A student notes that foot-washing is an act of hospitality, in places like Genesis 18 and elsewhere.
It is also required of priests entering the tabernacle.
These amount to the same thing. Priests are given water to wash as they are welcomed into Yahweh’s house.
Purity rules are, perhaps, not rules of exclusion but an act of welcome.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Notes on Anosmia
One morning several years ago, as my wife, Wendy, and I were having breakfast together, I had…
Empire of Unreality
Shiva Naipaul (1945–1985) was the author of three novels and two books of mordant dispatches from places…
The Dreadful Christ of Pär Lagerkvist
It’s dangerous to meet a god,” says the disgraced Pythia in Pär Lagerkvist’s The Sibyl. Her observation…