Hyssop

Hyssop is a low, bushy herb that grows on the rocky hillsides of the Mediterranean and Middle East. It reaches thirty to sixty centimetres in height and produces many thin, stiff stalks covered in fine hairs that hold liquid like a brush. When several stalks are tied together, they form a natural sprinkler — dip the bundle in liquid and shake it, and the liquid scatters across a wide surface. This simple tool made hyssop the standard implement for ritual purification throughout the Old Testament.

At the first Passover, God commanded Israel to dip a bundle of hyssop in the blood of the lamb and strike it on the doorposts and lintel of each house, so the destroyer would pass over (Exodus 12:22). Hyssop was used to sprinkle the water of cleansing on lepers and on those who had touched a corpse (Leviticus 14:4; Numbers 19:18). David, after his sin with Bathsheba, prayed: 'Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean' (Psalm 51:7) — the plant stood for the deepest possible cleansing. At the crucifixion, soldiers soaked a sponge in sour wine, put it on a hyssop stalk, and raised it to Jesus's lips (John 19:29) — the same purification plant, now reaching up to the one who bore the world's defilement.