Leviticus 10:6

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 

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. ⁴  19:28 You must not slash your body for a dead person ⁵  or incise a tattoo on yourself. ⁶  I am the Lord.

Deuteronomy 14:1

The Holy and the Profane

14:1 You are children ⁷  of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave your forehead bald ⁸  for the sake of the dead.

Isaiah 15:2

15:2 They went up to the temple, ⁹ 

the people of Dibon went up to the high places to lament. ¹⁰ 

Because of what happened to Nebo and Medeba, ¹¹  Moab wails.

Every head is shaved bare,

every beard is trimmed off. ¹² 

Isaiah 22:12

22:12 At that time the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, called for weeping and mourning,

for shaved heads and sackcloth. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 16:6

16:6 Rich and poor alike will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned. People will not cut their bodies or shave off their hair to show their grief for them. ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 48:37

48:37 For all of them will shave their heads in mourning.

They will all cut off their beards to show their sorrow.

They will all make gashes in their hands.

They will all put on sackcloth. ¹⁵ 

Ezekiel 44:20

44:20 “‘They must not shave their heads ¹⁶  nor let their hair grow long; ¹⁷  they must only trim their heads.

Amos 8:10

8:10 I will turn your festivals into funerals, ¹⁸ 

and all your songs into funeral dirges.

I will make everyone wear funeral clothes ¹⁹ 

and cause every head to be shaved bald. ²⁰ 

I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; ²¹ 

when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day. ²² 

Micah 1:16

1:16 Shave your heads bald as you mourn for the children you love; ²³ 

shave your foreheads as bald ²⁴  as an eagle, ²⁵ 

for they are taken from you into exile.

[10:6]  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).

[10:6]  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).

[10:6]  ³ tn Heb “shall weep [for] the burning which the Lord has burned”; NIV “may mourn for those the Lord has destroyed by fire.”

[19:27]  ⁴ 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.

[19:28]  ⁵ 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.

[19:28]  ⁶ tn Heb “and a writing of incision you shall not give in you.”

[14:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “sons” (so NASB); TEV, NLT “people.”

[14:1]  ⁸ 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.

[15:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “house.”

[15:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “even Dibon [to] the high places to weep.” The verb “went up” does double duty in the parallel structure.

[15:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “over [or “for”] Nebo and over [or “for”] Medeba.”

[15:2]  ¹² sn Shaving the head and beard were outward signs of mourning and grief.

[22:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “for baldness and the wearing of sackcloth.” See the note at 15:2.

[16:6]  ¹⁴ sn These were apparently pagan customs associated with mourning (Isa 15:2; Jer 47:5) which were forbidden in Israel (Lev 19:8; 21:5) but apparently practiced anyway (Jer 41:5).

[48:37]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “upon every loin [there is] sackcloth.” The word “all” is restored here before “loin” with a number of Hebrew mss and a number of versions. The words “in mourning” and “to show their sorrow” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to give the average reader some idea of the significance of these acts.

[44:20]  ¹⁶ sn The shaving of the head was associated with mourning (Ezek 7:18).

[44:20]  ¹⁷ sn Letting the hair grow was associated with the taking of a vow (Num 6:5; Acts 21:23-26).

[8:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “mourning.”

[8:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “I will place sackcloth on all waists.”

[8:10]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and make every head bald.” This could be understood in a variety of ways, while the ritual act of mourning typically involved shaving the head (although occasionally the hair could be torn out as a sign of mourning).

[8:10]  ²¹ tn Heb “I will make it like the mourning for an only son.”

[8:10]  ²² tn Heb “and its end will be like a bitter day.” The Hebrew preposition כְּ (kaf) sometimes carries the force of “in every respect,” indicating identity rather than mere comparison.

[1:16]  ²³ tn Heb “over the sons of your delight.”

[1:16]  ²⁴ tn Heb “make wide your baldness.”

[1:16]  ²⁵ tn Or “a vulture” (cf. NIV, TEV); CEV “a buzzard.” The Hebrew term נֶשֶׁר (nesher) refers to the griffon vulture or eagle.