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Leviticus 21

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1 And Jehovah saith unto Moses, `Speak unto the priests, sons of Aaron, and thou hast said unto them, For [any] person [a priest] is not defiled among his people,

2 except for his relation who [is] near unto him -- for his mother, and for his father, and for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother.

3 and for his sister, the virgin, who is near unto him, who hath not been to a man; for her he is defiled.

4 `A master [priest] doth not defile himself among his people -- to pollute himself;

5 they do not make baldness on their head, and the corner of their beard they do not shave, and in their flesh they do not make a cutting;

6 they are holy to their God, and they pollute not the name of their God, for the fire-offerings of Jehovah, bread of their God, they are bringing near, and have been holy.

7 `A woman, a harlot, or polluted, they do not take, and a woman cast out from her husband they do not take, for he [is] holy to his God;

8 and thou hast sanctified him, for the bread of thy God he is bringing near; he is holy to thee; for holy [am] I, Jehovah, sanctifying you.

9 `And a daughter of any priest when she polluteth herself by going a-whoring -- her father she is polluting; with fire she is burnt.

10 `And the high priest of his brethren, on whose head is poured the anointing oil, and hath consecrated his hand to put on the garments, his head doth not uncover, nor rend his garments,

11 nor beside any dead person doth he come; for his father and for his mother he doth not defile himself;

12 nor from the sanctuary doth he go out, nor doth he pollute the sanctuary of his God, for the separation of the anointing oil of his God [is] on him; I [am] Jehovah.

13 `And he taketh a wife in her virginity;

14 widow, or cast out, or polluted one -- a harlot -- these he doth not take, but a virgin of his own people he doth take [for] a wife,

15 and he doth not pollute his seed among his people; for I [am] Jehovah, sanctifying him.'

16 And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, saying,

17 `Speak unto Aaron, saying, No man of thy seed to their generations in whom there is blemish doth draw near to bring near the bread of his God,

18 for no man in whom [is] blemish doth draw near -- a man blind, or lame or dwarfed, or enlarged,

19 or a man in whom there is a breach in the foot, or a breach in the hand,

20 or hump-backed, or a dwarf, or with a mixture in his eye, or a scurvy person, or scabbed, or broken-testicled.

21 `No man in whom is blemish (of the seed of Aaron the priest) doth come nigh to bring near the fire-offerings of Jehovah; blemish [is] in him; the bread of his God he doth not come nigh to bring near.

22 `Bread of his God -- of the most holy things, and of the holy things -- he doth eat;

23 only, unto the vail he doth not enter, and unto the altar he doth not draw nigh; for blemish [is] in him; and he doth not pollute My sanctuaries; for I [am] Jehovah, sanctifying them.'

24 And Moses speaketh unto Aaron, and unto his sons, and unto all the sons of Israel.

   

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Sacred Scripture # 35

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35. 28 shows that the Old Testament prophets represented the Lord in respect to the Word and therefore meant the teaching of the church drawn from the Word, and that because of this they were addressed as “children of humanity.” It follows from this that by the various things they suffered and endured they represented the violence done to the literal meaning of the Word by Jews. Isaiah, for example, took the sackcloth off his waist and the sandals off his feet and went naked and barefoot for three years (Isaiah 20:2-3). Similarly, Ezekiel the prophet took a barber’s razor to his head and his beard, burned a third of the hair in the middle of the city, struck a third with a sword, and scattered a third to the wind; also, he bound a few hairs in his hems and eventually threw a few into the midst of a fire and burned them (Ezekiel 5:1-4).

Since the prophets represented the Word and therefore meant the teaching of the church drawn from the Word (as just noted), and since the head means wisdom from the Word, the hair and the beard mean the outermost form of truth. It is because of this meaning that inflicting baldness on yourself was a sign of immense grief and being discovered to be bald was an immense disgrace. This and this alone is why the prophet shaved off his hair and his beard - to represent the state of the Jewish church in regard to the Word. This and this alone is why two she-bears tore apart forty-two boys who called Elisha bald (2 Kings 2:23-25)-because as just noted the prophet represented the Word, and his baldness signified the Word without an outermost meaning.

We shall see in §49 below that the Nazirites represented the Lord’s Word in its outermost forms, which is why they were commanded to let their hair grow and not to shave any of it. In Hebrew, “Nazirite” actually means “hair.” It was commanded also that the high priest was not to shave his head (Leviticus 21:10) and that the fathers of their families as well were not to do so (Leviticus 21:5).

That is why they regarded baldness as such an immense disgrace, as we can tell from the following passages:

There will be baldness upon all heads, and every beard will be cut off. (Isaiah 15:2; Jeremiah 48:37)

There will be shame upon all faces and baldness on all heads. (Ezekiel 7:18)

Every head was made bald and every shoulder hairless. (Ezekiel 29:18)

I will put sackcloth around all waists and baldness upon every head. (Amos 8:10)

Make yourself bald and cut off your hair because of your precious children; make yourself still more bald, because they have left you and gone into exile. (Micah 1:16)

Here making yourself bald and making yourself still more bald means distorting truths of the Word in its outermost forms. Once they have been distorted, as was done by Jews, the whole Word is ruined, because the outermost forms of the Word are what it rests on and what holds it up. In fact, every word in it is a base and support for the Word’s heavenly and spiritual truths.

Since a head of hair means truth in its outermost forms, in the spiritual world everyone who trivializes the Word and distorts its literal meaning looks bald; but those who respect and love it have good-looking hair. On this, see §49 below.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.