Plucking Jesus’s beard. Or not.

Isaiah 50.6.

Because Jesus was foretold in the Old Testament, a lot of Christians throughout history have dug around the OT looking for as many scriptures as possible which might be foretellings of Jesus. They claim to have found hundreds.

And okay, fair, there are hundreds. But there are also a whole lot of passages which actually aren’t about Jesus. They’re about other stuff. Other people, other events, other teachings. Even other messiahs. (“Messiah” is a title of the king of Israel, and Jesus is the current king of Israel, but of course he had predecessors.)

These passages resemble Jesus-stuff, so Christians claim ’em for Jesus. But in fact we’re taking those Old Testament passages out of context. It’s so important to Christians that we amass as big a number of OT “Messianic prophecies” as possible, that often we don’t care we’re misinterpreting and misquoting bible.

Today’s Isaiah passage is one of them. I originally wrote about it for advent, but it has to do with Jesus’s suffering and death, so it’s important to talk about it during the Lenten season too. It’s about how it was foretold that Jesus would get his beard plucked. Supposedly that happened after he was arrested; while he was tortured before he was crucified. Some Jesus movies throw in a scene where inbetween smacking him around and spitting on him, someone grabs a big tuft of Jesus’s beard and rips it out. Yee-ouch!

Years ago I tried to find that beard-ripping moment in the gospels, and found it’s not there at all. Doesn’t come from the gospels. It’s supposedly from Isaiah 50.6.

Isaiah 50.6 KJV

I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

Some Christian musta read Isaiah, found this verse about someone getting their face spat upon, thought, “Well Jesus had his face spat upon,” and concluded this was a prophecy about Jesus. And Isaiah apparently also foretold Jesus had his cheeks plucked. So there we are! They pulled out his beard.

Is this passage a foretelling of Jesus? Nah; it’s about Isaiah himself. But tradition says it’s about Jesus… and as we all know, traditions aren’t infallible. This one sure ain’t.

Jesus is hardly the only prophet who suffered, you know.

If you believe “prophet” is a title which gets people acclaim and honor, you don’t know any real prophets. Or you might, but you don’t know them; you don’t really see what they go through. Actually hearing and sharing from God means you’re gonna get pushback from people who would really prefer you stop denouncing their favorite evil behaviors, stop rebuking their favorite evil people, and stop disagreeing with their favorite evil politicians. Just tell them they’re doing great, that God thinks exactly like they do and hates all the same people; that God is well-pleased with them and wants to reward them with material wealth, success, acclaim, a problem-free life, and a mansion in New Jerusalem.

Less often, and usually from outside our own churches, we get pushback from people who prefer the idea God doesn’t talk anymore. A number of people like to condemn any and all prophecy, and claim only preaching is a form of prophecy—and they’re preachers, so they’re prophets, so listen to them, and no one else. It’s a professional jealousy thing.

True of Christians today; true of Israelis in the 700s BC. Isaiah dealt with both types. Yet he was telling them to stop worshiping God on sabbaths and festivals if they were just gonna live like oppressive, selfish pagans the rest of the week, and figure God’s grace and their ritual sacrifices (or, in our case, our church attendance and orthodox beliefs) made up for their sinful lifestyle. The LORD has had it with a people who claimed they lived in “God’s country,” yet constantly defiled it. Hypocrites don’t wanna hear that.

So they blamed the messenger, and treated Isaiah like crap. Since ancient Israel had no such thing as freedom of speech, Isaiah had to suffer consequences for everything he said. No, not prison; they’d just cane you. Often without trial: The mob would just whack you with their walking sticks, or throw stones at you, or punch you in the jaw.

Isaiah 50.4-9 KWL

4My Lord YHWH gave me an educated tongue

so I might know to say a timely word to the weary.

He wakes me every morning.

He wakes up my ear so I can hear like an educated man.

5My Lord YHWH opens my ear.

