Attributed commentary excerpt
John Gill's Exposition on Leviticus 21:5
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Exposition of the Old and New Testament
John Gill (1697–1771) · 18th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
They shall not make baldness upon their head, etc.] For the dead, as Jarchi, Aben Ezra, and Ben Gersom; not shave their heads, or round the corners of them, or make baldness between their eyes on that account; as those things were forbid the Israelites, so the priests also; this and what follow being superstitious customs used among the Heathens in their mournings for the dead, particularly by the Chaldeans, as Aben Ezra observes; and so by the Grecians; when Hephestion, one of Alexander’s captains, died, he shaved his soldiers and himself, imitating Achilles in Homer f737; so the Egyptians, mourning for the loss of Osiris, annually shaved their heads f738; and the priests of Isis, mourning for her lost son, are called by Minutius Felix f739 her bald priests; (see <031927>Leviticus 19:27,28 <051401> Deuteronomy 14:1); neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard: the five corners of it; (see Gill on “<031927>Leviticus 19:27”). This the Israelites in common might not do, and particularly their priests; though the Egyptian priests shaved both their heads and beards, as Herodotus f740 relates: and so they are represented in the Table of Isis f741: nor make any cuttings in their flesh; either with their nails, tearing their cheeks and breasts, or with an instrument cutting their flesh in any part of their bodies, as was the custom of Heathen nations; such were made by the Egyptians in their mournings f742; (see Gill on “<031928>Leviticus 19:28”).
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