Salutations Among Travelers

ORIENTAL SALUTATIONS AMONG TRAVELERS When travelers in the Orient meet each other on the way, they love to engage in salutations that to the Westerner seem complicated, tedious, and time-consuming. Wordy questions will be asked each other seeking such information as this: From where have you come? Where are you going? What is your name? How many children have you? How many men belong to your clan? What enemies does your clan have? etc., etc. While such salutations are entered into, business and everything else can wait. For this reason, when JESUS sent the seventy disciples on a healing and preaching mission, he said to them: "Salute no man by the way" (Luke 10:4). To engage in such extensive salutations as were customary would have interfered with the urgent business of the LORD. [Manners And Customs of Bible Lands]