The Razor and the Three Portions of Hair
1 “You, son of man, take a sharp sword. You shall take it as a barber’s razor to yourself, and shall cause it to pass over your head and over your beard. Then take balances to weigh and divide the hair. 2 A third part you shall burn in the fire in the middle of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled. You shall take a third part, and strike with the sword around it. A third part you shall scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them. 3 You shall take a small number of these and bind them in the folds of your robe. 4 Of these again you shall take, and cast them into the middle of the fire, and burn them in the fire. From it a fire will come out into all the house of Israel. 5 “The Lord Yahweh says: ‘This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the middle of the nations, and countries are around her. 6 She has rebelled against my ordinances in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are around her; for they have rejected my ordinances, and as for my statutes, they have not walked in them.’ 7 “Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are around you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my ordinances, neither have followed the ordinances of the nations that are around you; 8 therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I, even I, am against you; and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations. 9 I will do in you that which I have not done, and which I will not do anything like it any more, because of all your abominations. 10 Therefore the fathers will eat the sons within you, and the sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you; and I will scatter the whole remnant of you to all the winds. 11 Therefore as I live,’ says the Lord Yahweh, ‘surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things, and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you. My eye won’t spare, and I will have no pity. 12 A third part of you will die with the pestilence, and they will be consumed with famine within you. A third part will fall by the sword around you. A third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out a sword after them. 13 “‘Thus my anger will be accomplished, and I will cause my wrath toward them to rest, and I will be comforted. They will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in my zeal, when I have accomplished my wrath on them. 14 “‘Moreover I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations that are around you, in the sight of all that pass by. 15 So it will be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment, to the nations that are around you, when I execute judgments on you in anger and in wrath, and in wrathful rebukes—I, Yahweh, have spoken it— 16 when I send on them the evil arrows of famine that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you. I will increase the famine on you and will break your staff of bread. 17 I will send on you famine and evil animals, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood will pass through you. I will bring the sword on you. I, Yahweh, have spoken it.’”
A priest shaves his head with a sword and weighs out the hair, and the fraction he saves in his robe is not safe either.
The act is shocking before it is explained. A priest was forbidden to shave his head Leviticus 21:5. This one does it with a sword used as a razor, over head and beard together, and then puts the hair on scales. Shaving was the mark of mourning and of disgrace. Using a sword names what does the shaving. And weighing the hair says that what follows is measured out rather than random.
The three portions are then disposed of, and each is interpreted in the same chapter. A third is burned inside the city: those who die of pestilence and famine within the walls. A third is struck with the sword around it: those who fall in the fighting. A third is scattered to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them — the deported, who are not thereby out of reach. The arithmetic is deliberate and it leaves nothing over.
Except that it does, and this is the sharpest stroke in the chapter. A small number is taken out and bound in the folds of your robe. The fold of a garment was where a man carried what he meant to keep. And then, from that saved handful, some are taken again and thrown into the fire. A remnant is preserved, and the remnant is not exempt from testing. The book will later promise a purging of the returning exiles in the same spirit Ezekiel 20:38, so this is not a passing image.
The indictment underneath is geographic and it is the reason the judgment is public. This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the middle of the nations, and countries are around her. A city placed at the center to be seen has rebelled more than the nations watching. It has not even kept the ordinances those nations keep. So the sentence is executed in the sight of the nations, and the horror named is the one the law had named as the end of a siege — fathers eating sons and sons their fathers. The chapter's own summary is four words long and admits of no appeal: I, even I, am against you.
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