Leviticus 19:27
Nor shall you cut your hair roundwise: nor shave your beard.
Open Leviticus 19:27 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Neque in rotundum attondebitis comam, nec radetis barbam.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- οὐ ποιήσετε σισόην ἐκ τῆς κόμης τῆς κεφαλῆς ὑμῶν, οὐδὲ φθερεῖτε τὴν ὄψιν τοῦ πώγωνος ὑμῶν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- לֹ֣א תַקִּ֔פוּ פְּאַ֖ת רֹאשְׁכֶ֑ם וְלֹ֣א תַשְׁחִ֔ית אֵ֖ת פְּאַ֥ת זְקָנֶֽךָ
Haydock's commentary
Cut your hair, &c. This, and other such like things, of themselves indifferent, were forbidden by God, that they might not imitate the Egyptians or other infidels, who practised these things out of superstition, in honour of their false deities. (Challoner)
The pagans consecrated locks of hair, and their beard, when it was first cut, to Apollo, the river gods, the hours, Esculapius, &c. Some, at Rome, hung the hair on a tree. (Tirinus)
The Arabians and Macæ left only a tuft of hair at the top of their head, in imitation of Bacchus. (Herodotus iii. 8.; iv. 175.) This tuft is called sisoe by the Septuagint who seem to have alluded o the Hebrew term tsitsith. See Ezechiel viii. 3. The ancient scholiast says, this was left in honour of Saturn. It resembled a crown. The same custom was observed by the Syrians, (Lucian) Idumeans, &c. (Jeremias ix. 25.)
Beard. Hebrew, "the angle, or extremity of your beard." These regulations would seem beneath the attention of a lawgiver. But they were made in opposition to some profane customs of the surrounding nations. The Jews still observe this direction, and leave the beard from the ear to the chin, (where they let it grow pretty long) and also two mustaches, or whiskers, on the top lip. The Egyptian mummies have only the beard on the chin. The eyebrows and other hair of the gods and inhabitants of Egypt, were entirely cut off. In mourning the chin was also shaved. God forbids his people to imitate them. (Calmet)
But heretics need not hence infer, that the tonsure of priests and monks is reprehensible. (Radulph.)
Read on
Superstition and affected delicacy in curling, &c., are to be avoided. (Tirinus)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Cyprian Treatise III
30. Do we believe that a man is lamenting with his whole heart, that he is entreating the Lord with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning, who from the first day of his sin daily frequents the bathing-places with women; who, feeding at rich banquets, and puffed out with fuller dainties, belches forth on the next day his indigestions, and does not dispense of his meat and drink so as to aid the necessity of the poor? How does he who walks with joyous and glad step mourn for his death? And although it is written, “Ye shall not mar the figure of your beard,” he plucks out his beard, and dresses his hair; and does he now study to please any one who displeases God? Or does she groan and lament who has time to put on the clothing of precious apparel, and not to consider the robe of Christ which she has lost; to receive valuable ornaments and richly wrought necklaces, and not to bewail t …
The Apostolic Constitutions Book I. Concerning the Laity, Sec. II. Commandments to Men
Let the husband not be insolent nor arrogant towards his wife; but compassionate, bountiful, willing to please his own wife alone, and treat her honourably and obligingly, endeavouring to be agreeable to her; (III.) not adorning thyself in such a manner as may entice another woman to thee. For if thou art overcome by her, and sinnest with her, eternal death will overtake thee from God; and thou wilt be punished with sensible and bitter torments. Or if thou dost not perpetrate such a wicked act, but shakest her off, and refusest her, in this case thou art not wholly innocent, even though thou art not guilty of the crime itself, but only in so far as through thy adorning thou didst entice the woman to desire thee. …