Mark 3:1-5 And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand.… The hand of a man is one of those noble physical features which distinguish him from the brute. "The hand" is but another name for human skill, power, and usefulness, and for the studied adaptation of means to ends. By his hand, as the servant of his intellect and his heart, man is put on a physical level with, if not far above, all other living beings, in respect of his power to defend himself against the formidable creatures who are furnished by nature with ponderous and deadly weapons, both of attack and resistance. By the aid of this wonderful instrument, he can cover his nakedness, he can build for himself a home, and make the whole world do his bidding; he can subdue it unto himself, and fill it with the trophies of his mastery. The houses, the roads, the bridges, the fleets, the palaces, the temples, the pyramids, of earth, have all been wrought by the little hands of men. The agriculture and industry by which the whole habitable face of our globe has been fashioned into "the great bright useful thing it is," have been file work of man's hand. While the working man's hand is his sole capital, the hand of man is constantly used as the symbol of power and the type of developed and practical wisdom. The hand commits thought to paper, and imagination to marble and to canvas. Literature, science, and art are as dependent on its service, as are the toils of the labourer, or the fabric of the artizan. If manual toil is economized by machinery, still man's hand is essential for the construction of the machine, and for its subsequent control, so that the hand is the symbol and the instrument of all the arts of human life. We can, therefore, scarcely refrain from the thought that that "withered hand" in the synagogue was a type of uselessness and feebleness; and that "right hand," as St. Luke describes it, robbed of its nourishment, hanging helplessly in a sling, was a picture of whatever deprives a man of the power of holy work, and renders him an encumbrance, if not a mischief, in God's great kingdom. (H. R. Reynolds, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand.WEB: He entered again into the synagogue, and there was a man there who had his hand withered. |
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