Leviticus 10:4-6

10:4 Moses then called to Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel, Aaron’s uncle, and said to them, “Come near, carry your brothers away from the front of the sanctuary to a place outside the camp.” 10:5 So they came near and carried them away in their tunics to a place outside the camp just as Moses had spoken. 10:6 Then Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar his other two sons, “Do not ¹  dishevel the hair of your heads ²  and do not tear your garments, so that you do not die and so that wrath does not come on the whole congregation. Your brothers, all the house of Israel, are to mourn the burning which the Lord has caused, ³ 

Deuteronomy 21:23

21:23 his body must not remain all night on the tree; instead you must make certain you bury ⁴  him that same day, for the one who is left exposed ⁵  on a tree is cursed by God. ⁶  You must not defile your land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Deuteronomy 21:2

21:2 your elders and judges must go out and measure how far it is to the cities in the vicinity of the corpse. ⁷ 

Deuteronomy 18:17

18:17 The Lord then said to me, “What they have said is good.

John 19:40

19:40 Then they took Jesus’ body and wrapped it, with the aromatic spices, ⁸  in strips of linen cloth ⁹  according to Jewish burial customs. ¹⁰ 

¹ tc Smr has “you must not” (לֹא, lo’) rather than the MT’s “do not” (אַל, ’al; cf. the following negative לֹא, lo’, in the MT).

² tn Heb “do not let free your heads.” Some have taken this to mean, “do not take off your headgear” (cf. NAB, NASB), but it probably also involves leaving one’s hair unkempt as a sign of mourning (see J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:608-9; cf. NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

³ tn Heb “shall weep [for] the burning which the Lord has burned”; NIV “may mourn for those the Lord has destroyed by fire.”

⁴ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates by “make certain.”

⁵ tn Heb “hung,” but this could convey the wrong image in English (hanging with a rope as a means of execution). Cf. NCV “anyone whose body is displayed on a tree.”

⁶ sn The idea behind the phrase cursed by God seems to be not that the person was impaled because he was cursed but that to leave him exposed there was to invite the curse of God upon the whole land. Why this would be so is not clear, though the rabbinic idea that even a criminal is created in the image of God may give some clue (thus J. H. Tigay, Deuteronomy [JPSTC], 198). Paul cites this text (see Gal 3:13) to make the point that Christ, suspended from a cross, thereby took upon himself the curse associated with such a display of divine wrath and judgment (T. George, Galatians [NAC], 238-39).

⁷ tn Heb “surrounding the slain [one].”

⁸ tn On this term see BDAG 140-41 s.v. ἄρωμα. The Jews did not practice embalming, so these materials were used to cover the stench of decay and slow decomposition.

⁹ tn The Fourth Gospel uses ὀθονίοις (oqonioi") to describe the wrappings, and this has caused a good deal of debate, since it appears to contradict the synoptic accounts which mention a σινδών (sindwn), a large single piece of linen cloth. If one understands ὀθονίοις to refer to smaller strips of cloth, like bandages, there would be a difference, but diminutive forms have often lost their diminutive force in Koine Greek (BDF §111.3), so there may not be any difference.

¹⁰ tn Grk “cloth as is the custom of the Jews to prepare for burial.”