So Hanun took David’s servants, shaved off one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 4. Away, having forced them as it were to go into mourning for the deceased king. These nations adopted the same customs as the Hebrews: they cut their hair, and rent their garments, to express their deep affliction. Isaiah 15:2. The Arabs would deem it a great insult, and a piece of irreligion, to shave their beard. Darvieux vii. p. 175. Plutarch (Agesil) observes, that the Lacedemonians obliged those who acted in a cowardly manner in war, to wear only one wisker: and Herodotus (ii. 121,) takes notice of a person who, in contempt, cut off the beard on the right cheeks of some soldiers, who were placed to guard the body of his brother, who had been gibbeted, having first made them drunk, that he might take away the body. The garments (Aquila says, “the tunic,” Septuagint “the cloak, or mandua,” which is a military garment used in Persia) were cut ( Calmet.) for the same purpose, like our spencers, ( Bible.) that the ambassadors might be exposed to derision, as breeches were not usually worn, ( Calmet.) except by priests officiating. D.—This was in contempt of circumcision. Menochius.—Yet we cannot suppose, but that the ambassadors would procure something to cover themselves before they arrived at Jericho, where they remained till their beard and the hair of their head (1 Chronicles 19) were grown. The city was not rebuilt, but there were some houses in the territory of that devoted place. Joshua 6:26. Bible.