They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face. They abhor me - What a state must civil society be in when such indignities were permitted to be offered to the aged and afflicted!
Job 30:10."And Jehovah said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days?" Numbers 22:14. On which place Sir John Chardin remarks, that "spitting before any one, or spitting upon the ground in speaking of any one's actions, is through the east an expression of extreme detestation." - Harmer's Observ. 2:509. See also, of the same notions of the Arabs in this respect, Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie, p. 26. It so evidently appears that in those countries spitting has ever been an expression of the utmost detestation, that the learned doubt whether in the passages of Scripture above quoted any thing more is meant than spitting, - not in the face, which perhaps the words do not necessarily imply, - but only in the presence of the person affronted. But in this place it certainly means spitting in the face; so it is understood in St. Luke, where our Lord plainly refers to this prophecy: "All things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished; for he shall be delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked and spitefully entreated, and spitted on, εμπτυσθησεται, "Luk 18:31, Luke 18:32, which was in fact fulfilled; και ηρξεαντο τινες εμπτυειν αυτῳ, "and some began to spit on him," Mark 14:65, Mark 15:19. If spitting in a person's presence was such an indignity, how much more spitting in his face?