In saluting a day laborer at work we said, "_Allah, yaatik-el-afie_" (God give you health { 88} and strength). In saluting reapers in the field, or "gatherers of the increase" in the vineyards or olive groves, we said just the words of Boaz, in the second chapter of the Book of Ruth, when he "came from Bethlehem and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee." Or another Scriptural expression, now more extensively used on such occasions, "The blessing of the Lord be upon you!" It is to this custom that the withering imprecation which is recorded in the one hundred and twenty-ninth Psalm refers: "Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion: let them be as the grass upon the housetops which withereth afore it groweth up: wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom. Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you: we bless you in the name of the Lord."
In asking a shepherd about his flock we said, "How are the blessed ones?" or a parent about his children, "How are the preserved ones?" { 89} They are preserved of God through their "angels," of whom the Master spoke when he said, "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father."[5] Speaking of a good man we said, "The grace of God is poured upon his face." So in the Book of Proverbs,[6] "Blessings are upon the head of the just."
Akin to the foregoing are such expressions as these. In trying to rise from a sitting posture (the Syrians sit on the floor with their legs folded under them), a person, using the right arm for leverage, says, as he springs up, "Ya _Allah_" (O God [help]). In inquiring about the nature of an object, he says, "_Sho dinû_?" (what is its religion?) And one of the queerest expressions, when translated into English, is that employed to indicate that a kettleful of water, for example, has boiled beyond the required degree: "This water has turned to be an infidel" (_kaffer_). It may be noticed here { 90} that it is not the old theology only which associates the infidel with intense heat.
So this religious language is the Oriental's daily speech. I have stated in my autobiography that the men my father employed in his building operations were grouped according to their faith. He had so many Druses, so many Greek Orthodox, Maronites, and so forth.