fficers of the court to make an
example of some of the principal offenders by inflicting corporal
punishment upon them.

(4) He plucked off their hair, _lit_., He made them bald. The Hebrew
word, _marat_, which is used here, means to make smooth, to polish, to
peel. The word hair is not expressed in the original.

We are surely not to suppose that Nehemiah, with his own hands, either
struck these men or made them bald. What he did was simply this. He, as
the head magistrate, inflicted a judicial punishment upon them, a
double punishment.

(1) They were beaten.

(2) They were made bald.

We read (Matt, xxvii. 26) that Pontius Pilate took our Lord and scourged
him; but we surely do not imagine that the Roman governor with his own
hands inflicted the scourging, but we understand it to mean that he gave
the order for the punishment to the Roman soldiers. Just so, Nehemiah
the governor commanded these offending Jews to be beaten and made bald
by the officers of the court.

One of the most flourishing trades in an Eastern city is the trade of
the barber. This may easily be seen by walking through the streets of an
Eastern town, and noting the numerous barbers at work, some in their
shops, which are open to the street, and others outside on the
doorsteps, or in some shady corner. Especially in the evening are these
numerous barbers busy; when the work of the rest of the city is drawing
to a close the barber's work is at its height. Yet, strange to say,
although the barber is so busy, everyone in the East wears a beard; a
man in the East would think it a terrible disgrace if he was obliged to
be shorn of his beard.

The beard is considered a very sacred thing; it is thought a great
insult even to touch a man's beard, and if you want to make any man an
object of scorn and ridicule, you cannot do so better than by shaving
off his beard. This was the way in which the Ammonites insulted David's
ambassadors (2 Sam. x. 4, 5). And we read that they stopped at Jericho
till their beards were grown, for 'the men were greatly ashamed.'

What then is the barber's work? If men in the East wear beards, what is
it that keeps him so busy? The barber in the Eastern city shaves not the
man's chin, but his head. It is a very natural custom in hot, dusty
climates, where the head is always kept covered, both indoors and out of
doors. It is also a very ancient custom, for even in the old Egyptian
hieroglyphics we find pictures of barbers s