So my last post was directed at the Law about tattooing from a Jewish perspective and interpretation. This one is a quote from the Matthew Henry Commentary.
"4. The rites and ceremonies by which they expressed their sorrow at their funerals must not be imitated,
Lev. 19:28. They must not make cuts or prints in their flesh for the dead; for the heathen did so to pacify the infernal deities they dreamt of, and to render them propitious to their deceased friends. Christ by his sufferings has altered the property of death, and made it a true friend to every true Israelite; and now, as there needs nothing to make death propitious to us (for, if God be so, death is so of course), so we sorrow not as those that have no hope. Those whom the God of Israel had set apart for himself must not receive the image and superscription of these dunghill deities." One can find his commentary at
www.biblegateway.com[/quote]