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Bible Dictionaries
Border
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or BORDER (Gr. κράσπεδον for Heb. צִיצִית).—This word plays a significant part in the Gospels (Matthew 9:20; Matthew 14:36; Matthew 23:5, Mark 6:56, Luke 8:44). When Jesus was on His way to heal Jairus’ little daughter, a certain woman who had an issue of blood twelve years came behind Him and touched the ‘border’ (‘hem’) of His garment (τοῦ κρασπέδου τοῦ ἱματίου) and was healed (Matthew 9:20-22, Luke 8:44, Mark 6:56). In Matthew 14:36 we read of many sick ones who sought healing in the same way. Again, in that remarkable denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees which constitutes the climax of one of our Lord’s most striking discourses, He makes this charge among others: ‘All their works they do to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and they enlarge borders of their garments’ (Matthew 23:5).
What is this ‘border of the garment’ that plays such a rôle? Clearly in our Lord’s time the Jews had come to attach great importance to it. To them it was the chief of three ‘sensible signs,’ or material reminders, of their obligations under the Law, the other two being the Phylacteries (tĕphillîn) and mĕzûzôth, oblong boxes fixed above the door-posts, on which Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Deuteronomy 11:12-21 were written, according to the directions there given. The Law first required (Deuteronomy 22:12) that ‘twisted cords’ (Heb. gĕdhîlîm, incorrectly rendered ‘fringes’ by Authorized Version and Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885) be formed upon the four corners (‘four borders,’ Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885) of the mantle or ‘outer garment.’ This thing termed gĕdhîlîm acquired later the special name zîzîth,—it is so rendered by the Targum in Deuteronomy 22:12. The same law is found in the Priestly Code in expanded form: ‘And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes (zîzîth, κράσπεδα) in the borders’ (more correctly ‘tassels in the corners,’ (Revised Version margin)) ‘of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of each border (i.e. ‘the tassel of each corner’) a cord of blue’ (Numbers 15:37-38).
The ‘twisted cords’ of Deuteronomy 22:12 were clearly intended to be fastened to the four corners of the outer garment (usually called simlâh). The Priestly Code, however, further called for a ‘tassel’ to be attached to each corner by a cord of blue. Now, it is to these ‘tassels’ that the Gr. translators give the name κράσπεδα—the term exclusively used in the NT. The simlâh was worn like the Gr. ἱμάτιον (the NT equivalent), the loose end being thrown over the left shoulder. The ‘tassel’ attached to this corner, then, could be reached with ease from behind, as in the case of the woman with the issue of blood (Matthew 9:20).
Some think that behind this law was an ancient Semitic custom with superstitious and magical associations, which, however, was impressed with a new significance by the Hebrew legislation. At any rate, we see here, as elsewhere, that in NT times a special virtue was still thought to be attached to the ‘tassels on the four corners’ (cf. Matthew 14:36, Mark 6:56 with Luke 4:7 and 1 Kings 1:50).
In the Mosaic Law they were evidently intended to be, as to the more spiritually minded doubtless they were, simply reminders of the obligations resting upon Jehovah’s people to walk in this law and to keep all His commandments (Numbers 15:39-40). The ostentatious Pharisees, however, went beyond others in their use of these signs, by making them large and conspicuous.
Jewish hearers and readers would at once understand what Jesus meant by this charge against the scribes and Pharisees, ‘who sit in Moses’ seat.’ Making their phylacteries unusually broad and enlarging the borders (‘tassels’) of their garments would both be understood as their way of calling every casual observer to witness that they were remarkably pious. It was this ostentatious display of an empty, outward piety which Jesus here and elsewhere denounces, and which has given such a sinister and forbidding significance to ‘Pharisaism’ the world over.
Literature.—Schürer, ‘HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] ii. ii. 111 ff.; Edersheim, Life and Times, i. 624 ff.; Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible and Kitto’s Biblical Cyclopaedia3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , art. ‘Fringes.’
Geo. B. Eager.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Border'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/b/border.html. 1906-1918.
