Face

In Scripture the face is the visible register of the inward person. Character writes itself there, glory shines from it, sin twists it, fasting wears it down, and the saints' deepest hope is to see Yahweh's face and live. The Bible treats the face as readable surface and as the place where worshipper and God meet — covered, uncovered, transfigured, or sought.

Character Revealed in the Face

The face confesses what the heart conceals. Isaiah indicts a generation in which sin can no longer hide: "The expression of their face witnesses against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they do not hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have done evil to themselves" (Isa 3:9). Proverbs makes the same observation in moral psychology: "A wicked man hardens his face; But as for the upright, he establishes his ways" (Pr 21:29). Sirach reads the same legibility on the negative side, where bitterness writes itself on the features: "The wickedness of a woman changes her appearance, And darkens her countenance like a bear's" (Sir 25:17). Beauty also speaks — but not always truthfully. "Grace is deceitful, and beauty is vain; [But] a woman who fears Yahweh, she will be praised" (Pr 31:30), and a beautiful woman without discretion is "[As] a ring of gold in a swine's snout" (Pr 11:22).

Beauty and Disfigurement of the Face

Scripture is unembarrassed about facial beauty as a reported fact. Sarai is "a beautiful woman to look at" (Gen 12:11). Of Jacob's wives, "Leah's eyes were tender. But Rachel had a beautiful body and face" (Gen 29:17). David is "ruddy, and had handsome eyes, and was good-looking" (1Sa 16:12). Abigail is "of good understanding and beautiful" (1Sa 25:3). Vashti is summoned "to show the peoples and the princes her beauty" (Esther 1:11), and of Esther it is said that "the maiden had a beautiful body and face" (Esther 2:7). After Job's restoration, "in all the land were no women found so beautiful as the daughters of Job" (Job 42:15). Sirach extends the praise inward: "[As] the lamp shining on the holy candlestick, [So] also is the beauty of a face upon a stately figure" (Sir 26:17), and "The beauty of a woman makes the countenance bright, And excels every delight of the eye" (Sir 36:22). The bride of the Song shines "Beautiful as the moon, Clear as the sun" (Song 6:10).

Disfigurement is the other side of the same coin. Isaiah's people are "From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it" (Isa 1:6). Daniel and his companions, refusing the king's food, instead reveal the face's response to disciplined eating: "their countenances appeared fairer, and they were fatter in flesh, than all the youths who ate of the king's dainties" (Dan 1:15). See also Beauty.

Painting the Face

Cosmetic adornment of the face appears almost exclusively as a sign of seductive self-display, and the texts treat it with suspicion. Jezebel hears Jehu approaching and prepares for him: "Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her eyes, and attired her head, and looked out at the window" (2Ki 9:30). Jeremiah uses the same image of a doomed Jerusalem: "Though you dress yourself with scarlet, though you deck you with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain you make yourself fair; [your] lovers despise you, they seek your soul" (Jer 4:30). Ezekiel's allegory of Oholah and Oholibah continues the indictment: "for whom you washed yourself, painted your eyes, and decked yourself with ornaments" (Eze 23:40).

Covering the Face

In ordinary life a covered face is the reserve of women in public. Rebekah, when she sees Isaac approaching, "took her veil, and covered herself" (Gen 24:65). Tamar "put off from her the garments of her widowhood, and covered herself with her veil" before sitting in the gate (Gen 38:14). Boaz fills Ruth's mantle with grain (Ruth 3:15), and the daughters of Zion are stripped, among other ornaments, of "the veils" (Isa 3:23).

In the temple-vision the same gesture marks creaturely fear before holiness. The seraphim do not approach Yahweh open-faced: "Above him stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew" (Isa 6:2). What veiled the seraph face had to veil Moses' face too — but in reverse, to shield Israel from a glory it could not bear.

The Transfigured Face

When Moses comes down from Sinai he does not know what has happened to him: "the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him" (Ex 34:29). Israel reacts as one would expect: "when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, look, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come near him" (Ex 34:30). Moses then institutes the alternation between meeting and mediation: "when Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face" (Ex 34:33). When he goes back in before Yahweh, "he took the veil off, until he came out" (Ex 34:34). The text underlines this rhythm by repetition: "the sons of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone: and Moses put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him" (Ex 34:35).

The same phenomenon attends Jesus on the mountain, but without the need of a veil: "And as he was praying, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment [became] white [and] dazzling" (Lu 9:29). For Moses the shining face was reflected glory, gradually fading; for Jesus it was the inward glory of his own person showing through. See also Glory.

The Veiled and Unveiled Face in the New Covenant

Paul reads Moses' veil as a parable of the two covenants. Believers are "not as Moses, [who] put a veil on his face, that the sons of Israel should not look steadfastly on the end of that which was passing away" (2Co 3:13). The Mosaic glory was real but transient, and the veil was both shield and concealment. In the new covenant the order is reversed: "But all of us, with unveiled face looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit" (2Co 3:18). What Moses received once and shielded, the church receives continually and bears openly.

The Face Disfigured in Fasting

Fasting shows on the face. Daniel describes his own posture before the Lord without euphemism: "And I set my face to the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes" (Dan 9:3). The face that fasts is set toward God; its drawn appearance is a function of where it is looking, not a performance for spectators.

Seeking the Face of Yahweh

The face of Yahweh is the object of the worshipper's longing. The Psalter prays it as a settled disposition: "This is the generation of those who seek after him, Who seek your face, Jacob" (Ps 24:6). The same Psalter answers the call in the first person: "My heart said to you, My face will seek your face. O Yahweh, I will seek [you]" (Ps 27:8). And in covenantal exhortation: "Seek⁺ Yahweh and his strength; Seek his face evermore" (Ps 105:4).

Seeing God Face to Face

The patriarchs are astonished to survive the encounter. Jacob names his place of wrestling Peniel — "for, [he said], I have seen God face to face, and my soul is preserved" (Gen 32:30). Manoah, having met the angel of Yahweh, says to his wife, "We will surely die, because we have seen God" (Jdg 13:22). Isaiah, in the temple-vision behind the seraphim's covered faces, can only cry, "Woe is me! For I am undone… for my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts" (Isa 6:5). Yet the prophets also promise a sight of the King not in terror but in beauty: "Your eyes will see the king in his beauty: they will look at a land that reaches far" (Isa 33:17).

In Christ the seeking and the seeing meet. "Jesus says to him, Have I been so long time with you⁺, and don't you know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how do you say, Show us the Father?" (Jn 14:9). The Epistle to Diognetus restates the principle that the unseen God is known only as he chooses to disclose his face: "No one among men has seen him, or made him known; but he has showed himself" (Gr 8:5), and "He has showed himself through faith, through which alone it is granted to see God" (Gr 8:6). What Moses bore on his skin and what the seraphim shielded their faces from, the saints will at last meet without a veil. See also Glory and Moses.