Should Men Wear Beards?

Leviticus 19:27, You shall not shave around the sides of your beard.

Some Torah scholars say that there is no place in the Torah, or anywhere else in the Scriptures, that explicitly commands men to wear beards. Others who are of the opinion that men should wear beards agree that while there may be no direct command to wear a beard, the Scriptures give an implied or indirect command to do so. In other words, it’s assumed that men will have a beard. I am of the latter opinion.

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Some will point to Leviticus 19:27 and 21:5 in attempts to prove that men are to wear beards — that they are not to shave their beards. In reality, this command related specifically to shaving the beard in honor of the dead according to some ritual the ancient pagans practiced. In other words, YHVH is telling the Israelite men not to shave their beards as the pagans did in honor of the dead. What exactly that pagan practice was, we don’t know for sure.

Can these two verses be taken as a prohibition against a man shaving his beard? Those who say no will say that there is no direct command in the Bible to have a beard, but if you do have one, don’t shave it in honor of the dead as the pagans did. Those who say yes will say that these two verses imply a command for men to have a beard; that is, how can you cut something that you don’t already have? There are well-meaning people on both sides of this debate.

These things we know for sure. Aaron the high priest had a beard (Ps 133:2). Yeshua had a beard or else Isaiah 50:6 was a false prophecy. Ezekiel had a beard (Ezek 5:1), Ezra had a beard (Ezra 9:3); David had a beard (1 Sam 21:13); and many Israelite men wore beards (2 Sam 10:4-5; 1 Chr 19:5; Jer 41:5). It is also a religious Jewish tradition to this day for men to have beards, and we know that this tradition is rooted in antiquity.

In addition to this, sometimes a man comes to a point in his life that his hair refuses to grow up top, and wearing a beard can be great compensation for this loss, although this isn’t a scriptural reason for sporting a beard.

As for me, I have chosen to wear a beard. At the very least, it’s quite a Hebraic thing to do. Besides, Yeshua had one, and I like imitating him as much as possible.

Beyond this, what you do is your choice.

 

7 thoughts on “Should Men Wear Beards?

  1. Natan, you fully address the yes/no issue of wearing a beard or not. But what is the “marring the corners of the beard” talked about in Lev 19:27? Was Yah prohibiting some pagan beard-designwork ritual that the Israelites had begun to adopt?

  2. Nathan, you fully address the yes/no issue of wearing a beard or not. But what is the “marring the corners of the beard” talked about in Lev 19:27? Was Yah prohibiting some pagan beard-designwork ritual that the Israelites had begun to adopt?

    • I don’t want to run afoul of Torah. What’s your best guess? Do you think the pagan ritual of marring the edges of the beard involved mere trimming of the edges or was it more like fashioning a noticeable design with the beard?

      • No one knows exactly what it means. Even various Jewish religious sects have different schools of thought on this. All we know is that it was the custom for the Israelite men to wear beards. Even Yeshua had a beard. Somehow marring the corners of beards was associated with some sort of pagan ritual for the dead. This is surmised by the fact that the command to not disfigure the edges of the beard is directly juxtaposed with the command not to make cuttings in the flesh for the dead dead including tattoos. Different people have different opinions on this, but this is my best understanding.

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