Leviticus 19:27-28

19:27 You must not round off the corners of the hair on your head or ruin the corners of your beard. ¹  19:28 You must not slash your body for a dead person ²  or incise a tattoo on yourself. ³  I am the Lord.

Deuteronomy 14:1-2

The Holy and the Profane

14:1 You are children ⁴  of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave your forehead bald ⁵  for the sake of the dead. 14:2 For you are a people holy ⁶  to the Lord your God. He ⁷  has chosen you to be his people, prized ⁸  above all others on the face of the earth.

Deuteronomy 10:4

10:4 The Lord ⁹  then wrote on the tablets the same words, ¹⁰  the ten commandments, ¹¹  which he ¹²  had spoken to you at the mountain from the middle of the fire at the time of that assembly, and he ¹³  gave them to me.

Isaiah 15:2

15:2 They went up to the temple, ¹⁴ 

the people of Dibon went up to the high places to lament. ¹⁵ 

Because of what happened to Nebo and Medeba, ¹⁶  Moab wails.

Every head is shaved bare,

every beard is trimmed off. ¹⁷ 

¹ tc Heb “and you [singular] shall not ruin the corner of your [singular] beard.” Smr, LXX, Syriac, and Tg. Ps.-J. have the plural pronouns (i.e., “you” and “your” plural) rather than the singular of the MT.

² tn Heb “And slash for the soul you shall not give.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul, person, life”) can sometimes refer to a “dead person” (cf. Lev 21:1, 5; 22:5). See J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 306, 320-21.

³ tn Heb “and a writing of incision you shall not give in you.”

⁴ tn Heb “sons” (so NASB); TEV, NLT “people.”

⁵ sn Do not cut yourselves or shave your forehead bald. These were pagan practices associated with mourning the dead; they were not be imitated by God’s people (though they frequently were; cf. 1 Kgs 18:28; Jer 16:6; 41:5; 47:5; Hos 7:14 [LXX]; Mic 5:1). For other warnings against such practices see Lev 21:5; Jer 16:5.

⁶ tn Or “set apart.”

⁷ tn Heb “The Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

⁸ tn Or “treasured.” The Hebrew term סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah) describes Israel as God’s choice people, those whom he elected and who are most precious to him (cf. Exod 19:4-6; Deut 14:2; 26:18; 1 Chr 29:3; Ps 135:4; Eccl 2:8 Mal 3:17). See E. Carpenter, NIDOTTE 3:224.

⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁰ tn Heb “according to the former writing.” See note on the phrase “the same words” in v. 2.

¹¹ tn Heb “ten words.” The “Ten Commandments” are known in Hebrew as the “Ten Words,” which in Greek became the “Decalogue.”

¹² tn Heb “the Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

¹³ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” earlier in this verse.

¹⁴ tn Heb “house.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “even Dibon [to] the high places to weep.” The verb “went up” does double duty in the parallel structure.

¹⁶ tn Heb “over [or “for”] Nebo and over [or “for”] Medeba.”

¹⁷ sn Shaving the head and beard were outward signs of mourning and grief.