BALANCB BEAM, WOOD.
a circular bar, tapering to the ends ; the suspension was by a hole through it, or sometimes merely by a string tied around it, which would give great opening for fraud ; the pans were hung by cords, which passed through slanting holes cut in the beam, emerging in the width of the ends.
In OT the balance appears as a regular article of daily use. Abraham weighs four hundred shekels of silver for the field of Ephron (Gn 23") ; and soon after Eliezer gives weighed jewellery, an earring of half a shekel and two bracelets of ten shekels, to Rebekah. The total weight of the gold, silver, and bronze used for the tabernacle is all stated (Ex 38--'"^) ; and the weight of the offerings made at the dedication (Nu 7" etc.). And this is quite in accord with the style of the elaborate summaries of weights which the Egyptian scribes used to reckon up at this period. This preciseness of weighing, however, seems to have been lost to the Hebrews in Pal., as there is no record of the weighing of metal for the temple, and Daviil mentions quantities in the vaguest manner (1 Ch 22"), while the habit of using the balance seems to have revived in the later and more commercial times, to judge by the frequent mention of it in late books.
The falsification of the balance was common among the Hebrews aa shown by continual denuncia- tions of the practice. In Leviticus just balances are enjoined (19*'), as by Ezekiel (45'") ; and Amos (8'), Micah (6"), and the Proverbs (11') specially inveigh against false balances. The exactness of the balance was even considered a divine matter, as well as the precision of the weights (Pr 16"). For these references to the standards, see Weights AND Measures. W. M. Flindkrs Petrik.
BALD LOCUST.— See Locust.
BALDNESS, loss of the hair.— Two forms are contra.stcd in Lv 13^""*^, nrni} or crown-baldness (if>a\dKpuixa, LXX), and n-;j or forehead baldness ; the Heb. name referring to the fictitious appear- ance of height which it gives to the head {di'a(pa- XcLVTuina., LXX). These forms are also distinguished by Aristotle (//w<. An. iii. 11. 8). Baldness did not render the Israelite ceremonially unclean, and thus dill'ered from the Dahereth z'traath or spot of the contagious parasitic disease Tineatonsu;ans or ringworm, the condition described by Celsus aa ophiasis ; while the other form of spot mentioned along with it in Lv 13, Buhah or psoriasis, is nut
BALDNESS
BALM
235
contagious (Lv 13*"), and did not therefore make the sullerer unclean. Baldness is not a sign of old a''e in the Bible, like grey hair ; but is re- garded as due to excessive lauour with exposure to the sun, as in those employed in the siege of Tyre ( Ezk 2'J"), among whom it may have been induced by the salt water and a salt hsh diet, supposed in Shetland to cause baldness. An Arab, poet calls crown-baldness the baldness of slaves, while the other form is called noble baldness, as due to the pressure of a helmet. It was to be a sign of the degradation and serv-itude of backsliding Israel, that instead of curled and dressed hair they were to show baldness (Is 3").
' Bald-head ' was a term of reproach (2 K 2^*), as was calmis among the Romans, and <j>a\aKpis among the Greeks (see Suetonius in Cics. 45. 3, and Aristo- phanes, Nubes, 240 ; Equitcs, 550). Synesius wrote a defence of baldness of which an Eng. tr. was published by Fleming in 1579. A more famous Qefence was Hucbald's remarkable alliterative j)oem of 136 lines, de laudibus calvitii, each word of which begins with the letter C (Domavius, Amphi- theatro Sapient. Socrat. i. 290).
Baldness seems not to have been common in Bible- lands, nor is it very frequently noticed among the Jews to this day. The name of Kareah, father of Johanan (2 K 25*'), means ' bald-head,' and Korah refers to baldness, as Lat. name Calvus (Gn 36'- ", Ex 6'^')- Possibly, the frequency of ceremonial shaving of the head may have had some effect in preventing it. This reason is given by Hero- dotus for its rarity in Egypt (iii. 12). Slummy heads, though often shaven (see Gn 41"), are seldom bald. I have found only three bald heads out of 500. Egyptians generally concealed baldness by wear- ing wigs, and one female head in the Camb. Mus. had loclts of hair gummed on over the bare scalp. In Papyrus Ebers (c. B.C. 1500) there are eleven pre.scrii>tions to prevent baldness. But, although rare in Egj'pt, Leo Africanus says it is common in Barbary. Alany of the Egyp. priests were shaven, and arc therefore called Fclcct or bald-headed ; and perhaps it was for contrast that baldness disqualified for the priesthood in I.sr. (Lv ei**, LXX), although it did not preclude them from partaking of the .sacred food. Even shaving the head was for- bidden to the priest (Lv 21°). A similar contrast is implied in the prohibition of ' rounding the corn-rs' of the head (Lv 19") among ordinary Israelites to distinguish them from their heathen neighbours, who cut their hair in a circular form, as that of Dionysus was cut (Herod, iii. 8). The modem Egj-ptians and Bishari adopt a similar mode of cutting ; while the Pal. and Arabian Jews keep the Levitical custom, and, at the huUika or first cutting of the hair at the age of four years, do not cut the corners (Schechter, Jewish Quart. Jicv. U. 16).