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.
You must be born again
61-1231M §75
Now listen. I'm going to have to cut just a little bit here, you know, get the briars out of the way. Women and men that won't follow God's Word and His teaching after they claim to be born again, there's something wrong. I'm going to speak with the women just a minute. If a woman that knows that God's Word condemns bobbed hair, and wearing shorts, wearing slacks, dressing immorally, and haven't got the decency enough to let your hair grow out and put on clothes that look like a Christian, you're deceived. I don't...
The Church and its condition
56-0805 §56
And now you say, "Brother Branham, I think if I got short hair, it makes me cool and everything like..." That's right, but if you got long hair, you'd be cooler. It'll take it all off your neck, and wrap it up and make it right. Why, you know what the Bible said? That, a man has a right to put away his wife and get a divorce from her if she cuts her hair. If she cuts her hair, it shows she's living untrue to him. The Bible said so, I Corinthians 12; find out if it's not right. She that... A woman that cuts her hair...
Questions and Answers, Part 4
64-0830E §69
QUESTION: Why is it that we make so much of a big issue of women's dress (oh, oh, I'm getting it on this one, ain't I?)--- big issue of women's dressing and cutting of hair, and do---nothing said about the hair of the man or the way he dresses? Well, Sister, I'm going to agree with you one thing. First place, the Bible said that a man should not have long hair. And if he had long hair, I'd tell him, just the same as I tell you. He's wrong. But most men, lot of them's like me, don't have any at all. But most men cut...
Oneness
62-0211 §73
A woman wrote me a question the other day; she said, "Brother Branham..." Or, no, it was a man, a minister. He may be standing here this morning. He's just from Ohio. And he said, "We want to say the same thing you do, but we found something on your tapes that's not right." So Billy brought the letter to me. Said, "Something on your tapes," says, "is very contradictory, Brother Branham, to the Word of God. And we want to--we want to say the same thing." Said, "One question I want to say to you; that's I Corinthians...
Questions and Answers, part 2
54-0103E §64
...ause it's feminish, way down long like this. But He just cut it off here at His shoulders, the way they'd cut it off, around His head, just bob it off like that. That was short hair. So, ladies with hair to their shoulder, it's still short hair. Now, I don't say that would send you to hell or take you to Heaven. That don't have nothing to do with it. But the order of the church is for women to have long hair. That's right; that's right. And to enter the church... And not to have anything to do in the affairs, the s...