Spittle Spitting
Spittle Spitting [1]
Spitting, Spittle ( πτύω, πτύσμα, ἐμπτύω).—References to spitting occur in the Nt in the Gospels only, and there always in connexion with Christ.
1. Spitting was a common mark of derision and contempt. Christ foretold it among the insults which He as Messiah would endure ( Mark 10:34, Luke 18:32); and during His Passion He was spit upon both by Jews ( Matthew 26:67, Mark 14:65) and by Gentile soldiers ( Matthew 27:30, Mark 15:19). Allusions to the custom with this injurious meaning are found in the Ot ( Numbers 12:14, Deuteronomy 25:9, Is 50:6). Variant forms, still customary among Orientals, are spitting upon the ground before any one, or even at the mention of a despised and hated name.
2. Three occasions are recorded on which Christ made use of His spittle in the work of healing: with a deaf and dumb man in the Decapolis ( Mark 7:33), when He touched the tongue of the afflicted with moisture from His own mouth; with a blind man at Bethsaida ( Mark 8:23), when He ‘spat upon his eyes’; and with one born blind, at Jerusalem ( John 9:6-7), when He made clay of the spittle and anointed the eyes of the blind. In the two former instances Christ is stated first to have taken the man apart, and Meyer suggests that this secrecy was due to His use of the spittle; but no reason for secrecy suggests itself, and the third act of healing appears to have been performed publicly. Trench ( Miracles , on John 9) adduces Pliny ( Hist. Hn xxviii. 7), Suetonius ( Vespas. 7), Tacitus ( Hist. iv. 8), to witness to the prevalence of an ancient belief in the medicinal value of human saliva, especially for eye troubles. See Blindness.
John Muir.
