Deuteronomy 14:1

Ye are the children of the Lord your God,.... Some of them were so by the special grace of adoption, and all of them by national adoption; which was the peculiar privilege of the people of Israel,

Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. Ye are the children of the Lord your God - children or sons.

CHAPTER 14 Heathenish rites of mourning prohibited, ,2; and the eating of any abominable thing, . All unclean beasts, , fish, ,10, and birds, prohibited, . True tithing commanded, ; and where it was to be eaten, . A command about the third year’ s tithing, ; and who should eat it, . Of the Lord your God; whom therefore you must not disparage by unworthy or unbecoming practices, such as here follow, and whom you must not disobey. Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes, which were the practices of idolaters, both in the worship of their idols, as ; or in their funerals, as here, and ; or upon occasion of public calamities, as 47:5. See Poole "", See Poole "". See Poole "". For the dead; through excessive sorrow for your dead friends, as if you had no hope of their happiness after death, .

Deuteronomy 14:1 Ye [are] the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.Ver. 1. Ye are the children of the Lord.] Ye should therefore do nothing unworthy of such a Father. Antigonus being invited to a place where a notable harlot was to be present, asked counsel of Menedemus what he should do? He bade him only remember that he was a king’ s son, and do accordingly. Ye shall not cut. Plut.

XIV.(1) Ye are the children of Jehovah.—This fact is made the foundation of all the laws of ceremonial and moral holiness in the Pentateuch, more especially in the Book of Leviticus, where these laws are chiefly to be found. Ye shall not cut yourselves.—The precept is repeated with little variation from Leviticus 19:28. Any baldness between your eyes—i.e., apparently, “on your foreheads.” The word for baldness in this place is generally used for baldness on the back of the head.

CHAPTER XIV The Israelites are not to adopt superstitious customs in mourning, 1, 2. The different kinds of clean and unclean animals, 3-20. Nothing to be eaten that dieth of itself, 21. Concerning offerings which, from distance cannot be carried to the altar of God, and which may be turned into money, 22-26. The Levite is not to be forsaken, 27. The third year's tithe for the Levite, stranger, widow, c., 28, 29. NOTES ON CHAP. XIV Verse 1. Ye are the children of the Lord] The very highest character that can be conferred on any created beings ye shall not cut yourselves, i. e., their hair, for it was a custom among idolatrous nations to consecrate their hair to their deities, though they sometimes also made incisions in their flesh.

1 f. Against certain Rites for the Dead No parallel in JE; but one in H, Leviticus 19:28 a. 1. Sons are ye to Jehovah your God] The order of the EVV. misses the emphasis. Note not merely the change to the Pl. address but its cause, the conception of individual Israelites as the sons of Jehovah: not elsewhere in D. In the discourses in D Israel, the nation, is as the son of Jehovah, Deuteronomy 1:31, Deuteronomy 8:5 and so more definitely in J, Exodus 4:22 f., Hosea 11:1, and Jeremiah 31:20. The transition from this conception to the statement of Jehovah’s fatherhood of Israelites as individuals was natural; the two conceptions occur together in the Song Deuteronomy 32:5-6 and in Hosea and Jeremiah. The latter is already found in the 8th century, Hosea 1:10, Isaiah 1:2. But as we advance through the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, with their strong individualism, to the exilic and post-exilic writings we find a great increase of references to Israelites as the sons of Jehovah, Jeremiah 3:14; Jeremiah 3:19; Jeremiah 3:22; Jeremiah 4:22, Ezek. (Ezekiel 2:4?), Ezekiel 20:21, Isaiah 63:8; Isaiah 63:16; Isaiah 64:8 (cp. Isaiah 57:4), Malachi 2:10, Deuteronomy 32:5, Psalms 73:15; Psalms 82:6. This is contemporary with the breaking up of the Jewish state and the destruction of the national worship. While then it is clear that one cannot take sons of Jehovah in this law as by itself proof of an exilic or post-exilic date, we can say that if it does not add to, it at least agrees with, the evidence in that direction adduced in the note below. Many ancient nations believed in their descent from gods or demigods; and among them the Semitic peoples, e.g. the Moabites are called sons and daughters of Kemosh, Numbers 21:29. But the relation was conceived physically. In the O.T. God’s fatherhood and Israel’s sonship are historical and ethical, based not on physical generation, but on an act of love on God’s part, on His choice or adoption (cp. Romans 9:4) of the people, and on His deliverance of them from Egypt; and it is carried out by His providence of love and moral chastisement (see the references above and cp. Amos 3), which is nowhere more tenderly described than in this Book. But when all the O.T. references to God as the Father whether of Israel or Israelites and to them as His children have been reckoned up, how few are they in comparison to the number of times that sons, and children, of God occur in the N.T. God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying Abba Father (Galatians 4:6); joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). ye shall not cut or gash yourselves] So of the priests of Ba‘al (1 Kings 18:28) and in Ar. one form of the vb. is used of mutilations of animals, Leviticus 19:28 : you shall put no incision on your flesh (cp. Deuteronomy 21:5) nor any tattooing upon you.

Make any baldness between your eyes - i. e. by shaving the forepart of the head and the eyebrows.

1. Ye shall not cut yourselves — Comp. Leviticus 19:28. It was the practice of some nations to make incisions on their faces or other parts of their bodies at funerals.