Bible Encyclopedias
Ablution

• For older authorities see McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia;
• Hamburger, Realencyklopädie für Bibel und Talmud, 1:145,872;
• Nowack, Biblische Archaeologie, 2:275-299;
• Samuel Spitzer, Über Baden und Bäder bei den Alten Hebräern, 1884.

—Historical Presentation:

The rite of Ablution forms part of the system of purification practised at all times and in all lands by such as strive for holiness or for a communion with the Deity. It may have a twofold object: (1) the cleansing of the body from impurity, first in a physical sense, and then on a higher stage in a symbolical sense, and (2) the preparing of the body for a higher degree of holiness. Persons were not allowed to enter a holy place or to approach the Deity with sacrifice or prayer without having first performed the rite of Ablution or, as it is also called, sanctification (Exodus 19:10; 1 Samuel 16:5; 2 Chronicles 29:5; and Josephus, "Ant." 14:11, § 5, where we are told that the whole people purified themselves for the approaching festival; compare Ta'anit, 19b-20a). The priests were especially enjoined to wash their hands and feet before entering the sanctuary or before officiating at the altar (Exodus 30:19 et seq.). Similarly the priests in Egypt had to wash themselves twice every day and twice every night in cold—probably identical with living or flowing—water (Herod. 2:37); and the Greeks, we learn from Hesiod ("Opera et Dies," verse 722), were warned "never with unwashed hands to pour out the black wine at morn to Zeus or the other immortals" (compare Homer, "Iliad," 6:266; "Odyssey," 4:759). It is partly in view of this almost universal practise that the Psalmist says: "I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass thine altar" (Psalms 26:6), or "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency" (Psalms 73:13); partly also in view of an especial rite prescribed (Deuteronomy 21:6) in the case of the commission of a murder by an unknown person, when the elders of the nearest city had to wash their hands over the blood of an expiatory heifer (parallels to which have been found in Vergil, "Æneid," 2:217, and scholiast on Sophocles' "Ajax," 664, in 1:80 of the London edition 1758). "Clean hands" became synonymouswith hands free from guilt (see Psalms 18:20, 24:4; Job, 9:30).

Following the custom of the priests, the pious Israelite bathed, or at least washed his hands, every morning before prayer. Thus the God-fearing Jews are represented in Sibylline Books, 3:591-593 as "such who, rising from their bed early in the morning, wash their hands in water to lift them ever pure to heaven in prayer." The same is related of Judith (Judith, 12:7), and of the seventy-two elders who are said to have translated the Scriptures for Ptolemy we are told, in the Letter of Aristeas, 305, that, in accordance with Jewish custom, they washed their hands in the sea every morning before offering their prayers. For this reason it became "a tradition of the fathers to build houses of worship near the water" (see the decree of Halicarnassus in Josephus, "Ant." 14:10, § 23; and Acts of the Apostles, 16:13).

So fixed became this custom of washing the hands before divine service that the Christian Church adopted the Jewish custom of providing the worshipers with fountains or basins of water (see Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl." 10:4,40), exactly as the Temple, or Tabernacle, had the laver, or the molten sea, for the use of the priests (Exodus 30:18; 2 Chronicles 4:2,6). The rabbis instituted a special benediction to be recited every morning: "Blessed be Thou O Lord, King of the Universe, who hast sanctified us by Thy laws and commanded us to wash the hands" (Ber. 60b). Some erroneously derive the term used for washing, "neṭilat yadayim" (lifting up of the hands) from natla = Greek αντλίον (B. B. 58b; see S. Fränkel, "Aramäische Fremdwörter im Arabischen," p. 65), the name for the jar of water used (Ḥul. 107a); others, from the prescribed manner of pouring the water upon the up-lifted hands until it reached up to the wrist (pereḳ) —Yad. 2:3; Tosef., Yad. 2:2; Soṭah, 4b—but it seems rather to be taken from Psalms 134:2, "Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord!" referred in Targ. Yer. to the officiating priests. The Apostolic Constitutions, 8:32, also have the rule, "Let all the faithful, whether men or women, when they rise from sleep, before they go to work, pray, after having washed themselves" (νιψάμενοι = "washed their hands").

Ablution among Mohammedans.

Among the Mohammedans the ablution preparatory to prayer, called waẓú, becomes far more burdensome because it is required five times a day—before each of the stated prayers, before touching the holy Koran, and after every ritual defilement; and the washing of each hand and part of the face is accompanied by prayer: "O believers, when ye prepare yourselves for prayer wash your faces and hands up to the elbows, and wipe your heads and your feet to the ankles" (Koran, sura 5:8). In all the principal mosques there are tanks or wells, which supply water for the rites of Ablution (T. P. Hughes, "Dictionary of Islam" s. "Ablution").

In the Mishnaic Time.

