A Prohibition Of Shaving?

Leviticus 19:27, even for the Christians who mistakenly think that the majority of Mosaic Law is not universally obligatory on the Christian worldview (Deuteronomy 4:5-8, Malachi 3:6, Matthew 5:17-20, Luke 16:17), might strike many readers as odd.  It addresses an issue that is trivial either way by comparison to much that the Torah deals with: it says to not cut the hair at the side of one's head or, for men, the edge of one's beard.  Sometimes confused for a prohibition of shaving, the verse says nothing about the whole of the hair on someone's face or general head, focusing exclusively on the hair in the two aforementioned places.  There are clear reasons why this is not a universal condemnation of shaving or trimming hair, even male facial hair, and there are also very direct contextual cues that all but certainly limit this to the avoidance of pagan practices that have nothing to do with why many moderners cut their hair in any bodily area.

Even if this verse did mean what some might assume, allowing a beard to grow out inches and inches before cutting half of its length away, for instance, would not be the same as just trimming the edges.  From this alone, the command could be kept without resulting in permanently untrimmed, unkempt facial hair.  It also does not condemn shaving all facial hair away as opposed to only cutting the very edges while leaving the rest untouched.  This is perfectly analogous to how cutting down a tree does not involve trimming its protruding branches.  It would obviously still be possible for someone to have kept this command and removed their beard altogether or in part.  In truth, it should not have to take someone more than a few moments of not making assumptions and of dwelling on what logically does and does not follow from this to realize everything so far.

There are also strong hints that the context of surrounding verses might apply to verse 27.  Immediately before, verse 26 says not to seek omens or engage in divination, which is trying to learn of future events by supernatural means (though this would not apply to Yahweh and his prophets as legitimate predictors).  Verse 28 says immediately after to not cut your body for the dead.  Disfiguring the body out of mourning over or attempts to rouse the dead is disallowed.  The phrase "for the dead" indicates that this is about spiritualistic practices that are contrary to Christian metaphysics and ethics.  In actuality, according to the Bible, the dead know nothing (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, Job 3:11-19) in their unconsciousness or nonexistence unless stirred by means like sorcery (1 Samuel 28).  The command about cutting the beard seems to specifically be about avoiding pagan activities of the day.

Leviticus 14:8-9, in addition to this, very plainly says that someone was to remove all hair in cases of defiling skin conditions.  Shaving off all of one's hair as verse 8 describes would by necessity include the beard on a male already, but verse 9 mentions the beard.  It was to be shaved away along with the hair of a person's scalp, eyebrow area, and the rest of their body.  Thus, there is not only no command in Leviticus 19 to not trim any facial hair at all and no demand to not trim the edges outside the context of condemning pagan rites, but five chapters earlier, there was already permission and the ceremonial requirement to remove all hair from one's body, which would span the head, the neck, the torso, the groin, arms, and legs.  A priest could not examine someone's body to see if every trace of a skin disease was gone otherwise (14:3).  Beards would have to be removed to fulfill this.