The Honor of the Beard

"For every head shall be bald, and every beard clipped: upon all the hands shall be cuttings, and upon the loins sackloth."   Jeremiah 48:37

This is but one verse of many which reveals what a dishonor it was for a man to shave his beard.

Probably the biggest and most famous bible story of what a shame it is to lose a beard is found in:

II Sanuel 10:1-5

It was the greatest insult to shave off another man's beard.  Notice how King David did not tell the ashamed men of Yisrael to simply return in dishonor.  He instructed them to remain at Yericho until the beards grew back so that they might not return to Yerushalyim in shame.

As a woman's long hair is her glory, a man's beard is his.  It was a distinctly Greco-Roman custom to cleanly shave the face, and the male prostitutes always shaved facial hair in order to be more effeminate.

The Torah commands us not to cut the corners of our beards (or to shape it but allow it to grow into its natural glory and fullness).

From both the cultural context, scripture and the Torah command regarding the cutting of facial hair, we can easily see that men are required to grow out large, bushy beards as a symbol of the honor Yah has bestowed upon him.

This is a custom rooted in both ancient Yisrael custom, tradition and cemented by a command in Torah.