Ablution
 
 Or washing, was practised,
  1. When a person was initiated into a higher state: e.g., when
     Aaron and his sons were set apart to the priest's office, they
     were washed with water previous to their investiture with the
     priestly robes Le 8:6
  2. Before the priests approached the altar of God, they were
     required, on pain of death, to wash their hands and their feet
     to cleanse them from the soil of common life Ex 30:17-21 To
     this practice the Psalmist alludes, Ps 26:6
  3. There were washings prescribed for the purpose of cleansing from
     positive defilement contracted by particular acts. Of such
     washings eleven different species are prescribed in the
     Levitical law (Le 12:1-Le 15:33)
  4. A fourth class of ablutions is mentioned, by which a person
     purified or absolved himself from the guilt of some particular
     act. For example, the elders of the nearest village where some
     murder was committed were required, when the murderer was
     unknown, to wash their hands over the expiatory heifer which was
     beheaded, and in doing so to say, "Our hands have not shed this
     blood, neither have our eyes seen it" De 21:1-9 So also Pilate
     declared himself innocent of the blood of Jesus by washing his
     hands Mt 27:24 This act of Pilate may not, however, have been
     borrowed from the custom of the Jews. The same practice was
     common among the Greeks and Romans. The Pharisees carried the
     practice of ablution to great excess, thereby claiming
     extraordinary purity Mt 23:25 Mr 7:1-5 refers to the ceremonial
     ablutions. The Pharisees washed their hands "oft," more
     correctly, "with the fist" (R.V., "diligently"), or as an old
     father, Theophylact, explains it, "up to the elbow." (Compare
     also) Mr 7:4 Le 6:28 11:32-36 15:22
 
  See WASHING 26788