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| warm-blooded vertebrate with feathers, wings, scaly legs and beak which bear young in shelled eggs |
| phylum comprised of arthropods |
"The Grecian beard was curly; the Roman, trimmed; but in the Roman Empire shaving became general about 450 B.C., partly for greater safety in close combat, not to be grasped by the beard. When Pope Leo III shaved, in 795, the Roman Catholic clergy followed his practice, and still generally do." [Shipley, p.28]
| beard (bîrd) Pronunciation Key
A tuft or group of hairs or bristles on certain plants, such as barley and wheat. The individual strands of a beard are attached to a sepal or petal. |
The mode of wearing it was definitely prescribed to the Jews (Lev. 19:27; 21:5). Hence the import of Ezekiel's (5:1-4) description of the "razor" i.e., the agents of an angry providence being used against the guilty nation of the Jews. It was a part of a Jew's daily toilet to anoint his beard with oil and perfume (Ps. 133:2). Beards were trimmed with the most fastidious care (2 Sam. 19:24), and their neglet was an indication of deep sorrow (Isa. 15:2; Jer. 41:5). The custom was to shave or pluck off the hair as a sign of mourning (Isa. 50:6; Jer. 48:37; Ezra 9:3). The beards of David's ambassadors were cut off by hanun (2 Sam. 10:4) as a mark of indignity. On the other hand, the Egyptians carefully shaved the hair off their faces, and they compelled their slaves to do so also (Gen. 41:14).