What does it mean to shake the dust off your feet?

Small particles of matter found on the ground, out of which man was formed, to whom it was said, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Gen. 2:7; Gen. 3:19. "The first man is of the earth, earthy." 1 Cor. 15:47. It is used as a symbol of weakness: "he remembereth that we are dust." Ps. 103:14. To 'lick the dust' is figurative of defeat. Ps. 72:9. To 'cast dust upon the head' was a sign of grief. Ezek. 27:30; Rev. 18:19. To 'shake the dust off the feet' on leaving a city where the servants of Christ had been rejected, was leaving them to judgement: not even the dust of their city should be presented before the messengers' Master. Matt. 10:14; Acts 13:51. Similarly dust was cast or shaken into the air by men in great indignation. Acts 22:23.

If such a message from the King was refused by His subjects, then the servants were to leave and wipe off the very dust of the city from their feet, as a testimony against the city. It was to be a solemn act of separation and renouncing of all identification with the city that rejected their Lord. The preaching of the gospel today does not call for any such action, for the gospel is to individuals in an evil world, not to cities. The gospel has saved people out of many wicked cities, giving them a heavenly inheritance. But cities are earthly, and these cities were connected with God's earthly people Israel: as cities they would therefore suffer for the refusal of their Messiah. Sodom's judgment would be more tolerable than God's judgment on a city that rejected them (v.12). The reason is that Sodom had not known the witness of the personal presence of the Lord Jesus and was therefore not as responsible as these.

The Lord singled out three cities upon which He pronounced a most solemn sentence. Chorazin and Bethsaida had seen His great works of power, including healing the sick and casting out demons, yet their hardened consciences were insensible to the repentance this ought to have awakened. He affirmed that the Gentile cities, Tyre and Sidon would have long before repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes, if they had been given a similar testimony. This is an indication that, while Israel refused their Messiah, He would soon be received among the Gentiles and Israel's cities would lie waste. Capernaum is spoken of as having been exalted to heaven, evidently a proud, prosperous city, but was doomed to be brought down to hades, consigned to desolation.

The Lord added that those who heard His messengers did so as hearing Him: those who despised them despised Him and His Father also.

More then this, they were to carry no money with them, not a scrip for holding food, and no extra coat, shoes, or staff. This is because the Israelites to whom they went were responsible to care for the needs of the servants of their own Messiah. This would be totally changed when they were sent to Gentiles (Lk.22:36). In whatever city or town they entered they were to inquire for any whose character was of moral worth, and were to partake of their hospitality until they left. Any household that responded favorably to them would be blessed: otherwise be left without blessing. In fact, the disciples were to shake off the dust of their feet, In disclaiming all Identification with such a house or such a city. If it were a city thus opposed, its judgment would be more severe then that of Sodom and Gomorra, for as Israelites they were more responsible.

The Lord, we have said, prepared the messengers for the reception they might meet with; acceptance in some quarters, rejection in others. They were then to act accordingly. Where received in any city, they were to heal the sick, and to tell them that the kingdom of God had come nigh to them (Luke 10:9). Where rejected, they were to go forth, and say, "Even the very dust of your city, which cleaves on us [or, to our feet], we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding, be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh" (10:11). That city might reject them. They would then shake off all connection with it, even the very dust collected therein by their feet. But there was that which the rejecters of the messengers could not shake off, — their responsibility; for the kingdom of God had come nigh ("to you" should be here omitted), and they had cared nothing about it. Carelessness, indifference, scoffing, such might indulge in, but a day of reckoning must come — the day of judgment, when it would be more tolerable for Sodom, and for Tyre and Sidon, which had never had such opportunities as the cities of Galilee then enjoyed. Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, cities in which the Lord had worked, had that to answer for, which would not be demanded of iniquitous Sodom, nor of the idolatrous cities of Phoenicia. What a responsibility rests on any who are favoured with opportunities of hearing the message of God! It was so then. It is so now. "He that hears you," the Master said, "hears Me; and he that despises you, despises Me; and he that despises Me, despises Him that sent Me." Men are apt to judge of their freedom to refuse the message, by looking at the messengers. The proper thing is to think, and own whose messengers they are. And the One who sends them is received or refused, according as the messengers are welcomed or the reverse.

