The Biblical Case for the Beard, Part 1

A Sermon,

Preached on the Third Day

In

SANTA ANNA

May 20, 2008

Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. (Lev 19:27)

When we want to understand the root of any modern practice, it is important that we go to the Bible and to history first. By reading the Bible, and by understanding history, we will be able to see the root and foundation of most modern heresies and abominations. You can be sure that if God would have things to be one way, that modern man (and modern religion) would have it to be another. If God would have purity, modern man and modern religion would have depravity. If God would have obedience, modern man and modern religion would deify freedom. If God would have submission, man will elevate self and the will.

In Israel there was no bigger shame, no greater humiliation, than for a man to be shaved. This point is inarguable. We can prove it from the Bible, we can prove it from history, and we can prove it from art. A shaved face was a sign to one and all that a man was unclean, impure, and shameful. People would cross the street to avoid being near, or having contact with, a shaved man. The commandment that a man was not to shave was so blatant and plain in the Torah, that no decent or honorable man would dare challenge God or the social order in such a way purposely. Not only that, but it was considered the ultimate in humiliation to be shaved or to be beardless. If you wanted to insult or humiliate an Israelite, you didn't kill him or threaten him. If you wanted to humble, frighten, or embarrass an Israelite you didn't rape his wife, kill his son, steal his cattle, or make him a slave. To ultimately humiliate an Israelite, you plucked out or shaved his beard.

Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away. When they told it unto David, he sent to meet them, because the men were greatly ashamed: and the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return (2Sa 10:4-5). About the beards of David's servants, John Gill said Hanun “ordered them to be shaved off; than which a greater indignity could not have been well done to them and to David, whom they represented, since the Israelites shaved not their beards, and were very careful of preserving them; for had it been the custom to shave, they might have shaved off the other half, and then they would not have appeared so ridiculous; and with other people it has been reckoned a very great punishment as well could be inflicted, and as great an affront as could well be offered, to mar a man's beard, or shave it off in whole or in part”.

The shaving off of the beard of one's enemies, or of a messenger, would be a greater affront than to kill him or to send the head of the messenger back to his master. To shave off the beard was to say “you are not a man, and thus not worthy of a beard, or of killing”. Jesus, speaking to us out of the Old Testament said:

I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed (Isa 50:6-7).

Lev. 14:9: The shaving of the hair and beard was a sign of one who had not yet been purified from leprosy (sin), and it was preparatory to him receiving the purification necessary, and a sacrifice was to be made for him. The shaving of the beard was to be a sign of complete humiliation and shame, and a sign that a ritual sacrifice was needed. A lamb was to be slain and the blood was put on the extremities of the subject (the tip of the right ear, and the tip of the right thumb, and the great toe of the right foot), and oil was then also put on these extremities – these represented the sacrifice of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The balance of the oil was to be taken by the priest and poured on the shaved head, which was sign of such an act of repentance, and the need for it (the sin) having been covered by the work of God.

The sign of the beard being plucked out, then was a sign of humiliation and shame:

Ezra 9:1-6 – Ezra plucks out his beard because he said “I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to” God.

God utilized the shaving of the face as a prophetic sign that absolute annihilation was coming:

In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard. (Isa 7:20)

The burden of Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence; because in the night Kir of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence; He is gone up to Bajith, and to Dibon, the high places, to weep: Moab shall howl over Nebo, and over Medeba: on all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard cut off. (Isa 15:1-2). This is also stated in Jeremiah 48:37 that Moab shall be so humiliated that every head would be shaved and every beard would be clipped.

God even used the head and the beard as a type of Jerusalem and of the countryside round about it:

And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber's razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair. Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them. Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts. Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel. Thus saith the Lord GOD; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her. And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them (Eze 5:1-6).

So the shaved man (and a shaved culture) was the sign of a nation that had refused the judgments and statutes of God. We ought not be surprised, then, to find ourselves in the midst of a nation of shaved men. Men today are taught to shave as youths, and are expected to shave throughout their lives. The beard today is an anomaly, and not a sign of submission to God. A man with a beard today is usually considered either lazy or a kook. Growing a beard for religious reasons is considered cultish and weird. Obedience to the command for a man to have a beard, and to not shave it, is considered either quaint, or outright scary. Once again we find that the world's largest cult – the cult of modernism – requires syncretism and assimilation when it comes to the man's beard.

