We can easily conceive how deep and intolerable was the affront which the young and ill-advised king of the Ammonites put upon the ambassadors of David, when, among other acts of insolence, he shaved off one-half of their beards, and sent them home in that grotesque condition, exposed to the derision of their countrymen (2 Sam. xl (3) Among Egyptians. The ancient Egyp tians, although they shaved their beards, had the singular custom of tying a false beard upon the chin. This was probably by way of compromise between their love of cleanliness and their desire to preserve some trace of the distinguishing sign of manhood. was made of plaited hair, and had a peculiar form according to the rank of the person by whom they were worn. Private in dividuals had a small beard, scarcely two inches long; that of a king was of considerable length and square at the bottom, and the figures of gods were distinguished by its turning up at the end Egyptians, iii ;362).
From the above facts it is clear that the Israel ites maintained their beard and the ideas con nected with it, during their abode among the Egyptians. This is not unimportant as one of the indications which evince that, whatever they learned of good or evil in that country, they pre served the appearance and habits of a separate people. The Egyptians, as we have seen, shaved their beards off entirely, so the injunction in Lev. xix against shaving 'the corners of the beard' must have been leveled against the practices of son e other bearded nation The prohibition is usually understood to apply against rounding the corners of the beard where it joins the hair, and the reason is sup posed to have been to counteract a superstition of certain Arabian tribes, who, by shaving off or rounding away the beard where it joined the 'hair of the head, devoted themselves to a certain deity who held among them the place which Bacchus did among the Greeks I llerodot.
iii:8; Crimp. Jer. ix ;26; xxv :23 ; xlix :32). The consequence seems to have been altogether to prevent the Jews front shaving off the edges of their beards. The effect of this prohibition in establishing a distinction of the Jews front other nations cannot be understood unless we contem plate the extravagant diversity in which the beard was and is treated by the nations of the East.
Figural/Vt.. Ac beards were thus esteemed by the Jews, God, by likening his people to the 'tairs of Ezekiel's head or beard, hints, that nowever dear they were to Him, Ile would destroy them in different ft inns (Ezek. When God threat ens to shave the hair of Ills people's head and feet, and consume the beard, it imports his easy cutting off in vast numbers their principal men and commons, and exposing them to the utmost ignominy for the purging of than from their sinful leprosy (Is. vii :20).