customs with regard to their hair. The men, especially priests and soldiers, shaved their heads and beards. Herodotus says that the Nile dwellers shaved the heads of the boys, leaving only a few locks on the sides and perhaps on the front and back. When the child reached maturity these were removed as being marks of childhood. For the men, it was a sign of mourning or slovenliness to let the hair and beard grow. It is said that even slaves from other countries were required by their Egyptian masters to shave. This may explain why Joseph, in a slave’s position in Egypt, shaved when called from prison into the presence of Pharaoh. (Gen. 41:14) Egyptian men, however, sometimes wore wigs, and beards that they tied on. Some Egyptian monumental representations show men of high rank with long, well-cared-for hair, whether their own or wigs is not discernible.

Conversely, Egyptian women wore their natural hair long and plaited. Well-preserved, plaited hair has been found on a considerable number of Egyptian female mummies.

ASYRIANS, BABYLONIANS, ROMANS

The Assyrian and Babylonian men, and Asiatics in general, wore their hair long. Assyrian reliefs show the men with close-combed hair, the ends falling on the shoulders in curls. Their beards were also long, sometimes divided into two or three tiers of curls, with the moustache trimmed and also curled. Some believe that the very long hair depicted on the monuments was partly false, an addition to the person’s natural hair.

In ancient times the Romans evidently wore beards but, about the third century B.C.E., adopted the custom of shaving.

HEBREWS

The practice among Hebrew men from the first was to let the beard grow, but it was kept well groomed; and they trimmed the hair to a moderate length. Absalom was an example, although his hair grew so abundantly that when he cut it once a year, it weighed two hundred shekels—about five pounds, or two kilograms (no doubt made heavier by the use of oil or ointments). (2 Sam. 14:25, 26) God’s law commanded Israelite men that they should not ‘cut their side locks short around,’ nor destroy the “extremity” of their beards. This was not an injunction against trimming the hair or beard, but was evidently to prevent imitation of pagan practices. (Lev. 19:27; Jer. 9:25, 26; 25:23; 49:32) To neglect the hair or beard, likely leaving them untrimmed and untended, was a sign of mourning. (2 Sam. 19:24) In instructions to priests given through the prophet Ezekiel, God commanded that they clip, but not shave, the hair of their heads, and that they should not wear their hair loose when serving in the temple.—Ezek. 44:15, 20.

In the diagnosis of leprosy, one factor that the priest had to consider was the color and condition of the hair on the affected part.—Lev. 13:1-46.

Hebrew women took care of their hair as a mark of beauty (Song of Sol. 7:5), letting it grow long. (John 11:2) For a woman to cut off her hair was a sign of mourning or distress. (Isa. 3:24) When an Israelite soldier captured a virgin woman from an enemy city and desired to marry her, she was required first to cut off her hair and attend to her nails and to undergo a one-month period of mourning for her parents, they having been killed in the taking of the city.—Deut. 21:10-13; 20:10-14.

CHRISTIANS

Both the apostles Peter and Paul were impelled to counsel Christian women not to give undue attention to hair styling and ornamentation, as was the custom of the day. Instead, they were admonished to focus their attention on adorning themselves with the incorruptible apparel of a quiet and mild spirit.—1 Pet. 3:3, 4; 1 Tim. 2:9, 10.

The apostle Paul also called attention to the situation and general custom among the people to whom he wrote and showed that it was natural for a man to have shorter hair than a woman. A woman having her hair shorn or shaved off was disgraced. God had given her long hair “instead of a headdress,” but, Paul argued, a woman could not use this natural covering, which was a glory to her, to excuse herself from wearing a head covering, a “sign of authority,” when praying or prophesying in the Christian congregation. By recognizing this fact and wearing a covering in such circumstances, the Christian woman would be acknowledging theocratic headship and showing Christian subjection. She would thus glorify both her husbandly head and Jehovah God, the Head of all.—1 Cor. 11:3-16.

FIGURATIVE USAGE

Job cut the hair off his head as a symbol of the desolate condition he was in, with his children and property taken away.—Job 1:20.

Ezekiel was commanded to cut off the hair of his head and his beard, divide it into thirds and dispose of it in ways that would prophetically describe the distressing things that would happen to the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the execution of God’s judgments against her. (Ezek. 5:1-13) Distress and affliction were also symbolized by pulling out the hair, or cutting it off. (Ezra 9:3; Jer. 7:29; 48:37; Mic. 1:16) Dishonor or contempt or reproach could be expressed by pulling out the hair of another’s head or face.—Neh. 13:25; Isa. 50:6.

The number of hairs on the human head (said to average about 120,000) was used to represent great numbers or innumerability. (Ps. 40:12; 69:4) And the fineness of the hair was used figuratively for minuteness. (Judg. 20:16) ‘Not a hair of your head will perish (or, fall)’ is a statement guaranteeing full and complete protection and safety. (Luke 21:18; 1 Sam. 14:45; 2 Sam. 14:11; 1 Ki. 1:52; Acts 27:34) A similar implication was denoted by Jesus Christ’s words to his disciples as to God’s care for them: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered.”—Matt. 10:30; Luke 12:7.

Gray-headedness merited respect (Prov. 16:31; 20:29), and was used at times synonymously for age and for wisdom. (Job 15:9, 10) Jehovah, in a vision to Daniel, symbolically was represented as having white hair, “like clean wool,” as the “Ancient of Days.” (Dan. 7:9) The apostle John saw Jesus Christ represented in a vision as having hair “white as white wool.”—Rev. 1:1, 14, 17, 18.

ANIMAL HAIR

Goat’s hair was used in making cloth. (Ex. 26:7) John the Baptist wore a garment of camel’s hair. (Matt. 3:4; Mark 1:6) This type of garment was an official one for a prophet. (2 Ki. 1:8; compare Genesis 25:25.) The hair Rebekah placed on the hands and neck of Jacob to simulate Esau’s hair was probably hair of the camel-goat of the East, which was used by the Romans as a substitute for human hair.—Gen. 27:16; see BEARD.

HAKKATAN

(Hakʹka·tan) [the small one].

Father of the Johanan of the family of Azgad who, accompanied by 110 males, returned from Babylon with Ezra.—Ezra 8:1, 12.

HAKKOZ

(Hakʹkoz) [the thorn].

An Aaronic priest and head of the paternal house that in David’s time was constituted the seventh of the twenty-four priestly divisions. (1 Chron. 24:3-7, 10) After returning from Babylon in 537 B.C.E., “sons of Hakkoz” were among those who were disqualified from the priesthood because of being unable to establish their genealogy. They were among those forbidden to eat from “the most holy things until a priest stood up with Urim and Thummim.” (Ezra 2:61-63; Neh. 7:63-65) A descendant of Hakkoz is specifically referred to as