So where did this cultish act of shaving originate? Apparently, according to the Bible in our principle text here in Leviticus, it was the practice of the pagan cults to shave all or part of the head and face, especially in honor or in remembrance of the dead. According to the Geneva Bible notes, the Gentiles shaved the head and/or face as a sign of mourning for the dead. Deuteronomy 14:1 also bans the practice of cutting oneself, or of shaving or plucking out the eyebrows (between the eyes) for the worship of the dead. Soon, the Gnostic cults, some within Israel and some without, began shaving patterns or shapes into or around the face and beard in order to differentiate themselves from the orthodox in Israel. Some would shave around the circumference of the head, above the ears, leaving the top portion of the hair longer – and some of the early commentators say that it is from this practice that early artists derived the “halo” around the head. Barnes claims that this practice was derived from the Arabs who cut their hair in this manner to show worship to their deity “Orotal”, who was the same with the false “god” named Dionysus of Greeks. Later, some religious monks began shaving the top of the head, leaving the hair around the circumference to grow long, as we can see all the way up to the present day among those in the Romish cult. Most of the best commentators mention that it was the practice of the Egyptians, especially of Egyptian royalty, to shave the face and the body, as can be seen in the likenesses of Egyptian kings, and in the mummies they left behind. Moses, then, would have had a vested interest in making sure that the Israelites did not bring such Egyptian practices and abominations into the land of Israel.

Here is a quick perusal of the history of shaving:

From the most ancient of times, man plucked and pulled hair from his face, head, and body for religious rituals. He would also cut himself, mar and mark the skin, and paint himself in the areas that had been shaved.

Around 3000 B.C. we find that the the first permanent razors are developed due to the advent of metalworking. According to the apocryphal book of Enoch, metallurgy (the working of metal) was given to man by fallen angels in order to help man corrupt his way upon the earth. Copper razors are used in India and in Egypt.

About 1500 B.C., shaving utensils are found in the Scandinavian countries, and were connected with mythology and death.

Around 500 B.C., shaving becomes popularized by Alexander the Great, who it is said was bi-sexual and a complete sexual deviant.

Around 300 B.C., shaving becomes the popular rage in Rome when a Greek businessman brings barbers to Rome. At this time a law is put in place that requires that all men at the age of 21 be shaved. Only military men and philosophers are exempted from the law.

Between 200 B.C. and 100 A.D., the Roman Caesars are the biggest advocates of shaving the face and the body. Particularly Julius Caesar and Nero are said to have been obsessed with being hairless.

It is important that we know that the common practice of shaving the whole beard and the body originated as a cultural practice with the Romans, who – when it came to sex – were not very particular as to the gender of their partners. As homosexuality and bisexuality became a greater force in Rome and in the Roman territories, the men began to shave off the facial and the body hair in order to make themselves look more effeminate and attractive to other men. A man, no matter how perverted, depraved, and reprobated he was, generally by nature was not attracted to a hairy man. Shaving, then, became a way for the sexually deviant to draw attention and to attract one another. This practice also was common among the Greeks, who in their notorious homosexual baths were perfumed and shaved and sought out shaved young boys for sexual purposes. The shaved man, however, became the model for all modern men with the advent and triumph of Roman art during the Renaissance. Michaelangelo's famous statue of David, a pagan monstrosity that looks nothing like the David of the Bible, is said by Francis Schaeffer to be Michaelangelo's concept of the Romanized/idealized man. This idea of the perfect Roman superman, hairless and effeminate, would become the model for men to emulate in the generations that were to come, to the point that being “well-shaved” would be considered the very sign of the gentleman:

“The general rule for the gentleman’s facial hair is that he should have none. A gentleman’s face is always clean-shaven. An hirsute countenance befits only ruffians and Stone Age men, neither of which a gentleman is” - (The Art of Shaving, A Gentleman's Guide, by Ted Nichols).

We should not be surprised at all that what was once a sign of shame, and that became a sign of Sodomy, is now the sign of a modern gentleman.

In western civilized Europe from about 1000 A.D. through the time of the Reformation, a shaved man was automatically considered to be a priest, since it was the practice of the Roman Catholic priesthood to shave in order to indicate their pretended celibacy. It is speculated that the Saxons were surprised and defeated by the Normans at Hastings in 1066 because the Normans spies and leaders first appeared having shaved faces. The Saxon guards assumed that the men were priests and were not alerted. During the Reformation, when a priest (or any man) was converted to the Doctrines of Grace, and when he became convinced that the Papacy was indeed the Antichrist, he allowed his facial hair to grow in order to show that he had rejected the traditions of the Romish Church, and to show separation between himself and his former religion.

We have gone through all of this history, and we have yet to address our principle text. I have designed the argument in this way in order to show you the proper context so that we might properly understand what it is we see in the world today. Once again, obedience is not something that is open to debate, and the Word of God is not simply another lifestyle choice. Even what can be considered the lightest or the most unimportant things can have very significant importance in spiritual reality, and the spiritual health of a man or of a society can be made evident by how he looks, and by how seriously he takes the Word of God. The mind of man is so colonized that what was once expected and normal is now highly revolutionary. It is for this reason that I make the following claim: For a man today who is grounded properly in the Word of God and who holds to right and Biblical doctrines – for him to grow a beard is nothing less than a revolutionary act. It is a sign to the principalities and the powers in the heavenly realms that we have bowed ourselves to the sovereign God of heaven, and have given over our will to Him.

In the second part, we will examine what all of this means, and we will answer the common objections to the commandment that Godly men not shave their beards.

I am your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker

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Published on: 2008-05-21 (698 reads)