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Right Hands


Lil Red

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What's up with all the right hands in the Bible? A lot of what I read is, "I will put you in my right hand", "I will strike with my right hand", "I will rule with my right hand".

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In a time and culture where food was eaten by hand, communally, the right hand was for eating, and the left hand was for things like cleaning yourself after bathroom activities. The right hand is for clean or good things, and the left was for dirty or bad things. That's why the ancient penalty for theft of having your right hand cut off was often a death sentence. You couldn't eat from the communal bowl with your left hand, so you starved. To say that you would hold someone in your left hand was probably an extreme insult.

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