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By Michael Bunker
editor@lazarusunbound.com
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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”.