Concise Bible Dictionary:
This was not a form of capital punishment in the Old Testament. Ishbosheth was beheaded by his murderers that his head might be carried to David (2 Sam. 4:7-8); as Goliath’s head had been carried to Saul. In the New Testament John the Baptist was killed in the Roman manner of beheading with the sword (Matt. 14:10; Mark 6:16, 27; Luke 9:9). In Revelation 20:4, those “beheaded” for the witness of Jesus, may be killed in other ways, for the word πελεκίζω signifies “to cut with an ax,”‘ having no particular reference to the head.
From Manners and Customs of the Bible:
2 Kings 10:8. There came a messenger, and told him, saying, They have brought the heads of the king’s sons. And he said, Lay ye them in two heaps at the entering in of the gate until the morning.
Beheading enemies is a very ancient custom. Thus David cut off the head of Goliath and carried it to Saul (1Sam. 17:51,57). So also the Philistines cut off the head of Saul (1 Sam. 31:9). Layard found at Nineveh representations of scenes which well illustrate the text. Heads of slain enemies are collected and brought to the king, or to the officer appointed to take account of their number. Morier, in his narrative of his second journey through Persia, states that prisoners have been known to be put to death in cold blood in order to increase the number of heads of the slain which are deposited in heaps at the palace gate. Many such heaps of heads are piled up in Persia. Sir William Ousely, who was in Persia in the early part of this century, saw the remains of some of these heaps on which the skulls seemed to be stuck together in a mass of clay or mortar. Similar accounts are given by later travelers.
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