Baldness

Baldness in ancient Israel could arise from natural causes, disease, or as a deliberately induced sign of mourning and grief. Natural baldness was uncommon and apparently considered unusual enough to be remarked upon — the taunting of Elisha as bald head (2 Kings 2:23) reflects this. Priestly law distinguished between the bald-headed man whose hair fell from the front (forehead) or the back, declaring he was clean as long as no reddish-white infection appeared (Leviticus 13:40–44).

Induced baldness — shaving the head — was a recognized sign of mourning across the ancient Near East (Job 1:20; Micah 1:16) and appears in the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28:35 and in prophetic laments. Isaiah 3:24 lists baldness as a substitution for well-set hair among the judgments that would come upon the daughters of Zion. Ezekiel 5:1 uses shaving the head as an enacted prophetic sign of Jerusalem's fate. The Nazirite vow, by contrast, involved refraining from cutting hair as a sign of consecration, making baldness in that context a marker of vow completion rather than mourning.