and though it was forbidden the Israelites, yet not Gentiles; De 14:1and pare her nails; this and the former some think were ordered to make her fit to be his wife, and were a sort of purification of her, and an emblem of her having renounced Heathenism, and having departed from it, and laid aside all superfluity of former naughtiness; but this phrase is interpreted in the Targum of Onkelos, "let her nails grow"; and so the Arabic version: and this the Jewish writers say was ordered to be done, that she might appear ugly and disagreeable to him, and be abhorred by him; so Jarchi, Aben Ezra, and Ben Melech; the same is observed by Maimonides , and is the sense of R.
Akiba . Another of their writers think it refers to a custom in some nations to dye their nails."The daughters of the Heathens (he says) used to adorn the nails of their hands and feet, and dye them with various colours, according to the custom of the Ishmaelites (or Turks); that there might be a variety in their hands, and men might look at them, take them and handle them until the fire of hell, and an evil concupiscence, burned; wherefore this is ordered that they might let them grow, without any preparation or die.'
'But perhaps this neglect of their nails, and suffering them to grow, was in token of mourning as well as shaving the head, as also sometimes even paring the nails was done on the same account. Moreh Nevochim, par.
3. c. 41. Hilchot Melachim, c. 8. sect. 2. T. Bab. Kiddushin, fol. 21. 2. Apud Abarbinel in loc. & R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 14. 1. Antiqu. l. 4. c. 8. sect. 23. De Charitate, p. 706. Ut supra. (Hilchot Melachim, c.
8.) sect. 5. In T. Bab. Yebamot, fol. 48. 2. R. Abraham Seba in Tzeror Hammor, fol. 146.