Deuteronomy Chapter 21 verse 12 Holy Bible
then thou shalt bring her home to thy house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
read chapter 21 in ASV
Then take her back to your house; and let her hair and her nails be cut;
read chapter 21 in BBE
then thou shalt bring her home to thy house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
read chapter 21 in DARBY
Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
read chapter 21 in KJV
Then thou shalt bring her home to thy house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails:
read chapter 21 in WBT
then you shall bring her home to your house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
read chapter 21 in WEB
then thou hast brought her in unto the midst of thy household, and she hath shaved her head, and prepared her nails,
read chapter 21 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 12. - She shall shave her head, and pare her nails. The shaving of the head and the paring of the nails, as well as the putting off of the garments worn when taken captive, were signs of purification, of separation from former heathenism, preparatory to reception among the covenant people of Jehovah (cf. Leviticus 14:8; Numbers 8:7). Pare her nails; literally, make or prepare her nails, i.e. by cutting them down to a proper size and form (cf. 2 Samuel 19:25, where the same word is used of dressing the feet and trimming the beard). The Targum of Onkelos takes this in quite an opposite sense, rendering, as in the margin of the Authorized Version, "suffer to grow," and the rabbins who adopt this meaning suppose that the design of the prescription was that the woman, being rendered unlovely, the man might be deterred from taking her to be his wife. But this is altogether alien from the spirit and scope of the passage.