Hebrew word · H3697

כָּסַם

kasom

to shear

'To clip, trim, cut short.' The verb appears only here in the Bible. A related noun, kussemet ('spelt' or 'emmer,' a kind of wheat; Exod 9:32; Isa 28:25; Ezek 4:9), is often connected with it, though how the two are linked is uncertain.

Appears 2 times in 1 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

(Qal) to cut, clip, trim, shear

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Ezekiel 44:20

Range of meaning

'To clip, trim, cut short.' The verb appears only here in the Bible. A related noun, kussemet ('spelt' or 'emmer,' a kind of wheat; Exod 9:32; Isa 28:25; Ezek 4:9), is often connected with it, though how the two are linked is uncertain.

Against the English

KJV 'poll' is old English for cutting the hair of the head (from 'poll' = head). BSB 'carefully trim' and ESV 'surely trim' try to bring out the doubled verb. WEB 'only cut off' and NASB 'only trim' express the contrast with the two bans.

How it drifted

KJV's 'poll' has drifted. Modern readers know 'poll' only as a survey or a vote.

Used elsewhere in the period

Rabbinic tradition built on this verse. The Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 22b; Ta'anit 17a) takes it to mean priests must not go about 30 days without a haircut, borrowing the 30-day minimum from the Nazirite vow. It also describes a careful priestly cut, with the tip of one row of hair lying next to the roots of the next. These are later explanations, not Ezekiel's own words.

Where it appears

Ezekiel · 2

  1. Ezekiel 44:20 כָּס֥וֹם יִכְסְמ֖וּ surely <trim>, they will trim

    They must not shave their heads or let their hair grow long, but must carefully trim their hair.

    Here: An emphatic form of the verb set before the main verb: 'trimming.' Hebrew repeats a verb this way for emphasis, roughly 'they shall definitely trim' or 'trim properly.'

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.