daktulos

Almost every time this word appears it means exactly what it sounds like. Jesus puts his fingers into a deaf man's ears (Mark 7:33), stoops down and writes on the ground with a finger (John 8:6), and tells Thomas to bring his finger to the nail marks (John 20:27). In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the plea is for the smallest possible relief: a fingertip dipped in water (Luke 16:24).

Because a finger is the smallest working part of the hand, it also became a natural measure of effort. Two sayings against religious teachers use it that way: they load heavy demands onto other people and will not move those loads with a single finger of their own (Matthew 23:4, Luke 11:46). The point is not literal touching but the very least a person could do.

One use is different in kind. In Luke 11:20 Jesus says he drives out demons "by the finger of God," borrowing wording from Exodus, where Pharaoh's magicians admit that a plague is "the finger of God" (Exodus 8:19) and where the stone tablets are written by God's finger (Exodus 31:18). The picture is of God acting in person and without strain. Matthew's version of the same saying reads "by the Spirit of God" (Matthew 12:28), which shows how readily the phrase was heard as God's own power at work.

Compared with the hand (χείρ), which stands broadly for someone's power, control, or protection, the finger narrows the picture to close and precise action: one touch, one dip, one letter traced in the dust.