In that day the Lord will use a razor hired from beyond the Euphrates River—the king of Assyria—to shave your head and private parts, and to cut off your beard also. – Isaiah 7:20

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 30, 2020): Isaiah 7

I remember being forced to go to the barber. It was never a happy time for me. It still isn’t, but the reasons have changed over the years. As a kid, my hair was never long enough. I wanted to have long hair and felt an internal pride over the length of my hair. I had friends who had short hair, but if my hair was too short, I felt embarrassed. I had a friend, Trevor, whose blond locks extended down past the middle of his back, and I always wanted to have hair like that. But my parents and I seldom agreed on the topic of hair length. And so, while I did have long hair, it was never allowed to get as long as Trevor’s. And, every once in a while, a forced march was made to the local barbershop. Now it is more of a matter to time. Much to the frustration of my hairdresser, I wait until I can’t stand the state of my hair before I make an appearance at her door. It is usually three or four months between haircuts, and even that seems too often.

If Ahaz had believed what Isaiah was telling him, he would have been terrified. The Assyrians delighted in the humiliation of their enemies, and Israel would have had little use for barbers. They prided themselves in their hair. Letting the hair at the sides of the head go untouched, and basically trimming other areas. To be shaved from head to foot would have been humiliating. And if a soldier were forcibly shaved and then released, he would often go into hiding, not appearing in public until the hair had grown back.

And this was precisely what Isaiah was prophesying. God had hired the Assyrians to be the forced barber of Israel. The Assyrian army was on their way, and they were coming with their razors in tow. Judah would first be defeated, but then the nation would be humiliated. Their heads, beards, and private areas would be shaved for no other reason than that having to walk around with a lack of hair, resembling the hairless state of a young child rather than a full-grown man, would have been deeply embarrassing.

Just a note on the translation of this passage. The King James Version translates the latter part of the verse saying that the King of Assyria would shave “the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard” rather than the NIV’s assertion that the King would “shave your head and private parts, and to cut off your beard also.” At issue is the Hebrew word ‘regel,’ which literally means feet. But the word is euphemistically used to indicate the external genitalia of a person or their private parts. The King James Version translators have chosen to observe the literal meaning of ‘regel.’ The New International Version translators have chosen the euphemistic meaning. And while the King James Version is technically correct, because humiliation is at issue here, it is likely that the softened, politically correct meaning that was the one that Isaiah had in mind as he spoke to the king. To shave someone’s feet might be a little embarrassing, but not nearly as awkward as shaving their private regions.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Micah 1