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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Deuteronomy 14:1 - 14:1
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Deu 14:1, Deu 14:2. God’s people must not disfigure themselves in mourning.
ye shall not cut yourselves ... for the dead - It was a common practice of idolaters, both on ceremonious occasions of their worship (1Ki 18:28), and at funerals (compare Jer 16:6; Jer 41:5), to make ghastly incisions on their faces and other parts of their persons with their finger nails or sharp instruments. The making a large bare space between the eyebrows was another heathen custom in honor of the dead (see on Lev 19:27, Lev 19:28; see on Lev 21:5). Such indecorous and degrading usages, being extravagant and unnatural expressions of hopeless sorrow (1Th 4:13), were to be carefully avoided by the Israelites, as derogatory to the character, and inconsistent with the position, of those who were the people of God [Deu 14:2].