Why couldn’t the Jews trim their beards or their hair or get tattoos?

Critics argue that arbitrary laws like this seem quite bizarre. Why would God care about trimming our beards or getting tattoos?

In ancient Near Eastern culture, beard trimming and tattoos were closely connected with pagan practices of contacting the dead, which was expressly forbidden in Israel (Deut. 18:11). This is why the text clearly states, “You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead” (Lev. 19:28). The cutting of hair appears frequently alongside religious practices (Lev. 14:8-9; Num. 6:5; Isa. 22:12; Ezek. 5:1-4, Amos 8:10; Micah 1:16). The same was the case for mutilating one’s body for the dead (Jer. 16:6; 48:37). These practices occurred during times of funeral practices (Deut. 14:1; Isa. 15:2; 22:12; Jer. 16:6; Amos 8:10), and thus, these practices were associated with false religion. Copan writes, “The act of men trimming their hair on the sides of their head or the edges of their beard… was a Canaanite practice of offering one’s hair to departed spirits to appease them (cf. Deut. 14:1).”^[1] Harris comments, “There was nothing morally wrong with cutting the hair or the beard or with tattooing. But these practices then, and also now in some places, were parts of heathen ritual.”^[2]

[1] Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2011), 91.

^[2] R. Laird Harris, “Leviticus,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1990), 608.