² sn Slash yourself. Slashing one’s body was a form of mourning. See Deut 14:1; 1 Kgs 18:28; Jer 16:6; 41:5; 47:5.

² tn Heb “and in their body they shall not [cut] slash[es]” (cf. Lev 19:28). The context connects these sorts of mutilations with mourning rites (cf. Lev 19:27-28 above).

² tn The Hebrew verb גָדַד (gadad) can be translated “slash yourself” or “gather in troops.” A number of English translations are based on the latter meaning (e.g., NASB, NIV, NLT).

¹ tn Heb “And slash for the soul you shall not give.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul, person, life”) can sometimes refer to a “dead person” (cf. Lev 21:1, 5; 22:5). See J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 306, 320-21.

² tc Or “Run back and forth inside the walls of your towns.” Or “slash yourselves with gashes.” The meaning of this line is uncertain. The Hebrew text reads, “run back and forth among the walls.” The word “run back and forth” is generally taken as a Hitpolel of a verb that means to “go about” in the Qal and to “go back and forth” in the Polel (cf. BDB 1002 s.v. I שׁוּט). The noun that follows in the Hebrew means “wall, hedge” and is quite commonly modified by the noun צֹאן (tsoʾn, “sheep”), referring to sheepfolds (cf., e.g., Num 32:36; 1 Sam 24:3). But the phrase “run back and forth among the sheepfolds” yields little meaning here. In Ps 89:40 (89:41 HT) the word “wall” is used in parallelism with fortified cities and refers to the walls of the city. That is the sense that is assumed in one of the alternate translations, with the words “of your towns” being supplied in the translation for clarification. However, that figure is a little odd in a context that speaks of mourning rites. Hence, some emend the word “walls” (גְּדֵרוֹת, g^ederot) to “gashes” (גְּדֻדוֹת, g^edudot), a word that has occurred in a similar context in Jer 48:37. That would involve only the common confusion of ר and ד. That is the reading adopted here, which fits the context nicely. The NRSV appears to go one step further, reading the verb as a Hitpolel from a root that is otherwise used only as a noun to mean “whip” or “scourge.” The NRSV has, “slash yourselves with whips,” which also makes excellent sense in the context but is not supported by any parallel use of the verb.

² tc The MT reads יִתְגּוֹרָרוּ (yitgoraru), which is either (1) Hitpolel imperfect third person masculine plural (“they assemble themselves”; so KJV, NASB) from I גּוּר (gur, “to sojourn”; BDB 157 s.v. I גּוּר) or (2) Hitpolel imperfect third person masculine plural (“they excite themselves”) from II גּוּר (gur, “to stir up”; BDB 158 s.v. II גּוּר). However, the Hebrew lexicographers suggest that both of these options are unlikely. Several other Hebrew mss preserve an alternate textual tradition of יִתְגּוֹדָדוּ (yitgodadu), which is a Hitpolel imperfect third person common plural (“they slash themselves”) from גָּדַד (gadad, “to cut”; BDB 151 s.v. גָּדַד), as also reflected in the LXX (cf. NAB “they lacerated themselves”; NRSV, TEV “gash themselves”; NLT “cut themselves”). This reflects the pagan Canaanite cultic practice of priests cutting themselves and draining their blood on the ground to elicit agricultural fertility by resurrecting the slain fertility god Baal from the underworld (Deut 14:1; 1 Kgs 18:28; Jer 16:6; 41:5; 47:5). Cf. CEV, which adds, “in the hope that Baal will bless their crops.”