2 Samuel 10:3,4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Hath not David sent to search the city? Nothing is so well meant, but it maybe ill interpreted; and is wont to be so by men who love none but themselves. And shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle He must not only have been very credulous, but of a bad and hasty temper; otherwise he would have dismissed them civilly, how much soever his courtiers suspected them; or have kept them in an honourable custody till the truth had been discovered. But this was the highest disgrace he could put upon them. For the wearing of long beards and long garments was then, as it is still, the fashion of the East, where they were deemed badges of honour; and consequently the cutting off and curtailing of either was regarded as the greatest indignity; nay, in some places, the cutting off the beard was not only looked upon as a matter of the highest reproach, but also of the severest punishment. So it was anciently among the Indians, as we learn from Nicholas Damascenus, mentioned by Stobæus, who says, that the king commanded the greatest offenders to be shaven, as the greatest punishment he could inflict upon them. And so it is at this day among the Persians. And it was one of the most infamous punishments of cowardice in Sparta, that they who turned their backs in the day of battle were obliged to appear abroad with one half of their beards shaved, and the other unshaved. There were two reasons which caused the eastern people of old, as they cause them at present, to look upon the beard as venerable: 1st, They considered it as a natural ornament, designed to distinguish men from women. 2d, It was the mark of a free man, in opposition to slaves. So that, in every view, the indignity offered by Hanun to the ambassadors of David was capital, and, it seems, the greatest he could have done them. It was a violation of the law of nature, of hospitality, and the right of nations. Insult and contumely were added to the disgrace; half the beard was cut off to make them look ridiculous, and half the robe to make their figures at once more contemptible and indecent. Delaney, Bishop Patrick, and Plut. in Agesilao.