19:27 You must not round off the corners of the hair on your head or ruin the corners of your beard.4719:28 You must not slash your body for a dead person48 or incise a tattoo on yourself.49 I am the Lord.
tcHeb “and you [singular] shall not ruin the corner of your [singular] beard.” Smr, LXX, Syriac, and Tg. Ps.-J. have the plural pronouns (i.e., “you” and “your” plural) rather than the singular of the MT.
48
tnHeb “And slash for the soul you shall not give.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul, person, life”) can sometimes refer to a “dead person” (cf. Lev 21:1, 5; 22:5). See J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 306, 320–21.
49
tnHeb “and a writing of incision you shall not give in you.”