Bible Strands
1 Chronicles 19:4
So Hanun took David’s servants, shaved their beards, cut off their garments at the hips, and sent them away.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Hanun takes David’s servants, shaves their beards, cuts their garments at the hips, and sends them away immediately after his princes falsely accuse the envoys of espionage.
The words — The verbs וַיִּקַּח (wa-yi-qqaḥ, “and he took”) and וַיִּכְרֹת (wa-yi-khrot, “and he cut off”) frame the deliberate, sequential physical violence Hanun orders against the diplomatic party.
The thread — This account runs parallel to 2 Samuel 10:4 and stands in direct contrast to the later prohibition against altering the beard in Leviticus 19:27.
Why it lands — The text records a calculated diplomatic insult that forces the king to isolate his wounded messengers in Jericho until their physical humiliation passes.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Wherefore Hanun took David’s servants, and shaved them, and cut off their garments in the midst hard by their buttocks, and sent them away.
Cross-references
- 2 Samuel 10:4 So Hanun took David’s servants, shaved off half of each man’s beard, cut off their garments at the hips, and sent them away.
- Leviticus 19:27 You must not cut off the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.
- 2 Chronicles 36:16 But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD against His people was stirred up beyond remedy.
- Psalms 35:12 They repay me evil for good, to the bereavement of my soul.
- Psalms 109:4 In return for my love they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer.
- Isaiah 15:2 Dibon goes up to its temple to weep at its high places. Moab wails over Nebo, as well as over Medeba. Every head is shaved, every beard is cut off.
- Isaiah 20:4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old alike, naked and barefoot, with bared buttocks—to Egypt’s shame.
- Isaiah 47:2 Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams.
- Jeremiah 41:5 eighty men who had shaved off their beards, torn their garments, and cut themselves came from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria, carrying grain offerings and frankincense for the house of the LORD.
- Jeremiah 48:37 For every head is shaved and every beard is clipped; on every hand is a gash, and around every waist is sackcloth.