Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.

LEVITICUS 19:27KJV
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Leviticus 19:27 (KJV)

What does Leviticus 19:27 mean?

Leviticus 19:27 tells the Israelites not to cut the hair at the sides of their heads in a rounded shape or damage the edges of their beards. The instruction concerns particular ways of shaping hair and beards, rather than giving a general description of their appearance.

God gives these instructions to the Israelites through Moses. The verse addresses the edges of both the head hair and the beard, using “corners” for each. In the surrounding passage, instructions about personal appearance stand alongside other commands given to the community.

The Hebrew behind Leviticus 19:27

  • “corners” — פֵּאָה (pe’ah): The word can mean an edge or side. Applied to a head and a beard, it points to their outer areas rather than literal corners.
  • “mar” — שָׁחַת (shachat): The word carries the sense of damaging or destroying. The KJV’s “mar” describes an action that harms the beard’s edge.

Why Leviticus 19:27 matters

  • The instruction is about more than hair on the head. The separate phrase “neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard” includes facial hair as well.
  • The nearby mention of cuts for the dead in verse 28 places the hair instruction among commands about treatment of the body. Leviticus 19:27 itself does not state whether cutting the hair was connected with mourning.
  • A related instruction in Leviticus 21:5 addresses priests and also mentions the edges of their beards. Leviticus 19:27 appears in instructions addressed to the wider Israelite community.

Where else these words appear

“beard” Hebrew H2206 · used in 18 verses

  • Leviticus 13:29 If a man or woman have a plague upon the head or the beard;
  • 1 Samuel 21:13 And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.
  • Psalms 133:2 It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments;

“round” Hebrew H5362 · used in 19 verses

  • Joshua 6:3 And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.
  • 2 Chronicles 23:7 And the Levites shall compass the king round about, every man with his weapons in his hand; and whosoever else cometh into the house, he shall be put to death: but be ye with the king when he cometh in, and when he goeth out.
  • Psalms 48:12 Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof.

“corners” Hebrew H6285 · used in 59 verses

  • Exodus 25:26 And thou shalt make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings in the four corners that are on the four feet thereof.
  • Numbers 34:3 Then your south quarter shall be from the wilderness of Zin along by the coast of Edom, and your south border shall be the outmost coast of the salt sea eastward:
  • Ezekiel 48:1 Now these are the names of the tribes. From the north end to the coast of the way of Hethlon, as one goeth to Hamath, Hazarenan, the border of Damascus northward, to the coast of Hamath; for these are his sides east and west; a portion for Dan.

“mar” Hebrew H7843 · used in 136 verses

  • Genesis 6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
  • 2 Samuel 11:1 And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem.
  • Jeremiah 6:5 Arise, and let us go by night, and let us destroy her palaces.