'Head' in the Bible

It is like the precious oil [of consecration] poured on the head,Coming down on the beard,Even the beard of Aaron,Coming down upon the edge of his [priestly] robes [consecrating the whole body].

“O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation,You have covered my head in the day of battle.

Let the righteous [thoughtfully] strike (correct) me—it is a kindness [done to encourage my spiritual maturity].It is [the choicest anointing] oil on the head;Let my head not refuse [to accept and acknowledge and learn from] it;For still my prayer is against their wicked deeds.

For they are a garland of grace on your head,And chains and ornaments [of gold] around your neck.

She calls out at the head of the noisy streets [where large crowds gather];At the entrance of the city gates she speaks her words:

“She will place on your head a garland of grace;She will present you with a crown of beauty and glory.”

Blessings are on the head of the righteous [the upright, those in right standing with God],But the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.

The people curse him who holds back grain [when the public needs it],But a blessing [from God and man] is upon the head of him who sells it.

The silver-haired head is a crown of splendor and glory;It is found in the way of righteousness.

The glory of young men is their [physical] strength,And the honor of aged men is their gray head [representing wisdom and experience].

For in doing so, you will heap coals of fire upon his head,And the Lord will reward you.

The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness; and yet I know that [in the end] one fate happens to them both.

Let your clothes always be white [with purity], and do not let the oil [of gladness] be lacking on your head.

“He has brought me to his banqueting place,And his banner over me is love [waving overhead to protect and comfort me].

“Let his left hand be under my headAnd his right hand embrace me.”

“His head is like [precious] gold, pure gold;His hair is [curly] like clusters of datesAnd black as a raven.

“Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel,And the flowing hair of your head like purple threads;I, the king, am held captive by your tresses.

“Let his left hand be under my headAnd his right hand embrace me.”

Why should you be stricken and punished again [since no change results from it]?You [only] continue to rebel.The whole head is sickAnd the whole heart is faint and sick.

From the sole of the foot even to the headThere is nothing healthy in the nation’s body,Only bruises, welts, and raw wounds,Not pressed out or bandaged,Nor softened with oil [as a remedy].

In that day the Lord will take away the beauty of their anklets, [braided] caps, crescent [head] ornaments,

For the head (capital) of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is [King] Rezin (now within sixty-five years Ephraim will be broken to pieces and will no longer be a people).

And the head (capital) of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son [King Pekah]. If you will not believe [and trust in God and His message], be assured that you will not be established.”’”

In that day [when foreign armies swarm the land] the Lord will shave with a razor, hired from the regions beyond the Euphrates (that is, with the king of Assyria), [that razor will shave] the head and the hair of the legs; and it will also remove the beard [leaving Judah stripped, shamed and scorned].

“Then it will sweep on into Judah; it will overflow and pass through [the hills],Reaching even to the neck [of which Jerusalem is the head],And its outstretched wings (the armies of Assyria) will fill the width of Your land, O Immanuel.

Therefore the Lord cuts off head and tail [the highest and the lowest] from Israel,Both [the high] palm branch and [the low] bulrush in one day.

The elderly and honorable man, he is the head;And the prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.

There will be no work for EgyptWhich head or tail, [high] palm branch or [low] bulrush, may do.

Woe (judgment is coming) to [Samaria] the splendid crown of the drunkards of Ephraim,And to the fading flower of its glorious beauty,Which is at the head of the rich valleyOf those who are overcome with wine!

And the fading flower of its glorious beauty,Which is at the head of the rich valley,Will be like the early fig before the summer,Which one sees,And as soon as it is in his handHe [greedily] swallows it [and so will the Assyrians rapidly devour Samaria, Israel’s capital].

this is the word that the Lord has spoken against him:“She has shown contempt for you and mocked you,The Virgin Daughter of Zion (Jerusalem);She has shaken her head behind you,The Daughter of Jerusalem!

Your sons have fainted;They lie helpless at the head of every street,Like an antelope in a net,Full [from drinking] of the wrath of the Lord,The rebuke of your God.

“Is a fast such as this what I have chosen, a day for a man to humble himself [with sorrow in his soul]?Is it only to bow down his head like a reedAnd to make sackcloth and ashes as a bed [pretending to have a repentant heart]?Do you call this a fast and a day pleasing to the Lord?

