612. The Covered Lip

From: Manners and Customs of the Bible By: James M. Freeman

• 1 min. read • grade level: 8

Micah 3:7⁷Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God. (Micah 3:7). Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God.

The margin has “upper lip,” that is, the lip-beard or mustache, as the word sapham is rendered by Gesenius and others. The Hebrews held the beard in high estimation as a mark of manliness. To cover the lip, and thus conceal the beard growing there, was a sign of sorrow or of mourning.

Thus, in the text, Micah represents the prophets as mourning because God refuses to reveal himself to them: “they shall all cover their lips.” Thus also the leper was required to cover his upper lip (Lev. 13:45⁴⁵And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. (Leviticus 13:45)). An allusion to this custom is likewise made in Ezekiel 24:17, 22¹⁷Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thine head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men. (Ezekiel 24:17)
²²And ye shall do as I have done: ye shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men. (Ezekiel 24:22).

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