The apostle accordingly answered in significant deed as well as word: 'he shook out his clothes, and said to them …' It was the spirit if not the form of Matt. 10:14, as even more rigidly carried out by himself and Barnabas at the Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:51). It was as if the dust of the place they dwelt in defiled, and must be shaken off1 as a testimony against them, Sodom and Gomorrah were more tolerable. {1 Think of Wakefield, while he retains the ordinary version, saying, 'I am partly inclined to think it means here — throwing off his garment: which exhibits a striking image of the conduct of the apostle: As I throw off this cloak, so I relinquish all further concern with you.'}

But the apostles realised later what the Lord foresaw when he sent out the twelve and seventy disciples. The Jews in Antioch blasphemed, such that Paul and his companions left the city, and the same happened again in Corinth (Acts 13:45-51; 18:6). They shook off the dust of their feet and their garments against them. This indicated that no communion of the Spirit was possible at all. Had they continued to preach the precious gospel of salvation in the face of this fierce refusal they would have given the holy unto the dogs and cast their pearls before the swine.

This was decisive. Paul shook his clothing, in picture shaking off any further responsibility to persuade them, and pronounced them responsible for their own destruction. He was clean, that is, he had fulfilled his duty in witnessing to them: he leaves them to their own folly, while announcing his decision to go to the Gentiles. Leaving the synagogue, he goes only next door to the house of Justus, a true worshiper of God.

As to the latter clause of verse 41, it refers to the opposition of their will. "A work which ye shall in nowise believe." It is no question of a decree on God's part, but of the people's will against Him, of which He gives them ample notice. I should doubt its being the judicial sentence, but a prophecy used for a solemn warning of what unbelief would render imperative. The judicial aspect in the book of Acts is reserved till Acts 28. There and then it is pronounced. That is, we have the full testimony going out persistently and most patiently; and the more patient God may be with His testimony, the more unsparing the judgment when it comes. But He is slow to anger, as we know, and a strange work to Him is judgment; yet, when it comes, it must surely take its course according to His holy nature and majesty. But it seems to me only pronounced judicially in the last chapter of the Acts. Here it was in progress, as the Jews were being put to the final proof. There was a highly significant act done, and recorded there at the end of this very chapter — the shaking off the dust from the disciples' feet; which shows that, although sentence might not formally be pronounced, there was nevertheless a loud testimony to it, and an intimation that they had better beware, for their danger was as extreme as their unbelief.

He told them not to take supplies for their journey, not even walking sticks for support, no scrip (a shoulder bag used for carrying food), no money and not even extra clothing (v.3). The Messiah of Israel was sending His servants to His own people (Israel) who were responsible to fully and thoroughly care for His messengers. Those who accepted them as indeed the servants of Jehovah would on this account supply their needs. When received in a home, they were to stay there until leaving the city: they were not to look for more humanly desirable circumstances, but to be content with the hospitality offered them.

For any in Israel to refuse these servants was an evil so solemn as to call for the shaking of the dust from their feet (v.5), the virtual refusal of their city, a testimony against them as warning of judgment to follow.

Never before in the world's history had such an embassy gone forth, and yet these ambassadors, these heralds, were to be, outwardly at least, dependent on strangers for the supply of their bodily wants. We say outwardly, for, though recipients of the bounty of their hosts in each village, where they evangelised and were welcomed, the Lord who had sent them would dispose hearts to be favourable to them. And so it was, as they subsequently acknowledged. For in response to His question, "When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything? They said, Nothing" (Luke 22:35). They went forth just as they were, unencumbered by wallet, provisions, money, or extra clothing. But after the cross, as the Lord intimated in that same portion of the gospel, it would be different. To labour before the cross, and to labour after it, would be productive of very contrary experiences. Before the Lord's death the world did not hate the Apostles. After it the world, which had always hated Him, hated also them. And they then went forth as messengers and servants of the crucified One; embarking in a cause which to outward eyes had already experienced defeat. Hence the change in the Lord's directions, as given in that chapter (22), about carrying things needful for the way. Apathy, and even rejection of their message, they might prove in their first mission. Open and persistent hostility they would certainly meet with after the Lord's death and ascension.

How wise were His present directions (9)! Where should they lodge? Was that a question? As occasion arose it would be simply settled: "Whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart." Their welcome by the host would indicate the place of their sojourn. On the other hand, if rejected by any, whilst bowing to that, they were to shake off the dust of their feet against such. The servant was not to strive, but God would surely remember it, for they were His messengers who were thus treated. Empowered then by the Lord, and furnished with the subject of their message — viz. to preach the kingdom of God, they went throughout the villages (as the word is), preaching the gospel, and healing everywhere.