FINGER (אֶצְבַּע, H720; Gr. δάκτυλος, G1235). The fingers which are an extension from the palm of the hand are still a major part of the whole hand, and are mentioned when the emphasis is on dexterity and skill rather than power. Fingers often stand for the whole hand as in “your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity” (Isa 59:3) and the Lord “trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle” (Ps 144:1). The fingers were used in conversation by the oriental to add to the expression of the mouth, e.g. “winks with his eyes...points with his fingers” (Prov 6:13) and “if you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness” (Isa 58:9). Accusation was, and still is, made by pointing. Measuring by the fingers assumed .73 inch for each finger, for instance, the pillars of Solomon’s Temple were thicknesses of four fingers (Jer 52:21). Much of a person’s wealth could be carried in rings on his fingers.

Shaking hands signified unity of purpose (2 Kings 10:15) and spiritual guidance was bound on fingers (Prov 7:3). A finger sprinkled the sacrificial blood upon the horns of the altar of the Tabernacle and the priests received blood upon the thumbs of their right hands (Exod 29:12, 20).

A rare dominant hereditary trait is the possession of extra fingers and toes, such as of the man of great stature at Gath (1 Chron 20:6).

Rehoboam stressed the burden of his yoke upon his people by following the advice of his young men to say, “My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins” (1 Kings 12:10). Jesus complained that the scribes and Pharisees laid burdens on men’s shoulders, but they themselves would not move them with their fingers (Matt 23:4).

The finger of God was like the hand of God, only His creative skill is suggested in such statements as “when I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers” (Ps 8:3). With it He wrote the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone (Exod 31:18). In a miracle He made the fingers of a man’s hand to appear and write on the plaster on the wall to pronounce doom on Belshazzar (Dan 5:5). Apparently the writing by Jesus on the ground in the presence of the accusers of the adulterous woman was a sentence of conviction (John 8:6, fn). Jesus said it was by the finger of God that He cast out demons, and Luke, a physician whose fingers would so often be used in healing, is the one who records this (Luke 11:20).

Not only did Jesus ask Thomas to test His reality by thrusting his finger into His side (John 20:27) but He blessed with His fingers when He healed the deaf man, and when “children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray” (Matt 19:13).

Lifting and laying on of hands for blessing was common. The position of the fingers was important in the early western church. Three upraised fingers stood for the Trinity, while the remaining two closed fingers signified the two natures of Christ.