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._ Ye are the children of the Lord your God - children or sons. Israel, in a national capacity, were called so (Deuteronomy 32:19; Exodus 4:22; Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:15), although not every person in the nation could on this account be a "son of God." YE SHALL NOT CUT YOURSELVES ... FOR THE DEAD. Harmer ('Observations,' 105:) considers "the dead" to mean in this passage 'dead idols' (Zechariah 13:6

1-21 Moses tells the people of Israel how God had given them three distinguishing privileges, which were their honour, and figures of those spiritual blessings in heavenly things, with which God has in Christ blessed us. Here is election; "The Lord hath chosen thee." He did not choose them because they were by their own acts a peculiar people to him above other nations, but he chose them that they might be so by his grace; and thus were believers chosen, Ephesians 1:4. Here is adoption; "Ye are the children of the Lord your God;" not because God needed children, but because they were orphans, and needed a father. Every spiritual Israelite is indeed a child of God, a partaker of his nature and favour. Here is sanctification; "Thou art a holy people." God's people are required to be holy, and if they are holy, they are indebted to the grace God which makes them so. Those whom God chooses...

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...

MAKE ANY BALDNESS BETWEEN YOUR EYES - i. e. by shaving the forepart of the head and the eyebrows. The practices named in this verse were common among the pagan, and seem to be forbidden, not only because such wild excesses of grief (compare 1 Kings 18:28) would be inconsistent in those who as children of a heavenly Father had prospects beyond this world, but also because these usages themselves arose out of idolatrous notions....

EXPOSITION HEATHEN CUSTOMS OF MOURNING TO BE AVOIDED. NO ABOMINABLE THING TO BE EATEN. MEATS CLEAN AND UNCLEAN. TITHES. DEUTERONOMY 14:1 Israel, as the people of God, chosen by him to be his children by adoption, must not only abstain from idolatry, but also avoid all heathenish usages and practices, such as those connected with mourning for the dead, and those pertaining to the use of food. DEUTERONOMY 14:1 Ye a

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, and laid them under great obligation to honour and obey the Lord their God, who stood in the relation of a father to them, and they of children to him, Malachi 1:6. The Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it "beloved children"; so the apostle calls the saints; the "dear children of God", who therefore ought to be followers of him, Ephesians 5:1 and for a like reason this relation is observed here, namely, to quicken a regard to the exhortations of the Lord, his cautions, commands, laws, and ordinances, particularly to what follows: YE SHALL NOT CUT YOURSELVES; for the dead, as appears from the next clau

10. THE CHILDREN OF GOD AND THEIR SEPARATION CHAPTER 14 _ 1. The declaration of relationship: A holy people (Deuteronomy 14:1)_ 2. Their food as a separated people (Deuteronomy 14:3) 3. Concerning tithes (Deuteronomy 14:22) Ye are the children of the Lord your God. Because God had chosen them to be a peculiar people unto Himself, above all the other nations, they were to be an holy people. To them belongeth still “the adoption” (Romans 9:4). God called Israel His firstborn son and that nation holds that place, in the divine purpose, among the nations. Sonship, in the New Testamen

Heathen customs to be avoided. Deuteronomy 14:1_ f._ Heathen mourning rites. Deuteronomy 14:1. cut yourselves: Leviticus 19:28 *, _cf_. Leviticus 21:5. BALDNESS: the custom in mourning of shaving the hair between the eyes (_i.e._ on the top of the forehead). These are merely extreme forms of expressing grief; but most recent scholars regard them as survivals of acts of sacrifice, the blood and the hair being offered up to heathen deities or to dead but deified ancestors (p. 110). See Jeremiah 16:6

YE SHALL NOT, &C. Compare Leviticus 19:27; Leviticus 19:28; Leviticus 21:5.Jeremiah 16:6; Jeremiah 41:5. THE DEAD. dead people (not dead bodies). No art. in Septuagint. Compare Deuteronomy 28:26 with article, and rendered rightly "carcase"....

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...