the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Dust
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or DUST (κονιορτός, Matthew 10:14, Luke 9:5; Luke 10:11, Acts 13:51; Acts 22:23; χόος = χοῦς, Mark 6:11, Revelation 18:19. The former means properly dust stirred up or blown about, as ‘a cloud of dust’; the latter simply earth or soil thrown down or raised in a heap. In NT the two words are plainly synonymous).—The long droughts and fierce heat of Palestine, together with the softness of the limestone rock—the prevailing formation—make for the production of dust in great quantities. In high winds it penetrates to almost every part of the houses. The pedestrian suffers much from fretting of the feet by the dust, which neither sandal nor shoe excludes. This renders necessary, as well as pleasant, the washing of the feet when the journey is done (Luke 7:44).
An immemorial token of grief in the East is the casting of dust upon the person, especially upon the head, or the laying of the face in the dust; while of one utterly humbled, it is said that he ‘licks the dust.’
The throwing of dust in the air is still a not uncommon way of expressing rage, or emphasizing an appeal for justice. This is probably meant to show that Earth herself joins in the petition for redress of intolerable wrongs.
Our Lord’s direction that ‘the Twelve’ should shake off the dust of the cities that rejected their message, derived special significance from Jewish teaching. The very dust of a heathen road was held to produce defilement. To shake off the dust of their feet, as a testimony against house or city, meant that it had passed under the ban of their Lord, and the symbolic act proclaimed that ‘nought of the cursed thing’ clave to them. ‘In this sense anything that clave to a person was metaphorically called “the dust,” as, e.g., “the dust of an evil tongue,” “the dust of usury’; as, on the other hand, to “dust to idolatry” meant to cleave to it’ (Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. i. p. 644). The modern Oriental, if asked regarding any questionable business, will daintily grip the lapel of his robe or tunic and gently shake it, turning aside his head as if he should say, ‘Not even the dust of that transaction has touched me.’
W. Ewing.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Dust'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/d/dust.html. 1906-1918.
