Verse Lens · Context pointer
Leviticus 21:5 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 5. 5They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Role in This Section
This verse prohibits specified mourning alterations to priests' hair, beard, and skin.
Read It With
- Leviticus 21:1-9
Start with 21:1-9 rather than Leviticus 21:5 alone. In that complete movement, this verse prohibits specified mourning alterations to priests' hair, beard, and skin. The unit's controlling claim is: Priests avoid corpse impurity except for close kin, reject pagan mourning cuts, marry within specified status boundaries, and guard family holiness, including a severe rule about a priest's daughter.
Why It Needs Context
Leviticus 21:5 prohibits specified mourning alterations to priests' hair, beard, and skin; reading it alone would sever that detail from the actors, category, and outcome in Leviticus 21:1-9.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Leviticus 21:1-9 — Ordinary priests receive mourning and marriage restrictionsSources used for this context pointer
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Leviticus 21:1-9, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Leviticus
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, ritual and legal vocabulary, names, clause relationships, KJV language controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Lev.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 21:1-9
Open source ↗