Shaving

SHAVING. The Use of Shaving the Beard and Hair, and sometimes the whole Body, was common among the Hebrews. Numbers viii. 7. Lev. xiv. 8, 9. Deut. xxi. 12.The Levites on the Day of their Consecration, the Lepers at their Purification, shaved all the Hair of their Bodies. A Woman taken Prisoner in War, when she married a Jew, shaved the Hair of her Head. The Hebrews, and Nations bordering upon Palestine, shaved themselves when they mourn’d, as also in Times of great Calamity, whether publick or private¹. God commanded Lev. xxi. 5. Numb. vi. 9, 18.the Priests to cut neither their Hair nor Beards in their Mournings. The Nazarites also meddled not with their Hair for the whole Time of their Nazaritesbip: But if it should happen that, during this time, any Man should die in their Presence, they were to shave their Hair, and begin the Exercises of their Nazaritesbip anew. The Strength of Samson, was in the Hair that he wore without cutting it, in the manner of a Nazarite; for no sooner was he shaved, but he became as feeble as another Man.

To shave the whole Beard and all the Hair, or but half the Beard and Hair, was 2 Sam. x. 4. 1 Chron. xix. 4.an Insult, and a Piece of Mockery. Hanun King of the Amorites having thus treated David’s Ambassadors, this Prince took his Revenge by a War, which was fatal to the Ammonites: God said, he would make use of a borrow’d Razor, to shave off all the Hair from the Body of his People: Radet Isai.vii.20.Dominus in novacula conducta, caput, & pilos pedum, & barbam universam; that is to say, he would take Vengeance against his People, by the Sword of the People inhabiting beyond the Euphrates. In Mourning, sometimes, they suffer’d their Beards to 2 Sam. xix. 24.grow long. Mephibosheth did not shave his Beard for the whole time that King David was driven away from Jerusalem by Absalom. Jer. xi. 26.Jeremiah describes the Arabians bordering upon Judea, by their manner of shaving their Heads: His qui attonsi sunt in comam. They cut their Hair in a Circle, in Honour of a profane Deity. God prohibits the Israelites to imitate them, Levit. xix. 27. Neque in rotundinem attondebitis comam. See SISOE.

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