It is a noteworthy fact that the uplifted hand is prominent in the representation of the deities of Babylonia, Assyria, Phenicia, and Egypt, especially of the gods of life, or of fertility, who have covenant relations with men. And the same is true of the representations of sovereigns, in the ancient East, who are supposed to be in peculiar covenant relations with the gods.
Thus, on the seal of Ur-Gur, the earliest ruler of “Ur of the Chaldees,”[[222]] the ruler and his attendants appear with uplifted hands before the moon-god Sin, who in turn is represented with his hand uplifted, as if he were making covenant with them.[[223]] It is the same with the sun-god Shamash and his worshipers.[[224]]
When a king of ancient Babylon was recognized as having a right to the throne, he must lift up his hand and clasp the hand of the image of Bel-Merodach, in order to show that he had “become the adopted son of the true ruler of the city.” This giving and taking of the hand was a symbol of covenanting in Babylonia. In this way a child was adopted into a family, and a husband and a wife covenanted to become one.[[225]]
The god Asshur, and his worshipers, kings or princes, are similarly represented in Assyria with the hand uplifted. And it is the same there with other deities and their worshipers.[[226]] In Phenicia, and its colonies, the same idea has prominence.[[227]]
Deities of ancient Egypt are frequently represented with the uplifted hand, and their accepted worshipers appear before them with the right hand uplifted.[[228]] As showing that this is not the attitude of supplication or of adoration, like the bowed form, the crossed arms, or the upturned palms, it is to be noted that in the representation of Amenophis IV., or Khuen-aten, with his family, before the aten-ra or the solar disk, the worshipers stand with their right hands uplifted, while the sun-god reaches down a series of open hands, as if in covenant proffer to the uplifted hands below.[[229]]
In the county of Roscommon, in Ireland, there is a stone known as “a druidical altar,” which the common people say was thrown there by the giant Fin-mac-Coole, “the print of whose five fingers, they say, is to be seen on it.” The hand-print is pointed to confidently as the proof of authenticity, as if it were the veritable signature of the giant.[[230]]
Among the ruins in Central America, there were found at the doorways and on the walls of many of the ruined buildings of Yucatan the stamp of a red hand on the plaster or on the stone. “They were the prints of a red hand, with the thumb and fingers extended, not drawn or painted, but stamped by the living hand, the pressure of the palm upon the stone. He who made it had stood before it alive, ... and pressed his hand, moistened with red paint, hard against the stone. The seams and creases of the palm were clear and distinct in the impression.” As showing the idea prevalent among the natives of that region with reference to the source and meaning of these signs-manual, the Indians of Yucatan said that the stamp was of “the hand of the owner of the building,” as if he had affixed it to his dwelling in token of his covenant with its guardian deity; and, again, it was thought that “these impressions were placed there in a formal act of consecration to the gods.”[[231]]
There is a clear recognition of this idea in many Bible references to the lifting up of the hands unto God, as if in covenant relations with him. Thus, Abraham says to the king of Sodom, “I have lift up my hand unto the Lord;”[[232]] as if he would say, I have pledged myself to him. I have given him my hand. And the Psalmist says: “I will lift up my hands in thy name.”[[233]] God himself says, by his prophet: “I will lift up mine hand to the nations;”[[234]] that is, I will covenant with them.[[235]] And so in many another case. Indeed, the Assyrian word for swearing (nish) is literally “lifting up the hand;”[[236]] and the Hebrew word nasa means to lift up the hand or to swear.[[237]] The uplifted hand in a judicial oath seems to be a survival of the same thought, that an appeal is thus made to God, as one’s covenant God.
Again, there may be a reference to the “hand of might” in a covenant relation, in those passages where God is spoken of as bringing his people out of Egypt by “a strong hand,” or “a mighty hand,” and as dealing with them afterwards in the same way.[[238]]
An uplifted hand is a symbol found also on the stepped pyramid temples of Polynesia.[[239]]