So What If a Woman by Accident, Age or Health Condition Has Short or No Hair, How Should She Be Covered If Hats and Scarfs Are Not a Covering?
1) Direct answer
If a woman loses hair by accident, age, or sickness, she is not made “uncovered” in guilt before God. The Bible’s covering is her hair as God gives it; the command is that she must not cut it. So she should simply let it grow as she is able and keep from cutting. In the meantime, she may use a simple scarf or a plain wig for modesty—not as the Scriptural covering of 1 Corinthians 11, but as modest apparel. When her hair can grow, let it grow; if it cannot, she remains blameless before God.
2) Scriptural explanation
- “Her hair is given her for a covering” (1 Corinthians 11:15). The covering God speaks of is hair, not a hat.
- “If the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn” (1 Corinthians 11:6). Paul links uncoveredness with being shorn/shaven—an act of cutting. The shame is tied to willful shearing.
- God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). He numbers our hairs (Luke 12:7). He knows when loss comes through infirmity, not rebellion.
- Modesty in apparel is commanded (1 Timothy 2:9; 1 Peter 3:3–4). A simple scarf or plain wig can serve modesty without pretending to be the 1 Corinthians 11 covering.
3) Simple clarifying logic
- Covered = obedience to keep the hair uncut and let it grow as God allows.
- Uncovered = shorn/shaven by choice, even if a hat hides the scalp.
- Involuntary loss (illness, age, accident) does not equal rebellion; therefore it does not bring the guilt of uncoveredness.
- A scarf or wig can help modesty, but it is not the Scriptural covering. The moment hair can grow, do not cut it.
4) Reinforcing statement
God is not measuring hats; He is honoring a woman’s obedient heart to keep what He gives and to walk in modesty.
Final biblical conclusion: A woman who has short or no hair through accident, age, or sickness remains scripturally covered when she refuses to cut and lets it grow as able (1 Corinthians 11:15–16). She may use modest apparel (a simple scarf or plain wig) for decency, but these do not replace the God-given covering. If her hair can grow again, let it grow and do not cut it.
Existing Follow-Up Answers
- If a Woman Willfully Cuts or Shaves Off Her Hair but Wears a Scarf or Hat to Pray, Is She Covered?
1) Direct answer No. If a woman willfully cuts or shaves her hair and then puts on a scarf or hat to pray, she is still uncovered before God. The
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What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Trying to do God a service without it being God's will
65-1127B §63
He chooses His own person by His foreknowledge. Like He said in Romans 8 here, that Esau ... that the election of God might stand sure. That Esau and Jacob, both born of holy parents, twins, that His election might stand sure and true, He said, "I hate Esau, and love Jacob," before either boy was born. See? He knows what's in man, He knowed it from the beginning what it was, therefore He can make everything work just exactly on clock time. We get all nervous and flusterated; you never seen Him flusterated. They don...
Paradox
64-0206B §18
A few years ago (about fifteen years ago) I used to hunt with a man that was a barber. And he was also a chiropodist. That's cutting calluses from feet. You know, during those times it was hard going. There was no money. And this barber friend of mine, I ... combing my hair and had... He was cutting my hair, rather, and he had dandruff on the shoulder. He said, "Billy," said, "you have to ... I'll have to give you a little shampoo." Said, "You got so much dandruff on your coat." And I said, "All right, Jimmy." And...
Door to the heart
60-0312 §25
Would you imagine a man on the street naked and doesn't know it? If the man knows it, he'll help himself. Or the woman on the street, or someone who doesn't have on clothing, and if they know that they're that way, they'll try to help themselves. But the pitiful case, they're so mentally gone they don't know it. Today the people walking on the streets of these cities are naked before God and don't know it! That's the pitiful part. They're trying to cover up with some church creed, like Eve did in the garden of Eden...
The meanest man in Santa Maria
62-0630E §26
That's the way ... the women is supposed to wear long hair because of the ... of her head, which is her husband. He is to have short hair because of Christ. The woman wears long hair because of the angels. What is the angels? The messenger, a true messenger to the church. That's right. He'll always call it down and say it's wrong, see, and so forth. And the church, to be so yielded to Jesus that it don't claim its own head, its own headship. Christ is the headship of the church, veiled. We're not our own, but we're...
Painted-face Jezebel
56-1005 §56
...I wonder tonight... I want everyone praying. I wonder tonight in the little talk that we just had as a little family talk together, here. My part of the service closing tomorrow night, I wonder if you would say, "Brother Branham, by this..." Not: "Brother Branham," "Lord God, I'm guilty of these things but I'm ashamed of myself. I have been going to church and calling myself a Christian. I've been taking a little drink, I've been smoking a little, I tell some foul jokes, with the crowd. And I take a drink to be so...