Leviticus 21:5

You priests must not shave your heads or shave the edges of your beards or cut your bodies to show that you are mourning for someone who has died.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.

In Context

4Priests must not cause themselves to become unfit to do my work [DOU] by touching corpses of people who were married to one of their close relatives.

6You must act in ways that I, your God, consider to be holy, and not disgrace my name/reputation. You are the ones who present to me the offerings that are burned. It is as though those offerings are food for me, your God; so you must act in ways that are holy.

Read all of Leviticus 21

Cross References

Leviticus 10:6Then Moses/I said to Aaron and his other two sons Eleazar and Ithamar, “ You are sad because Nadab and Abihu died, but you must act like you always do. Do not allow the hair on your heads to remain uncombed, and do not tear your clothes. But your relatives and all your fellow Israelis are allowed to mourn for those whom Yahweh destroyed by fire.

Deuteronomy 14:1“We are people who belong to Yahweh our God. So, when people die, do not show that you are grieving by gashing/cutting yourselves or by shaving the hair on your foreheads like the other people-groups do.

Isaiah 22:12The Commander of the armies of angels told you to weep and mourn; he told you to shave your heads and to wear rough sackcloth to show that you were sorry for the sins that you had committed.

Jeremiah 48:37The men will shave their heads and their beards to show that they are mourning. They all will slash their hands and wear ◄rough cloth/sackcloth► around their waists.

Amos 8:10I will cause your religious celebrations to become times when you mourn; instead of singing, everyone will be weeping. Because of what I will do, all of you will wear rough sackcloth and shave your heads to show that you are sorrowing. I will cause that time to be like when people mourn after an only son has died. All of you will be extremely sad all of that day.”

Matthew Henry on Leviticus 21:2-10

Laws Concerning the Priests. ( b. c. 1490.) 1 And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto the priests the sons of Aaron, and say unto them, There shall none be defiled for the dead among his people: 2 But for his kin, that is near unto him, that is, for his mother, and for his father, and for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother, 3 And for his sister a virgin, that is nigh unto him, which hath had no husband; for her may he be defiled. 4 But he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his… Read the whole commentary →

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