And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife that shaveth the hair: and cause it to pass over thy head, and over thy beard: and take thee a balance to weigh in, and divide the hair.
וְאַתָּ֨ה בֶן־אָדָ֜ם קַח־לְךָ֣ ׀ חֶ֣רֶב חַדָּ֗ה תַּ֤עַר הַגַּלָּבִים֙ תִּקָּחֶ֣נָּה לָּ֔ךְ וְהַעֲבַרְתָּ֥ עַל־רֹאשְׁךָ֖ וְעַל־זְקָנֶ֑ךָ וְלָקַחְתָּ֥ לְךָ֛ מֹאזְנֵ֥י מִשְׁקָ֖ל וְחִלַּקְתָּֽם׃
3 Church Fathers comment on this verse
And you, son of man, acquire a sharp sword and place it on your head and on your chest. Take the scales and divide me into three sections. You are to separate the hair you have grown during your confinement into three portions, weighing them on the scales. One portion you shall burn in the center of the city, symbolizing those Israelites who will be present in the sanctuary when the temple is set ablaze.
Instead of three segments of hair on the head, one shall be consumed by fire in the center of the city, another shall be struck by the sword nearby, and a third will be scattered to the winds, with a small portion taken and bound at the edge of a garment. A few more from this third shall be cast into the fire, signifying that the flames will spread to engulf all of Israel. In the Septuagint, there are four divisions mentioned. When they asserted that the fourth part would be burned with fire in the city center and another cut down by the sword nearby, they still had the fourth part and mistakenly added, “And the fourth part you shall burn in the city,” as if it were not the same as the first declaration, failing to recognize the repetition in these proclamations.
Consequently, the Lord expounded further on the enigmatic hairs through His prophet, proclaiming that a third shall perish by plague and succumb to famine among you, demonstrating that fire symbolizes famine and pestilence, while those who perish by the sword in your surroundings represent destruction and warfare from abroad. He states, “I will scatter a third of you to all the winds,” indicating those destined for exile. After this, He unsheathes His sword to prevent captivity from being the culmination of their afflictions; He gathers from the most dispersed and captive ones and binds them in the hem of His garment, signifying those who shall return to Jerusalem. From this group, a portion is also destroyed by fire, symbolizing the Macedonians, under whose rule those in Judea, particularly Jerusalem, have faced dire calamities. The phrase "from it," referring to the people of Judah or, according to the Seventy, possibly the city of Jerusalem, implies that fire will engulf the entire house of Israel. This is echoed in the historical accounts of the Maccabees, which recount how certain Jews betrayed their people to Antiochus Epiphanes, inciting him to persecute them, along with further details chronicled by Josephus—especially during the discord between Hyrcanus and Alexander, which led Pompey to capture Jerusalem and place it under Roman control, with later destruction by Titus and Vespasian. Fifty years later, under Elias Hadrian, the city was obliterated and lost its former identity. Just as hair symbolizes beauty and strength, whose removal leads to a state of diminished dignity, so too are Jerusalem and its people, dead and severed from the living Body of God, subjected to famine, plague, death, the sword, captivity, and scattering. A portion of this dispersal is depicted as a strand of hair in the hem of the garment, while another part is destined for the fire, leading to an overwhelming and devastating conflagration upon the entire house of Israel.
And you, O son of man, acquire a sword as sharp as a shearer's razor and wield it for yourself, placing it upon your head and your chest. Additionally, take the balance of the scales to measure me. The sword represents the authority to punish, while the removal of hair from the head and beard symbolizes a loss of glory. The weights and scales denote the accuracy of God's judgment, for in the inscrutable decisions of God, every matter is meticulously assessed.
Passages read together with this verse.
THEOSIS