1 Chronicles 19:4

Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved them, and cut off their garments in the midst hard by their buttocks, and sent them away.

Shaved them - not completely, but only the half of their face. This disrespect to the beard, and indecent exposure of their persons by their clothes being cut off from the girdle downward, was the grossest indignity to which Jews, in common with all Orientals, could be subjected. No wonder that the men were ashamed to appear in public-that the king recommended them to remain in seclusion on the border until the mark of their disgrace had disappeared-and then they might, with propriety, return to the court.