Bible Synapse
Is long hair a disgrace for a man?
Hard question · Acts and the letters · raised by 3 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
During a Nazirite vow “there shall no razor come upon his head”; the hair grows long.
All the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.
Samson is to be a Nazirite from the womb: “no razor shall come on his head”.
For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
Hannah vows that no razor shall come upon her son’s head.
And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.
“Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?”
Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering. But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.
Paul has his hair cut at Cenchrea, “for he had a vow”.
And Paul after this tarried there yet a good while, and then took his leave of the brethren, and sailed thence into Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila; having shorn his head in Cenchrea: for he had a vow.
The objection
Paul says that nature itself teaches that long hair is a shame to a man. But God told Nazirites to let their hair grow, Samson was a Nazirite from birth, and Samuel was dedicated with the vow that no razor would touch his head. How can long hair be shameful if God required it?
The answer
The Nazirite’s long hair meant something precisely because it was unusual. A Nazirite vow was a special act of dedication, usually for a set time, “until the days be fulfilled” (Numbers 6:5), and the uncut hair was its visible sign: “the consecration of his God is upon his head” (6:7). When the vow ended the hair was shaved and burned with the offering (6:18). Ordinary Israelite men cut their hair, and even priests were told to keep it trimmed (Ezekiel 44:20), so Samson and Samuel, dedicated for life, were exceptions that everyone could see.
Paul speaks of the ordinary case: in Corinth, as among Jews and Greeks generally, men wore their hair short, and a man with long hair like a woman’s was thought disgraceful. By ‘nature’ (physis) Paul means the natural sense of what is fitting, what Gill called custom, ‘which is second nature’, and he backs it with the practice of “the churches of God” (11:16). Paul himself honoured vows of this kind: he had his hair cut at Cenchrea because of a vow (Acts 18:18) and joined men completing their vows in the temple (Acts 21:23–26). A sign that would be shameful as a man’s ordinary habit could be honourable as the mark of a vow, and the two passages speak of those two different things.
Other answers Christians give
Men and women distinguished
Some read 1 Corinthians 11 as chiefly about keeping the difference between men and women visible in public worship, so that the point is not hair length as such but men not presenting themselves as women.
Still open
Christians differ over how far the teaching of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 on hair and head coverings binds churches in other cultures today.
From the classic commentators
The Nazarite, however, wore long hair lawfully, as being part of a vow sanctioned by God (Nu 6:5).Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary, on 1 Corinthians 11:14 (1871)
By nature is either meant, the law and light of nature, reason in man, common sense, or rather custom, which is second natureJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on 1 Corinthians 11:14 (1746–1763)