How Many?
How many pounds did Absalom’s hair weigh after his annual haircut (2 Samuel 14:26)?
Answer: 5 pounds
According to 2 Samuel 14:26, Absalom cut his hair once a year. When weighed, his shorn locks totaled 200 shekels, which is about 5 pounds.1 This is the same Absalom who challenged his father, King David, for the throne of the Kingdom of Israel (2 Samuel 15).
Unfortunately, Absalom’s famed hair proved to be his undoing. When passing under an oak tree while riding a mule, Absalom’s hair caught in the branches (2 Samuel 18:9). The mule kept walking, and Absalom was left hanging from the branches. When news of this reached Joab, who was the captain of David’s army, he and his armor bearers found Absalom and killed him (2 Samuel 18:14–15).
MLA Citation
Endnotes
For the bulk of these, see Nahman Avigad, Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals, revised and completed by Benjamin Sass (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1997); Nahman Avigad, Michael Heltzer and André Lemaire, West Semitic Seals: Eighth–Sixth Centuries B.C.E. (Haifa: University of Haifa, 2000); Robert Deutsch and André Lemaire, Biblical Period Personal Seals in the Shlomo Moussaeiff Collection (Tel Aviv: Archaeological Center Publications, 2000).