Ever heard the phrase, “He’s caput”? Caput is Latin for “head” and refers to capital beheading.
Losing one’s head is a rather startling motif in the book of 1 Samuel. Without going into much detail for discretion’s sake, beheading was a common form of execution in ancient cultures, a stark way of proclaiming total victory. Severed heads, now unable to speak, nonetheless gave eloquent testimony that the threat had been neutralized and this person was permanently out of commission. I shrink from reminding you that both Goliath and King Saul are described by the location of their heads! Concerning the giant from Gath, David spoke in no uncertain terms that he planned on cutting him down to size: “This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you” (1 Sam 17:46). And that’s exactly what he did. Knowing what happened to Saul and his boys, we grimace when we read that “he was a head taller than anyone else” (1 Sam 9:2, NIV). Not so much after the Philistines dealt with him (31:9)! The head, of course, is considered the control center of the person. With its approximately three-pound brain, the head is said to be the most highly organized collection of matter in the universe. It controls touch, motor skills, vision, breathing, temperature, hunger, balance, thought, memory, emotion, esthetic sense, moral choice, and well-nigh every process that regulates us. So it was when God took great offense at sharing quarters with fishy Dagon and his human head. Off with his head! He said (5:4). Of course, the opposite is also true. The New Testament stresses the vitality, wisdom, and unity when we are “holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God” (Col 2:19).