(Verse 18.) In every face there is confusion, and in every head there is baldness. The reddening of the face is a sign of shame, and the conscience of sins shines forth on the face. The hope of salvation is when shame follows sin. Therefore it was said to her who gloried in her sins with a hard heart: Your face has become like that of a prostitute, you do not know how to blush (Jer. 3:3). Baldness of the head is also a sign of sorrow, when we lose the beauty of our hair and the comeliness of our youth. And it is said about Jerusalem: For the adornment of your head, you will have baldness, because of your works (Isaiah 3:17). And another prophet says: All heads, he says, will be shaved in every place, and every beard will be cut off (Jeremiah 48:37). Also, Micah to the same Jerusalem: Shave, he says, and shear over the sons of your delights, spread your baldness like an eagle (Micah 1:16). And it is commanded to make baldness over the dead. But the holy ones, that is, the Nazarites, and those who deserved to obtain priesthood of the Lord, do not shave their heads (Num. VI). For they do not perform deeds of death, nor are they unclean, because they are Nazarites, that is, holy ones of the Lord. But if someone dies near them, all the previous days will not be considered as their sanctification. Samuel, the holy one of God, possessed the eternal ornament of the head: and he heard this from the Song of Songs: Your hair is black like a raven (Cant. V, 11). Furthermore, Samson, because he lost his hair, lost his strength (Judg. XVI): and as his hair gradually grew back, his former strength returned, so that he killed many more in his death than in his life. However, although Elisha had a bald head, because he was a servant of the Lord, he enjoyed the locks of his head. Hence, little children, because they were little and had not yet reached manhood, mocked his baldness and said, 'Go up, baldhead! Go up, baldhead!' (2 Kings II, 23), and they were torn by the bites of wild beasts, whose leaps and woods are their dwelling place.
[AD 420] Jerome on Ezekiel 7:18