Gifts are given by the hands. An open hand means favor and blessing. God uses people He has joined to himself as the channel through whom He pours himself. This is prepared for in the Old Testament where the presence of the Spirit came upon men sporadically as a foretaste of the permanent indwelling gift under the New Covenant. When He came upon men to give special power and ability, this was called “the hand of God.” Why? God was giving himself. He was extending His personal presence and power in a form usable by man. The Old Testament gives several examples of the Spirit acting through men as “the hand of God”: 

(1) Ezekiel – And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the LORD GOD fell there upon me (Ezekiel 8:1).(See also Ezekiel 33:22; 37:1; 40:1.) 

(2) Elijah – And the hand of the LORD was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel (1 Kings 18:46). 

(3) Elisha – But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the LORD came upon him [Elisha] (2 Kings 3:15). 

 The hand is the acting power of God. The Holy Spirit is God’s cutting edge of redemption, working deep within us where it counts. It is no accident that the Holy Spirit is very often imparted through the laying on of hands.