the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
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Bible Dictionaries
Salutation
Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary
or The Lord Jesus takes notice of the salutations of the Scribes in the market-place, and their delight to be called of men Rabbi. (Matthew 23:7) Contrary to this when the Lord sent out his disciples to teach and to preach, he commanded them to "salute no man by the way." (Luke 10:4) To an ordinary reader unacquainted with eastern customs, these things appear strange. We are so much in the habit of familiar conversation as we pass persons we know, that the salutation Good morning, or Good day, or the like, seems but common courtesy. But in the manners of the orientals, these things would make constant confusion. Numberless transactions, and that of the highest kind, are carried on with them by the mere bend of the body or the motion of the head, without speaking a word. A modern historian relates, that even upon their public days of transacting business, and where a multitude of concerns is carried on, so much of the whole is done by sign and gesture, that if a blind person were present, he would be unconscious of any company when perhaps some hundreds were assembled. What would those eastern people think of the clamour of voices in our Royal Exchange? In families, among the servants with their masters, a thousand commands are issued and executed, and not a voice heard. This may serve to shew a new beauty on that sweet Psalm of David, the one hundred and twenty third, were the soul of a believer in the Lord is described as waiting in silent adoration and obedience to receive the Lord's commands, "as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress."
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Hawker, Robert D.D. Entry for 'Salutation'. Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance and Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/pmd/s/salutation.html. London. 1828.
