Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJames Hastings Dictionary of the Bible: Bath, Bathing
Subjects in this Topic:
BATH, BATHING.—The latter term is most frequently used in our EV [Note: English Version.] in connexion with purification from ceremonial defilement—contact with holy things, with the dead, etc. (see article Clean and Unclean)—and in this sense denotes the washing of the body with water, not necessarily the total immersion of the body in water. Hence RV [Note: Revised Version.] has rightly introduced ‘wash’ in many cases for ‘bathe.’ Bathing in the modern and non-religious sense is rarely mentioned (Exo_2:5 Pharaoh’s daughter, 2Sa_11:2 [RV [Note: Revised Version.] ] Bathsheba, and the curious case 1Ki_22:38). Public baths are first met with in the Greek period—they were included in the ‘place of exercise’ (1Ma_1:14)—and remains of such buildings from the Roman period are fairly numerous. Recently a remarkable series of bath-chambers have been discovered at Gezer in connexion with a building, which is supposed to be the palace built by Simon Maccabæus (illust. in PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1905, 294 f.).
The Hebrews were well acquainted with the use of mineral and vegetable alkalis for increasing the cleansing properties of water (Jer_2:22, RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘soap,’ ‘lye’). In the History of Susanna Jer_2:17 is a curious reference to ‘washing-balls.’
A. R. S. Kennedy.