Deuteronomy 14:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ver. 1. Ye shall not cut yourselves, &c.— See Leviticus 19:28. Mr. Locke, upon the words, ye shall not make any baldness between your eyes, remarks, that the meaning is, "when any of your friends are dead, you shall not shave the forepart of your head, which is between your eyes, as the heathens do." These furious expressions of funeral mourning still subsist in some of the eastern countries. But nothing certainly is more unbecoming the peculiar people of God, the heirs of immortality, than thus to sorrow like those who have no hope. See Calmet's Dissert. on Chemosh. This law, like many others, was designed to discriminate them from idolaters, and to preserve them in their attachment, as an holy or separate people, to the Lord their God.