A Trained Professional VII: By A Hair's Breadth

Hairdressing and shaving have become a skillful and lucrative occupation. The very word barber has gone out of fashion. The barber now is advertised as a hairdresser, hair stylist, tonsorialist (antiquated). Here are two expressive proverbs. It is a often unknown fact that due to barbers skill with a razor and a steady hand some also practiced surgery and dentistry and were called barber-surgeons. A few barber shops today are still distinguished by a pole painted in spiral fashion with red and white stripes — a sign that goes back to the barber/surgeon days. The red represented "blood-letting” and the white, the “bandaging.”

While razors and shaving frequently occur in Scripture, the word barber occurs only once and it’s in Ezekiel as an expression of great sorrow over Jerusalem’s looming destruction.

Ezekiel 5:1 And you, O son of man, take a sharp sword. Use it as a barber's razor and pass it over your head and your beard. Then take balances for weighing and divide the hair.

In the Old Testament shaving according to Leviticus 19:27 and 21:5 in an apparent reference to the hair between the head and the cheeks (side locks) it is forbidden to destroy the "corners" of the beard at least for priests. It is difficult to determine the reason for the ban, but it is possible that it was promulgated in order to differentiate Israelites from other peoples as God’s chosen.

Another possible explanation is that shaving specific areas of the face was associated with pagan cults or symbolized those who ministered to their gods and just as the Bible opposes imitation of pagan practices so it opposes this form of ritual shaving.

Job 1:20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.

To humiliate a man, it was the practice to forcibly shave half of the beard as in II Samuel 10:4, where the elders, because of this humiliation, were commanded to hide in Jericho until their beards grew again. Shaving is also part of rituals of purification (Leviticus 14:8; Numbers 6:9; 8:7).

The Bible razor, sometimes used in a symbolic sense (Psalm 52:2; Isaiah 7:20; Ezekiel 5:1) was some form of a flint or bronze knife such as was used in the rite of circumcision (Exodus 4:25; Joshua 5:2). In other words it was surgically sharp. In ancient times the barber practiced his trade in the open air, in the shade of a tree. He bound the hair up at the top of the scalp and cut the hair short near the temples and shaved it off. The customer meanwhile sat on a three-legged stool with a soap-dish, in front of him.

Razor sharp flint was used at least prior to mention by Moses in Genesis and Leviticus as this form of razor/scalpel is used by the leper who was commanded to shave off all the hair of his head (Leviticus 14:9). Joseph shaved his face to conform to Egyptian custom, before going to Pharaoh (Genesis 41:14).

Leviticus 14:9 And on the seventh day he shall shave off all his hair from his head, his beard, and his eyebrows. He shall shave off all his hair, and then he shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and he shall be clean.

Genesis 41:14 Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they quickly brought him out of the pit. And when he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came in before Pharaoh.

The law forbade Hebrews to round the corners of their heads or mar the comer of their beards. It was a grievous insult, or badge of shame to cut or pluck the Nazarite’s hair of head or cheek (2 Samuel 10: 4; 1 Chronicles 19:4; Isaiah 50:6; Jeremiah 48:37). Long hair was also a token of the dedication of strength to God (Numbers 6:5; Judges 13:5; 16: 17). The mother of Samuel was instructed to keep a razor from his head for her child was to be a Nazarite from the womb. Yet, by Paul’s time, it was not deemed proper but effeminate for a man to have long hair.

1 Corinthians 11:14 Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him,

It is ironic that hair represents what is least valuable or more specifically innumerable to man but all numbered by God’s providence for His children.

Matthew 10:30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

So I guess we can close this short post on that thought. I guess again we see the influence a culture has on what a people view as acceptable and what God views as acceptable. People care for more about appearances. God cares about what's inside. God judges a man by their heart.

1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”

God doesn’t have a problem with long hair. People do. God has a problem with bad hearts. Too often people, especially Christians are quick to pass judgment on a person because they are legalistically looking out the outward. Their expectation that if a person doesn’t behave how they believe they should that those people are not conforming and are somehow wrong. Sometimes it is just the stereotyping and prejudices bleeding out and no longer contained by silence. They are so intently trying to see the wrong in someone else...they don't see it in themselves. 

The question we should always ask is this: What does Scripture say? Does our behavior, thoughts and speech conform to that? If not we may have gotten off track. The Word of God should always be dead center in our crosshairs. Sometimes simple things like careless legalism and prejudices are all that stand between proper interpretation of Scripture and the complete error of disobedience. The difference between obedience and disobedience is often only a hair’s breadth. We all walk a razor's edge as our hearts and minds are enmity against God.