Bible Quiz
Hairy Tales
1. Why did Samson let his hair grow uncut?
2. 1 Timothy 2:9 says that women should be dressed modestly and sensibly, without gold or pearls or expensive clothes, and without a particular hairstyle. What hairdo incurred this proscription?
3. In what fashion must lepers wear their hair, according to Leviticus 13:45?
4. Who lifted the prophet Ezekiel up by his hair?
5. Which prophet was told to use a sharp sword to cut his hair and beard and then to weigh the hair on scales and divide it into thirds?
6. Who bathed Jesus’ feet with tears and wiped them with her hair?
7. To what animal do two biblical love poems compare the beloved’s hair?
8. Who said “even the hairs of your head are all numbered”?
9. Whose hair weighed about five pounds when he cut it?
10. Which tribe had warriors so skilled that they “could sling a stone at a hair and not miss”?
Prepared by Diane Plucinski Heinzelman, a BR reader in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Ms. Heinzelman holds an M.A. in Pastoral Ministry from Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut.
Answers
1. Because he was a Nazirite. Nazirites themselves to God by taking special vows (Numbers 6:1–21), one of which was to leave their hair uncut. When angel foretold Samson’s birth to Samson’s mother, the angel said, “No razor come shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb…” (Judges 13:5).
2. Braided hair. Women were urged not to wear this hairstyle, probably because it required considerable time and attention to one’s appearance, which might lead to vanity. Instead, the author of 1 Timothy wished them to be adorned “by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion” (1 Timothy 2:10).
3. Disheveled. In addition, the infected person must wear torn clothes, cover the upper lip, live alone outside the camp and shout at all, “Unclean, unclean” (Leviticus 13:45–46)
4. A spirit. While sitting in his house in Babylon, during a meeting with the elders of Judah, Ezekiel had a vision of “a form had the appearance of a man,” which “took me by a lock of my hair; and the spirit lifted me up between heaven and earth, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem…” (Ezekiel 8:2–3). There Ezekiel received a visionary tour of the Temple and of the abominations that had been practiced in it.
5. Ezekiel. Before the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, the Lord warned Ezekiel of the disaster by instructing him to certain symbolic actions that represented the city’s fate. Shorn hair the people’s fate: a loss of identity. The division of the hair specified forms their doom would take. “A third part you shall burn in the fire [death by fire] … a third part you shall … strike by sword [death by the sword], and a third part you shall scatter to the wind [exile] …” (Ezekiel 5:2)
6. A sinful woman. As Jesus sat at the table of a Pharisee named Simon, a woman who was a sinner approached bearing an alabaster flask of ointment. Then, “standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment” (Luke 7:38). Because Jesus had allowed the sinful woman to touch him, the incident provoked doubt in Simon, so Jesus told him: “… you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears. … You gave me no kiss, but she has not ceased to kiss my feet.… You did not anoint my head…, but she has anointed my feet.… Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:44–47).
7. Goats. In The Song of Solomon, a collection of lyric poems about love and courtship, the maiden’s beauties are rapturously described in a series of similes including, in two poems, “Your hair is like a flock of goats moving down the slopes of Gilead” (4:1, 6:5).
8. Jesus. In the course of commissioning and instructing his twelve disciples, Jesus said: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father’s will. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29–31).
9. Absalom’s. King David’s son Absalom, much praised for his beauty, cut his hair “when it was heavy on him” at the end of every year. When he weighed his hair, he found that it was “two hundred shekels by the king’s weight” (2 Samuel 14:26), which is about five pounds.
10. Benjamin. When some Benjaminites raped a concubine until she died, the other tribes decided to bring the violators to justice. The Benjaminites, however, refused to give up the guilty men, and so a war ensued. In addition to the 26,000 Benjaminites who mustered for battle, the Benjaminite city of Gibeah contributed “seven hundred picked men who were left-handed; every one could sling a stone at a hair and not miss” (Judges 20:16). On the third day of battle, the Lord delivered Benjamin into the power of the Israelites.