I won’t rebel or backslide.

6I gave my back to those who beat it,

my jaw to those who strike it.

I don’t hide my face from disgrace… and spit.

7My Lord YHWH helps me,

so I’m not confused,

so I steady my face like a flint,

and I know I’m not disappointed.

8The LORD who justifies me is near.

Who wants to fight me? Stand up together!

Who’s my lord who justifies me? Have him approach!

9Look, my Lord YHWH helps me.

Who’s making trouble for me?

They’ll wear out like moth-eaten clothing.

In verse 7 Isaiah said he had to “steady my face like a flint.” I’ve heard many a preacher use this phrase to talk about how they’re psyching themselves into doing something difficult. They don’t always know why they’re steadying their face like flint; they think it has to do with having a stony, emotionless expression. Like you don’t want anybody to know about your inner turmoil. You’re controlling your emotions; you’re being gentle.

But nope, the saying’s not about emotional control. It’s about preparing yourself to take a punch. You hit flint. Before matches and lighters were invented, people struck flint to make a spark and start a fire. Since Israelis lit a fire nearly every day (except on sabbath), they hit flint all the time… and Isaiah was getting ready to take lots of punches. It came with the job. Prophets got beaten.

Oh, and plucking the cheeks. Really, striking the jaw.

You notice my translation of verse 6 is a little different from the KJV. That’s because the word the KJV translates “plucked off” is מֹֽרְטִ֑ים/mortím, “to polish.” It appears only one other time in the scriptures, in Ezekiel 21.11, where Ezekiel describes a sword that’s sharpened and polished. Not plucked; how do you pluck a sword? (Well, you can pluck a sword out of the guy you stuck it in, but that’s not what Ezekiel meant.) We still have this euphemism in English: “Polishing the jaw” means to punch it. Smacking it so often, it’s hairless from all the friction.

People presume it means “plucked” because that’s how St. Jerome translated it in the Vulgate: et genas meas vellentibus faciem meam, “and my cheeks, to pluck at my face.” But that’s not how they translated it in the Septuagint: τὰς δὲ σιαγόνας μου εἰς ῥαπίσματα/tas de siayónas mu eis rapísmata, “and my cheeks to be struck.” The English translators decided to go with Latin-bible tradition instead of the proper interpretation of the Hebrew and Greek. After all, they probably also grew up with Easter stories of Jesus’s beard being plucked, and didn’t wanna ditch the only proof text they had.

No doubt Jesus’s torturers hit him in the face quite a lot. Traditional passion plays like to depict Jesus getting beaten, so we can watch and appreciate his suffering, and feel bad for him. And one of the depictions includes people ripping tufts of hair out of Jesus’s beard.

Jesus likely has a beard. First-century Pharisees encouraged it, so as to obey the command to not cut your beard’s edges. Lv 19.27 But for certain ritual vows, you shaved. And some Jews stayed shaved, as a way to stand out… though some of ’em likely just didn’t like beards, and were looking for a good religious excuse to not have one. Since Jesus didn’t bother to interpret the Law of Moses like a Pharisee, he may not have cared about keeping a beard, or shaving, for the same reasons Pharisees did. Still, it’s likely he’d have one… though after certain times of fasting were over, it’s also likely he shaved himself clean. (Yep. Unlike Christian art, there’s no reason Jesus’s facial hair would’ve been static.)

Anyway. Those who claim, “Jesus does so have a beard; it’s in the bible!”: It’s actually not. And “Jesus had his hair pulled out; it’s in the bible!”: Still not.

But even though this isn’t a Messianic prophecy, what happened to Jesus still fulfills this scripture—in that Jesus’s experience is a fuller idea, or more profound example, of this happening. People abused Isaiah; people abused Jesus. People didn’t wanna hear Isaiah; people didn’t wanna hear Jesus. People didn’t like how these prophets described God, and took it out on them violently. Opposition is part of the prophet’s job description. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.