salutation Summary and Overview

"Eastern modes of salutation are not unfrequently so prolonged as to become wearisome and a positive waste of time. The profusely polite Arab asks so many questions after your health, your happiness, your welfare, your house, and other things, that a person ignorant of the habits of the country would imagine there must be some secret ailment or mysterious sorrow oppressing you, which you wished to conceal, so as to spare the feelings of a dear, sympathizing friend, but which he, in the depth of his anxiety, would desire to hear of. I have often listened to these prolonged salutations in the house, the street, and the highway, and not unfrequently I have experienced their tedious monotony, and I have bitterly lamented useless waste of time" (Porter, Through Samaria, etc.). The work on which the disciples were sent forth was one of urgency, which left no time for empty compliments and prolonged greetings (Luke 10:4).

Salutations may be classed under the two heads of conversational and epistolary. The salutation at meeting consisted in early times of various expressions of blessing, such as "God be gracious unto thee," #Ge 43:29| "The Lord be with you;" "The Lord bless thee." #Ru 2:4| Hence the term "bless" received the secondary sense of "salute." The salutation at parting consisted originally of a simple blessing, #Ge 24:60| but in later times the form "Go in peace," or rather "Farewell" #1Sa 1:17| was common. In modern times the ordinary mode of address current in the East resembles the Hebrew Es-selam aleykum, "Peace be on you," and the term "salam," peace, has been introduced into our own language to describe the Oriental salutation. In epistolary salutations the writer placed-his own name first, and then that of the person whom he sainted. A form of prayer for spiritual mercies was also used. The concluding salutation consisted generally of the term "I salute," accompanied by a prayer for peace or grace.

In meeting, "God be gracious unto thee," "the Lord bless thee," etc. (Genesis 43:29; Rth 2:4; Rth 3:10; 1 Samuel 15:13; Psalm 129:8). Thus "bless" came to moan salute (1 Samuel 13:10 margin). "Peace" (shalom, from whence the oriental salaam), including health or welfare of body and mind, was the constant salutation of Hebrew; as "joy" (chairein) is the Greek salutation. James 1:1-2; "greeting ... joy," only found elsewhere in the apostolic letter probably composed by James (Acts 15:23), an undesigned coincidence. "Hail": Matthew 27:29. The Hebrew's very salutation indicated his sense of man's deep spiritual need. The Greek salutation answers to the national characteristic, "joy," and outward gracefulness (Genesis 43:27 margin; Exodus 18:7 margin). "Peace" was used also in encouraging (Genesis 43:23); at parting a blessing was pronounced (Genesis 24:60). Latterly (1 Samuel 1:17) "go in peace": no empty form in Christ's mouth (Mark 5:34; Luke 7:50; Luke 10:5; Luke 24:36; Acts 16:36). Proverbs 27:14; "he that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning," i.e., the affected assiduity and loud exaggeration engender suspicion of insincerity and duplicity. "Salute no man by the way," lest it should cause delay by subsequent conversation (2 Kings 4:29; Luke 10:4). "Live for ever" was the salutation to the Babylonian and Persian kings (Daniel 2:4; Daniel 6:6). "Grace and peace" is Paul's opening salutation in his epistles to churches, but in his three pastoral epistles, Timothy and Titus, "grace, mercy, and peace"; for ministers of all men most need "mercy" for their ministry (2 Corinthians 4:1; 1 Corinthians 7:25; 1 Timothy 1:16). Paul added to the epistles written by an amanuensis the salutation with his own hand, "grace" to all (1 Corinthians 16:21-23; Colossians 4:18; 2 Thessalonians 3:17-18). The greeting forbidden toward a false teacher in 2 John 1:10 is of that usual among Christian brethren, a token of Christian brotherhood; this would be insincerity.