What then is the barber’s work?  If men in the East wear beards, what is it that keeps him so busy?  The barber in the Eastern city shaves not the man’s chin, but his head.  It is a very natural custom in hot, dusty climates, where the head is always kept covered, both indoors and out of doors.  It is also a very ancient custom, for even in the old Egyptian hieroglyphics we find pictures of barbers shaving the head.  And we find that in these modern days, Egyptians, Copts, Turks, Arabs, Hindoos, and Chinese, all shave the head.  But there is one great exception to this rule.  A barber would find no work in a purely Jewish city, for not only do the Jews wear beards, but they also never shave their heads as their Eastern neighbours do.  The only ones amongst the Jews who were allowed to have shaven heads were the poor outcast lepers.  Hence the shaven head was to them a sign or symbol of uncleanness and of excommunication.  They looked upon a man with a bald head very much as we look upon one whose hair is cropped very suspiciously close, and whom we therefore imagine must have been in gaol.

Thus it came to pass that ‘Bald-head’ became a common term of reproach and insult.  Elisha, the holy prophet, goes up the hill, wearing a thick turban to protect his head from the sun.  Out come a troop of wicked, mocking children.  Elisha is not bald, for he is a Jew, nor, even if he had been bald, could these children have seen it, since his head is covered; but they wish to annoy and to insult the holy man, so they cry after him,

‘Go up, thou bald head, go up.’

They simply use a common term of reproach.  To have a bald head was amongst the Jews a sign that a man was cut off from his nation, that he was counted as a Gentile and an outsider, and therefore to call a man ’a bald head’ was equivalent to calling him a Gentile dog and an outcast.

Now Nehemiah inflicts this very punishment on these Jews who have married heathen wives.  He commands them to be made bald, as a sign of shame and disgrace.  It was a very significant and appropriate punishment.  They had thrown in their lot with the heathen Gentiles, let them then become Gentiles, let them be branded with their mark, let them, by being made bald, be stamped as those who are no longer citizens of Jerusalem, but who have become outcasts and foreigners.

Then, when this was done, Nehemiah calls them to him, and makes them take a solemn oath before God, that from that time forth they will never fall into the same sin again: 

’I made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.’

Then he reminds them how dreadful the consequences of the same sin had been to no less a person than their great and glorious King Solomon, the wisest of men, the beloved of his God.  Even Solomon had been drawn aside into sin by his love of heathen foreigners, or outlandish women, as Nehemiah calls them, women living outside his own land.  If he fell, if he the wisest of men, if he the beloved of his God, was led astray, was it likely that they could walk into the very same trap, and escape being caught and ensnared by it?