Ezekiel 44:20

20 Forsooth they shall not shave their head[s], neither they shall nurse long hair, but they clipping shall clip their heads.

Ezekiel 44:20 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 44:20

Neither shall they shave their heads
As the priests and worshippers of Isis and Serapis did, as Jerom on the text observes; and as the Romish priests now do, from whom the Lord's faithful ministers must be distinguished: nor suffer their locks to grow long;
as the Nazarites, that a distinction might be preserved between those who were and were not such; or rather, after the manner of women, their locks hanging down, and flowing about their shoulders, as a token of levity, wantonness, effeminacy, pride, and vanity; see ( 1 Corinthians 11:14 1 Corinthians 11:15 ) : they shall only poll their heads;
observe a medium between both; neither shave their heads close, nor let their hair grow long, but keep it in an even moderate length; for which reason godly men of the last age among us were called "round heads".

Ezekiel 44:20 In-Context

18 linen caps, either mitres, shall be in the heads of them, and linen breeches shall be in the loins of them, and they shall not be gird in sweat. (linen caps, or linen mitres, shall be upon their heads, and linen breeches, or linen pants, shall be upon their loins, and so they shall not be covered in sweat.)
19 And when they shall go out at the outermore foreyard to the people, they shall despoil them(selves) of their clothes in which they ministered, and they shall lay those up in the chamber(s) of the saintuary; and they shall clothe themselves in other clothes, and they shall not hallow my people in their clothes (And when they shall go out to the outer courtyard to the people, they shall remove the clothes in which they ministered, and they shall put them away, or shall leave them, in the rooms of the sanctuary; and so they shall not hallow, or shall not sanctify, my people/and so they shall not harm my people with the clothes in which they ministered.)
20 Forsooth they shall not shave their head[s], neither they shall nurse long hair, but they clipping shall clip their heads.
21 And each priest shall not drink wine, when he shall enter into the inner foreyard. (And no priest shall drink wine, before that he shall go into the inner courtyard.)
22 And priests shall not take (for) wives a widow, and a forsaken woman, but virgins of the seed of the house of Israel; but also they shall take a widow, which is the widow of a priest. (And priests shall not take for wives a widow, or an abandoned, or a divorced, woman, but only virgins of the descendants of the house of Israel; and they may also take in marriage a widow, who is the widow of a priest.)
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.