With the Jews, Ablution was also required before each meal, inasmuch as the participation in the meal by the members of the Pharisean brotherhood was to assume the same character as the sacrificial or sacred meal, of which the priest could partake only after having undergone the rite of Ablution; and the name of God had to be pronounced over it, as was done over the sacrifice (1 Samuel 9:13, 16:5). According to rabbinical tradition, King Solomon, the builder of the Temple with its molten sea, instituted the practise (Shab. 14b; 'Er. 21b). The twofold injunction, "Sanctify yourselves and be ye holy" (Leviticus 20:7), was interpreted as commanding a twofold Ablution, the second being in preparation for the grace after meals (Ber. 53b; see 43b, 46b). Edersheim ("Life of Jesus," 2:11) erroneously identifies the mayim rishonim and mayim aḥaronim with the rishonot and sheniyot of Yadayim, and says: "The 'first waters' were poured upon the uplifted hands to remove the defilement, and if the water did not reach up to the wrist the hands were not clean; while the 'second waters' were to wash away the water that had absorbed the defilement. These pourings preceded the grace before meals; and to this reference is made in Mark, 7:3: 'The Pharisees and all the Jews eat not except they wash their hands to the wrist'" (πυγμῆ A. V. 'often' reads as if = πυκνἁ). In the Mishnaic time only the ablution after the meal is spoken of by the Hillelites and Shammaites (Ber. 3:1). The washing of the hands after the meal—originally a sanctification before saying grace—soon fell into desuetude. In vain the Amoraim contended that this duty was superior to the ablution preceding the meal (Yoma, 83b; Ḥul. 106a). Later rationalists explained the custom away, as having arisen from the danger of wiping the eyes with fingers on which the salt of Sodom, used in the food, might have remained, and therefore declared it antiquated (Tosef., Ber. 53b; Alfasi, Ber. 48b; "Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim," § 181, 10). Akiba, when in prison, deprived himself of the water given him to quench his thirst rather than neglect the rite of Ablution ('Er. 21b); and according to the Mishnah the people at large might only in extreme cases, as on a battle-field, dispense with the rite ('Er. 1:10, p. 17a). According to one of the Amoraim, the eating of bread with unwashed and undried hands is eating unclean bread, or is tantamount to committing an act of unchastity; according to others it leads to sudden destruction or poverty (Soṭah, 4b; Shab. 62b). Still Rab says (Ḥul. 106b), "One may perform the rite of Ablution in the morning and take care that it should apply to the meals of the whole day." Anomalous as this teaching of an amora may seem, it was probably the same for which Eleazar b. Ḥanok was long before excommunicated, as undermining the authority of the elders (see 'Eduy. 5:6). A similar opposition was shown by Simeon the Essene (ha-Ẓenu'a = "the Saint"), Tosef., Kelim, B. Ḳ. 1:6, who entered the holy place without having washed his hands and feet, claiming a greater degree of holiness for himself than the high priest because of his ascetic life.

This seems to cast new light on the attitude of Jesus toward the rabbinical law of Ablution. According to Matthew 15:1-20 and Mark, 7:1-23, Pharisees and scribes that had come from Jerusalem had seen some of the disciples eat their bread with profane (ḥullin), that is, unwashed, hands: for, says Mark, the Pharisees and all the Jews, unless they wash their hands up to the wrist (see Edersheim, c.), eat not, holding fast to the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the market-place, except they have first sprinkled themselves, they eat not. The Pharisees and the scribes ask Jesus: "Why walk not thy disciples according to the traditions of the elders, but eat their bread with profane hands?" And he answers them: "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you Pharisees (hypocrites), 'This people draw nigh with their mouth, and with their lips they honor me; but their heart is far from me and their fear of me is a precept of men learned by rote' (Isaiah 29:13, Masoretic text). Ye leave the commandment of God and hold fast to the tradition of men" (compare the rabbinical phrase . B. M. 30b). What follows in Mark, or precedes in Matthew, hasno bearing on the question of Ablution and is the outcome of Pauline antinomianism. Another record is that of Luke, 11:37-41: "Now as he spake, a Pharisee asked him to breakfast with him, and he went in and sat down to meat. And as the Pharisee saw this he marveled that he had not bathed [ἐβαπτίσθη] before breakfasting. And Jesus said unto him: 'Now ye Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness. Ye foolish ones, did not He that made the outside make the inside also? However, give the things that are within over to righteousness [, not alms], and behold all things are clean unto you.'"

In the course of time it became customary to pour water three times upon the hands to cleanse them from impurity; and in a Baraita (Shab. 109a) the opinion is expressed by R. Nathan, that the spirit of impurity, resting upon man during the night, will not leave him until he has poured water three times upon his hands. The cabalists go still further, and maintain that man incurs the penalty of death if he walks a distance of four yards from his bed without Ablution (Meir ibn Gabbai in his "Tola'at Ya'aḳob"; see "Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim," 4:1,2, and Magen Abraham). So too a passage in the Zohar ("Wayishlaḥ," p. 387) says: "Whosoever sleepeth at night in his bed tasteth of death, for his soul leaveth him for the nonce. Being thus bereft of its soul, an unclean spirit possesseth his body and defileth it. Wherefore I say, let no man pass his [unwashed] hand over his eyes in the morning, by reason of the unclean spirit which resteth on it." The hygienic intent of these prescriptions is manifest.