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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comFausset Bible Dictionary: Baldness
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Rare among Israelites; so an object of derision, as Elisha's was. to the children: , "Go up thou baldhead," i.e., thou art old enough to leave this world and "go up" to heaven after thy master. A humiliation to captives (; ). A mark of mourning (; ; ; ). It was sometimes a mark of leprosy: -42. Priests were forbidden to make baldness on their heads, or to shave off the grainers of their beards (; ); as mourners and idol priests did. ( margin; ).
The reason Israel was forbidden to do so was, "for thou art an holy people unto the Lord" (-2). Nebuchadnezzar's army grew bald in besieging Tyre with the hardships of their work (). The Egyptians, contrary to oriental custom, shaved on joyous occasions and only let the hair grow in mourning; the mention of Joseph's "shaving" when summoned before Pharaoh is therefore an undesigned coincidence in , and mark of the truth of the Scripture record. Artificial baldness marked the ending of a Nazarite's vow (; ; ).