HAIR-PULLING IN THE BIBLE

Of all the themes I have traced throughout the Bible, this is perhaps the most unusual one. There are actually almost 100 references to hair in Scripture, and a fair number of these refer to trimming or cutting hair. But there also a few that deal with hair-pulling instead, and I would like to briefly review those.

II Samuel 18:6-9

As The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery states, “A mark of Absalom's handsomeness was his profuse crop of hair – so profuse that cutting it was an annual festival, with scales on hand to assist gloating and to lend charisma to his celebrity status in the neighborhood (2 Sam 14:25-26).” Parenthetically, his hair weighed approximately 5 pounds.

Dale Davis comments on 14:25-26, “Our media and politics have operated on Absalom's approach for so long that we expect little else. Our times insist on style over substance, cosmetics over content, manner over matter.”

But Absalom's glory was to also be his downfall, as we read in II Samuel 18:6-9.When he goes into battle against David's forces under Joab, he passes through some thick woods where his long hair catches in an oak tree and leaves him dangling “between heaven and earth” while his mule proceeds on without him. Joab learns of this and has him executed while he is dangling from the tree.

There have been two suggestions made concerning the import of this event, both soundly rejected by Tsumura: (a) There is an association between Absalom's death and the ram caught in a thicket as a substitute for Abraham's sacrifice of his son (Genesis 22:13), and (b) It is a reference to the curse in Deuteronomy 21:23 on anyone hanging in a tree.

Ezra 9:1-4

This passage is summarized by Alden: “Ezra pulled out his hair [Anchor Bible reads, 'I pulled hair off my head and out of my beard'] as a gesture of disgust to show how horrified he was, because of the intermarriage between the people of Israel and their pagan neighbors.” The net effect, as Eskenazi summarizes: “His self-punishment produces remorse and generates support.”

In explaining Ezra's response, Clines notes, “The common ancient practice of shaving the head in mourning (cf. Job 1:20; Isa. 15:2; Jer. 47:5; Mic. 1:16) was forbidden to Israel because of its pagan associations (Lev. 19:27; 21:5; Dt. 14:1), and was modified into pulling off some of the hair of head and beard.”

And Fensham says, “A great sin had been committed which ran contrary to the law of God. Ezra identified himself with this sin, although he and the exiles who had returned with him did not commit it. In a certain sense Ezra accepted his solidarity with his people. He became a mediator for them as Moses did after the golden bull was worshiped at Sinai.” We could add that he is thus a type of Christ Himself in that regard.

Nehemiah 13:23-27

About 30 years after the previous event, Nehemiah revisits Judea and meets some Jews who had married foreigners and even had children who could not speak “the language of Judah.” He “contended with them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair...” (Eskenazi) By this time, the people had already been warned against intermarriages under Ezra and then in Nehemiah 6:18; ch. 10; and 13:1-3.

It is instructive to compare the quite different reactions of Ezra and Nehemiah to a similar situation. Myers says, “In contrast to Ezra, who chastised himself, Nehemiah laid hands upon of the guilty parties – the way of one who had more than moral authority. The text may indicate a progression in the harshness of the measures employed to break up the practice.” Fensham explains what Myers means by 'more than moral authority': “He received his authority from the Persian king and could thus take drastic action.”

Although Nehemiah appears to have gone too far in his violent approach, Myers notes, “Nehemiah did not go as far as Ezra, who demanded divorce; he simply demanded an end to further intermarriage.” “As for the propriety of their methods, some may find it hard to choose between the massive exertion of moral pressure by Ezra and the direct physical violence of Nehemiah!” (Clines)

Isaiah 50:4-9

This important passage is felt by most scholars to be the third of the so-called Suffering Servant Songs in Isaiah which predict the coming of the Messiah, not as a conqueror but as one who will be abused by others on behalf of the nation of Israel. In v. 6, this prophetic character says, “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheek to those who pulled out the beard.” (NRSV)

But there is some controversy as to the exact identity of this “servant.” Some have suggested that the servant who was abused is Isaiah himself, and others feel that it stands for Israel. Whybray responds to the first of these possibilities by pointing out the strong echo of Isaiah 50:6-8 in Matthew 26:67, referring to Jesus. He feels that this is the main reference whether on not Isaiah had also received harsh treatment for his preaching.

As to the view that the servant is the nation Israel, Oswalt considers the whole context of the passage: Thus, Isaiah 50:4-9 appears after the point when “Israel believes herself forsaken (49:14,24). God insists that is not the case, but that he can and will deliver them (49:15-50:3). Then the voice of the Servant is heard again speaking of his mission and his obedience to God and God's trustworthiness. Surely this Servant is not the recipient of God's redemption for his people, but the agent of it.”

The identification of the Suffering Servant with Christ is strengthened by the appearance in Mark 10:33-34 of two specific Greek words: mastizoo (“scourged”) and emptyo (“spat upon”) which also occur in the Septuagint translation of Isaiah 50:6. (Watts)

Also, Seifrid points to a series of four rhetorical questions in Romans 8:31-35 which “echoes the third Servant Song of the book of Isaiah (Isa 50:4-11)...In the descriptions Paul juxtaposes God and Christ in an ABBA pattern.”

Ezekiel 8:1-4

An angelic figure picks up the prophet by a lock of hair so that he is “lifted up between heaven and earth” (the same phrase as in II Samuel 18:9). He is shown the various forms of wickedness occurring in the Jerusalem Temple. Block understates, “In this experience Ezekiel is unique among Israel's classical prophets.”

So the main question we would probably ask is whether this experience happened in reality or was a spiritual vision. NRSV translates: “The spirit lifted me up and brought me in a vision by the spirit of God into Chaldea.” However, Greenberg chooses to translate the Hebrew word for spirit as “wind” instead. And both are acceptable renderings. But that does not mean that Greenberg necessarily opts for a physical understanding of this event since he points out, “It is not said that the human figure accompanied him; in fact nothing is said of the location of the figure during the journey.”

Alden, along with the probable majority of commentators, calls Ezekiel's experience “a visionary trance.”

Bel and the Dragon 36

There is yet one more example, at least for those who accept the Apocrypha as part of the inspired Scripture. It appears in the short stories of Bel and the Dragon, in which the prophet Daniel first appears as a detective and then as a dragon slayer. In the latter story, Daniel kills a great dragon worshiped by the Babylonians by feeding it a mixture of pitch, fat and hair, causing it to explode. The Babylonians are upset because they had been worshiping the dragon. So they throw him into a lion's den, where God protects him. Meanwhile back in Judea, the prophet Habakkuk is cooking himself a meal when an angel of the Lord tells him to deliver the food to Daniel instead since he is getting hungry. The angel picks up Habakkuk by the hair of his head and transports him all the way to Babylon where the food is delivered. Then Habakkuk and the angel make a round trip back to Judea, where the angel leaves him.

As Dentan says, “Preposterous as the story sounds to us, savoring more of the Arabian Nights than of the Bible, it undoubtedly was crudely effective among the people for whom it was designed. It dramatized for them the conflict between the impotent gods of the Greek and the almighty God of Israel and helped them to dissolve the pretentions of paganism in hearty gusts of laughter.”

It is quite obvious that the detail of a prophet being carried from place to place by his hair was inspired by Ezekiel 8, as Greenberg agrees. The major difference between the two, however, is that Ezekiel's experience was in the form of a vision while the author of Bel apparently wants us to believe that Habakkuk was transported from place to place in physical reality.