For He [the Lord] put on righteousness like a coat of armor,And salvation like a helmet on His head;He put on garments of vengeance for clothingAnd covered Himself with zeal [and great love for His people] as a cloak.

“Moreover, the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes [as powerful enemies]Have shaved the crown of your head [to degrade you].

“From Egypt also you will come away [as captives]With your hands on your head;For the Lord has rejected those in whom you trust (confide),And you will not be successful with them.”

Oh that my head were watersAnd my eyes a fountain of tears,That I might weep day and nightFor the slain of the daughter of my people!

Say to the king and the queen mother,“Humble yourselves and take a lowly seat,For your beautiful crown [the crown of your glory]Has come down from your head.”

“What will you say [O Jerusalem] when the Lord appoints [foreign nations to rule] over you—Those former friends and allies whom you have encouraged [to be your companions]—Will not pain seize youLike [that of] a woman in childbirth?

Making their land a desolation and a horror,A thing to be hissed at perpetually;Everyone who passes by will be astoundedAnd shake his head [in scorn].

For thus says the Lord,“Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,And shout for the first and foremost of the nations [the chosen people, Israel];Proclaim, give praise and say,‘O Lord save Your people,The remnant of Israel!’

For was not Israel a laughingstock to you? Was he caught among thieves? For whenever you speak of him you shake your head in scorn.

For every head is [shaven] bald and every beard cut off; there are cuts (slashes) on all the hands and sackcloth on the loins [all expressions of mourning].

Now it came about in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin [also called Coniah and Jeconiah] king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth of the month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, showed favor to Jehoiachin king of Judah and brought him out of prison.

Her adversaries have become her masters,Her enemies prosper;For the Lord has caused her griefBecause of the multitude of her transgressions;Her young children have goneInto captivity before the enemy.

“Arise, cry aloud in the night,At the beginning of the night watches;Pour out your heart like waterBefore the presence of the Lord;Lift up your hands to HimFor the life of your little onesWho are faint from hungerAt the head of every street.”

The waters ran down on my head;I said, “I am cut off (destroyed)!”

How dark and dim the gold has become,How the pure gold has changed!The sacred stones [of the temple] are poured out and scatteredAt the head of every street.

The crown has fallen from our head [our honor is covered with dust]!Woe to us, for we have sinned!

Now stretched over the heads of the living beings there was something like an expanse, looking like the terrible and awesome shimmer of icy crystal.

“And you [Ezekiel], son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor and shave your head and your beard. Then take scales for weighing and divide the hair [into three parts].

He stretched out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of hair on my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner courtyard, where the seat of the idol (image) of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, was located.

I also put a ring in your nostril and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head.

When you built your shrine altar for prostitution at the beginning of every street and made your high place in every public square, you were not like a prostitute because you refused payment.

Because you have not remembered the days of your youth but have enraged Me with all these things, therefore, I in turn will bring your conduct down on your own head,” says the Lord God, “so that you will not commit this lewdness on top of all your other repulsive acts.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, “As I live, I will bring down on his own head My oath [made on My behalf by Nebuchadnezzar] which Zedekiah dishonored and My covenant which he broke.

“As for you, son of man, mark out two ways for the sword of the king of Babylon to come, both starting from the same land. And make a signpost; place it at the head of the way to the city.

Sigh and groan in silence; do not mourn for the dead. Bind on your turban and put your sandals on your feet, and do not cover your mustache or eat the bread of [mourners furnished by other] men.”

“Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made his army work hard [at My command] against Tyre; every [soldier’s] head became bald and every shoulder was worn and peeled [from carrying loads of dirt and stones for siege works]. Yet he had no wages from Tyre [in proportion to the time and labor expended during the siege], either for himself or his army, for the work that he had done against it [for Me].”

then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, and a sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his [own] head.

And like the entrances of the chambers that were toward the south there was an entrance at the head of the walkway, the walkway in front of the dividing wall toward the east, as one enters them.

and the commander of the officials said to Daniel, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has prearranged your food and your drink; for why should he see your faces looking more haggard than the young men who are your own age? Then you would make me forfeit my head to the king.”

but there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days (end of days). This was your dream and the vision [that appeared] in your mind while on your bed.

