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Bible Dictionaries
Hair
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
or The eastern females wear their hair, which the prophet emphatically calls the "instrument of their pride," very long, and divided into a great number of tresses. In Barbary, the ladies all affect to have their hair hang down to the ground, which, after they have collected into one lock, they bind and plait with ribands. Where nature has been less liberal in its ornaments, the defect is supplied by art, and foreign is procured to be interwoven with the natural hair. The Apostle's remark on this subject corresponds entirely with the custom of the east; as well as with the original design of the Creator: "Does not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given her for a covering," 1 Corinthians 11:14 . The men in the east, Chardin observes, are shaved; the women nourish their hair with great fondness, which they lengthen by tresses, and tufts of silk down to the heels. But among the Hebrews the men did not shave their heads; they wore their natural hair, though not long; and it is certain that they were at a very remote period, initiated in the art of cherishing and beautifying the hair with fragrant ointments. The head of Aaron was anointed with a precious oil, compounded after the art of the apothecary; and in proof that they had already adopted the practice, the congregation were prohibited, under pain of being cut off, to make any other like it, after the composition of it, Exodus 30:32-33 . The royal Psalmist alludes to the same custom in the twenty-third Psalm: "Thou anointest my head with oil." We may infer from the direction of Solomon, that the custom had at least become general in his time: "Let thy garments be always white, and let thy head lack no ointment," Ecclesiastes 9:8 . After the hair is plaited and perfumed, the eastern ladies proceed to dress their heads, by tying above the lock into which they collect it, a triangular piece of linen, adorned with various figures in needlework. This, among persons of better fashion, is covered with a sarmah, as they call it, which is made in the same triangular shape, of thin flexible plates of gold or silver, carefully cut through, and engraven in imitation of lace, and might therefore answer to השהרנים , the moonlike ornament mentioned by the prophet in his description of the toilette of a Jewish lady, Isaiah 3:18 . Cutting off the hair was a sign of mourning, Jeremiah 7:29; but sometimes in mourning they suffered it to grow long. In ordinary sorrows they neglected their hair; and in violent paroxysms they plucked it off with their hands.
John Baptist was clothed in a garment made of camel's hair, not with a camel's skin, as painters and sculptors represent him, but with coarse camlet made of camel's hair. The coat of the camel in some places yields very fine silk, of which are made stuffs of very great price; but in general this animal's hair is hard, and scarcely fit for any but coarse habits, and a kind of hair cloth. Some are of opinion that camlet derives its name from the camel, being originally composed of the wool and hair of camels; but at present there is no camel's hair in the composition of it, as it is commonly woven and sold among us.
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Watson, Richard. Entry for 'Hair'. Richard Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/wtd/h/hair.html. 1831-2.
