Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageHe would cut his hair once a year, when it became too heavy to carry — and when he weighed it, his hair came to two hundred shekels by the royal standard.
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GWhen he cut the hair of his head — he would cut it from time to time, for it grew heavy upon him — he would weigh the hair of his head: two hundred shekels by the king's weight.
KJV
King James VersionAnd when he polled his head,(for it was at every year's end that he polled it: because the hair was heavy on him, therefore he polled it:) he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels after the king's weight.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleAnd when he cut the hair of his head—he shaved it every year because his hair got so heavy—he would weigh it out to be two hundred shekels, according to the royal standard.
Footnotes
Two hundred shekels by the royal standard is a staggering quantity — roughly 2.3 kilograms (approximately 5 lbs) of hair — signalling extraordinary physical vitality. But this celebrated glory contains its own foreshadowing: it is precisely Absalom's hair that will catch in the branches of an oak tree and leave him suspended, helpless, between heaven and earth at his death (2 Sam. 18:9). What is paraded here as a mark of splendour becomes the instrument of his undoing — the Hebrew narrator's signature technique of embedding doom within the description of beauty.