As for this statue, its head was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze,

and wherever the sons of men dwell, and the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, He has given them into your hand and has made you ruler over them all. You [king of Babylon] are the head of gold.

The satraps, the prefects, the governors and the king’s counselors gathered around them and saw that in regard to these men the fire had no effect on their bodies—their hair was not singed, their clothes were not scorched or damaged, even the smell of smoke was not on them.

I saw a dream and it made me afraid; and the fantasies and thoughts and the visions [that appeared] in my mind as I lay on my bed kept alarming me.

‘The visions that passed through my mind as I lay on my bed were these: I was looking, and behold, there was a tree in the middle of the earth, and its height was great.

‘And behold, I saw in the visions of my mind as I lay on my bed, an angelic watcher, a holy one, descended from heaven.

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions appeared in his mind as he lay on his bed; then he wrote the dream down and related a summary of it.

“I kept lookingUntil thrones were set up,And the Ancient of Days (God) took His seat;His garment was white as snowAnd the hair of His head like pure wool.His throne was flames of fire;Its wheels were a burning fire.

“As for me, Daniel, my spirit was distressed and anxious within me, and the visions [that appeared] in my mind kept alarming (agitating) me.

and the meaning of the ten horns (kings) that were on its head and the other horn which came up later, and before which three of the horns fell, specifically, that horn which had eyes and a mouth that boasted great things and which looked larger than the others.

Then the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel shall be gathered together,And they will appoint for themselves one leader,And they will go up from the land,For great and glorious will be the day of Jezreel.

Moreover, what are you to Me, O Tyre and Sidon and all the [five small] regions of Philistia? Will you pay Me back for something [I have supposedly done to you]? Even if you do pay Me back, I will swiftly and speedily return your deed [of retaliation] on your own head.

behold, I am going to stir them up from the place where you have sold them [and return them to their land], and I shall return your action [of retaliation] on your own head.

“And I shall turn your festivals and feasts into mourningAnd all your songs into dirges (funeral poems to be sung);And I shall cause sackcloth to be put on everyone’s loinsAnd baldness on every head [shaved for mourning].And I shall make that time like a time of mourning for an only son [who has died],And the end of it shall be like a bitter day.

“For the [judgment] day of the Lord draws near on all the nations.As you have done, it shall be done to you [in retribution];Your [evil] dealings will return on your own head.

“The waters surrounded me, to the point of death.The great deep engulfed me,Seaweed was wrapped around my head.

So the Lord God prepared a plant and it grew up over Jonah, to be a shade over his head to spare him from discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about [the protection of] the plant.

When the sun came up God prepared a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he fainted and he wished to die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

“The breaker [the Messiah, who opens the way] shall go up before them [liberating them].They will break out, pass through the gate and go out;So their King goes on before them,The Lord at their head.”

You went forth for the salvation of Your people,For the salvation and rescue of Your anointed [people Israel].You struck the head from the house of the wickedTo lay him open from the thigh to the neck. Selah (pause, and calmly think of that).

With the enemy’s own spears, You piercedThe head of his hordes.They stormed out to scatter us,Rejoicing like thoseWho secretly devour the oppressed [of Israel].

I asked, “What are these [horns and craftsmen] coming to do?” And he said, “These are the horns (powers) that have scattered Judah so that no man raised up his head [because of the suffering inflicted by the Gentile nations]. But these craftsmen have come to terrify them and make them panic, and throw down the horns of the nations who have lifted up their horns against the land of Judah in order to scatter it.”

And I (Zechariah) said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with [rich] garments. And the Angel of the Lord stood by.

Take silver and gold [from them], and make an ornate crown and set it on the head of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest.

I will take the blood from their mouthsAnd their detestable things from between their teeth [those repulsive, idolatrous sacrifices eaten with the blood].Then they too will be a remnant for our God,And be like a clan in Judah,And Ekron will be like one of the Jebusites.

“And they will pass through the sea of distress and anxiety [with the Lord leading His people, as at the Red Sea]And He will strike the waves in the sea,So that all the depths of the Nile will dry up;And the pride of Assyria will be brought downAnd the scepter [of the taskmasters] of Egypt will pass away.