] man void of understanding strikes hands, And becomes surety in the presence of his fellow man" (Pr 17:18). Job uses the same idiom in his lament: "Give now a pledge, be surety for me with yourself; Who is there that will strike hands with me?" (Job 17:3). At the political level, Lamentations describes a vassal's submission with the same vocabulary: "We have given the hand to the Egyptians, And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread" (La 5:6). Ezekiel uses it of Zedekiah's broken oath to Babylon: "he had given his hand, and yet has done all these things; he will not escape" (Eze 17:18). A hand given is a thing one is bound by, even when the giving is foolish or the breaking is judged.
The same gesture also works at the human scale of friendship. Jehu's confederation with Jehonadab is sealed in this idiom: "If it is, give me your hand. And he gave him his hand; and he took him up to him into the chariot" (2Ki 10:15).
Cut It Off
A final figurative use sharpens the value of the hand by setting it against the value of the whole self. "If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off: it is good for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having your two hands to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire" (Mr 9:43). The figure works by hyperbole on the rest of this article's vocabulary: a hand is the organ of work, of pledge, of blessing, of honor, of prayer — and yet it is not the self, and it is not worth the loss of the self.
The wider treatment of God's accommodated bodily vocabulary belongs in the Anthropomorphisms page, and the priestly washings adjacent to the hand-of-innocence gesture are gathered in Ablution.