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Possession (2)

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

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POSSESSION.—See Demon, Demoniacs.

POT.—There are two words rendered ‘pot’ in the Gospels, ξέστης and ὑδρία. The first is a corruption of the Lat. sextarius, and stands for a wooden vessel holding about a pint and a half, used at table for holding water and wine. This it is that is mentioned by Mk. (Mark 7:4; Mark 7:8) when he is relating how ‘the Pharisees and all the Jews’ kept ‘the tradition of the elders.’ ‘When they come from the market,’ he says, ‘except they dip themselves’ (βαπτίσωνται, v.l. ῥαντίσωνται) ‘they do not eat’; and, among the ‘many other things which they have received to hold,’ he specifies ‘the dippings (βαπτισμοὑς) of cups and pots’ (ξεστῶν), etc. This he mentions to explain why the Pharisees and scribes came to ask Jesus, ‘Why walk thy disciples not according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands?’ thus giving Jesus occasion to apply to them the prophecy of Isaiah, ‘This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me,’ and otherwise exposing and rebuking their ‘hypocrisy.’

When Jn. (John 4:28) tells us of the Samaritan woman, in the excitement of her new-found joy, ‘leaving her water-pot,’ he uses the words τὴν ὑδρίαν, pointing doubtless to just such a portable earthen water-pot as women in Palestine are everywhere to-day seen carrying on their heads. But in John 2:6 where he gives an account of the miracle at the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee, he tells of ‘six water-pots of stone’ (λίθιναι ὑδρίαι), which were clearly ‘pots’ of a very different kind—too large to use at table, or to be portable in the ordinary way. Their size may be gathered from the next clause, ‘containing two or three firkins a piece’—about nine English gallons. They were probably just such huge stone pitchers as are shown to tourists to-day at Kefr Kennâ, and as may be found elsewhere in Palestine. Scarcity of drinking water in Palestine made it necessary to keep a supply on hand in large vessels that would serve as coolers, especially in hot weather. Then a copious supply would be needed according to Jewish custom (‘after the manner of the purifying of the Jews’), for use in the washing of hands and vessels before and after meals (Matthew 15:2, Mark 7:3).

Geo. B. Eager.