Bible Strands
Leviticus 19:27
You must not cut off the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God addresses the Israelites through Moses at Sinai, placing this hair regulation alongside prohibitions against consuming blood and practicing divination.
The words — The Hebrew verbs תַקִּפוּ (taqqîp̄û) and תַשְׁחִית (tashchîṯ) forbid rounding off or destroying the פֵּאָה (p̄eʾâ), meaning the side or edge, of the head and beard.
The thread — The same boundary restrictions appear in Leviticus 21:5 for consecrated priests, Deuteronomy 14:1 forbidding mourning cuts, and Ezekiel 44:20 regulating priestly hair length.
Why it lands — The verse commands physical boundary maintenance as a concrete marker of separation, immediately followed by prohibitions against body cuts for the dead and tattooing.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.
Cross-references
- Leviticus 21:5 Priests must not make bald spots on their heads, shave off the edges of their beards, or make cuts in their bodies.
- Deuteronomy 14:1 You are sons of the LORD your God; do not cut yourselves or shave your foreheads on behalf of the dead,
- Ezekiel 44:20 They must not shave their heads or let their hair grow long, but must carefully trim their hair.
- Jeremiah 48:37 For every head is shaved and every beard is clipped; on every hand is a gash, and around every waist is sackcloth.
- Isaiah 15:2 Dibon goes up to its temple to weep at its high places. Moab wails over Nebo, as well as over Medeba. Every head is shaved, every beard is cut off.
- Jeremiah 16:6 “Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned, nor will anyone cut himself or shave his head for them.
- Ezekiel 7:18 They will put on sackcloth, and terror will overwhelm them. Shame will cover all their faces, and all their heads will be shaved.