“You, son of man, take a sharp sword. You shall take it as a barber’s razor to yourself, and shall cause it to pass over your head and over your beard. Then take balances to weigh and divide the hair.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 1. That. Hebrew “the scissors of clippers.” The same term is used for clipping sheep as for cutting hair. Shaving was not probably then in use.—Beard, as in mourning or for ignominy. 2 Kennicott. 10:4. Jeremiah 47:5.—Balance, to shew that God does nothing unjustly. Calmet.—The hair. Lit. “them.” Bible.—This was to be done before he lay down. Hew was to burn, cut, and divide the hair as the siege represented on the tile advanced, to denote that some should perish in the city by famine, others by the sword, while a few should be scattered among the nations: yet of these a small number should be gathered round Godolias, and perish with him, or in Egypt, and so forth and the rest be thence led captive to Babylon.