The phylacteries

The command to ‘lay the téphillin’ is contained, the Jews maintain, in four passages of the Pentateuch, viz. : Ex 13% 18, Dt 65 118, It is of the utmost importance for our in- vestigation to obtain an accurate and unprejudiced exposition of these cardinal passages, which we proceed to examine in their order. (a) The bulk of Ex 13 is made up of injunctions regarding the perpetual observance of the Feast of Unleavened Cakes or Mazzoth (vv.!°), and of the Dedication of the Firstborn (vv.4").

The former, we read, ‘shall be for a sign (nix 6th) unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial (j77 zikkarén) between thine eyes, that the law of J” may be in thy mouth: for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt’ (v.°). Simi- *On the slight variation in the form of these and similaa benedictions see Friedliinder, The Jewish Religion, 1891, note, p. 329f.

; to this excellent work the student is referred for an exposition of the ‘sign’ of téphillin from the orthodox Jewish standpoint. The renderings given above are from Singer's edition of The Authorized Daily Prayer-Book, 1892, p. 16. PHYLACTERIES, FRONTLETS PHYLACTERIES, FRONTLETS 87) larly with regard to the dedication of the first- born, ‘it shall be for a sign (‘éth, EV ‘token’) upon thine hand, and for frontlets (nayin tétaphith) between thine eyes,’ etc. (v.1°).

Now these two verses are so similar in their phraseology that no sane expositor would hesitate to declare them to be, in the writer’s intention, completely identical. The feast of Mazzoth and the dedication of the firstborn shall alike serve as perpetual reminders to the Hebrews of the Egyptian deliverance, and of J”’s resulting claim upon them.

᾿ (6) In Dt θ55- we read : ‘ And these words, which I command thee this day (the exact reference of ‘these words’ will be considered presently), shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach (}:7)* them diligently unto thy children. . And thou shalt bind them for a sign. upon thine hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. And thon shalt write them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates.

’ In the second passage frgm Dt (11'**°) this injunction is repeated with only slight verbal changes (cf. 11% ‘ye shall lay these words upon your heart and upon your soul,’ with 6%). We have now before us the cardinal pee on which has been based the ancient ewish custom of the phylacteries. Do they, we must now ask, or do they not command and sanction this custom?

The answer is by no means ΒΟ easy as may at first sight appear, for it is not an affair of exegesis alone, but involves questions of criticism and lexicology. Thus we note that the language of the passage Ex 13% presents a strong Deuteronomic colouring, which has prevented our foremost critics+ from assigning it exclusively to J, with which source it has also undoubted affinities. Only two alter- natives are possible (cf. Wellh. Comp. εἰ. Hexat.* 74).

Either we have here a section composed in whole or in part by an editor of the Deuteronomic school (so Kautzsch, Cornill, Bacon), or we have one of several examples of the literary activity of the writer (RY#) who united J and E into a single work, and who must have belonged to ‘the circles whence Deuteronomy issued’ (Kuenen, Hexat. ὃ 9 n. 4, § 13 n. 29).

¢ In either case the important result follows, that we have to deal not with two enactments, separated by a couple of centuries, the earlier of which may possibly be understood in a figurative and the later in a literal sense, but with enactments of approximately the same age and reflecting the same religious standpoint. With regard, further, to the Deuteronomic pas- sages (Dt 6° 112), various critical difficulties suggest themselves.

Whence this unwonted and almost verbatim repetition in the course of the same address? Must we hold that in some of the early copies of Dt the verses repeated stood in ch. 6, in others with some variations in ch. 11, and that our present text has inserted a harmonized version of them in both places (so Steuernagel in Nowack’s Handkommentar, 1898, p. 40)? Or shall we, with the latest commentator (Bertholet in Marti’s Kurzer Hand-Commentar, 1899, p. 36), regard 11"!

ag an insertion which interrupts the connexion between ν. ἢ and ν. 3: The strong adver- sative with which y. opens in the original (ox p =‘bnt,’ not as EV ‘for’) certainly follows awk- wardly on vy.!*1, which so far makes for the latter view. The present writer, however, doubts whether either passage is in its original place.

Dt 6°, for example, which is parallel to 112, Hooks as if originally intended to form the continuation jv, only here in OT, appears to mean ‘to prick with a sharp-pointed instrument,’ hence probably = tattoo (see ag + Except Dillmann; but see his latest editor's view in Dill- mann-Ryssel, /zodus, pp. 111, 141. Σ For a con tus of modern critical opinion regarding Ex 1316 see Holzinger, Hinieit. in d. Hewat. 4551., and the *Tabellen’ accompanying tha’ work. of vv.

%*; this would give the following corre- spondences: 6% 8=11!8, 67=11% 69=11™", 6?=117, Assuming that both passages are genuine, we should thus have an impressive call to the con- tinued observance of the provisions of the Deutero- nomic code placed both at the beginning and the close of the hortatory introduction in chs. 6-11. In any case the characteristic Deuteronomic phrase, ‘these words which I command thee this day’ (#8), must have here, as it has everywhere else in ebs.

5-11, a prospective reference to all the provisions of the following code, and not merely to the two pre- ceding verses, as the commentators suppose. The two pairs of passages, then, we have seen, are alike in tone and intention, and that intention is to impress upon those addressed the duty of per- petual observance, in the one case (in Dt) of the whole Torah, in the other (in Ex) of two particular ordinances thereof.

The whole and its parts should be continually in their thoughts and on their lips, and should form a never-failing subject for the instruction of their youth. When we proceed to a closer examination of the special verses, Ex 13% 6, Dt 6° 118, it is very evident, if our contention as to their authors’ motive is correct, that the language of these verses is figurative throughout, as, indeed, is usually ad- mitted for Exodus, but denied, or at least ques- tioned, for Deuteronomy.

But all figures of speech in Hebrew, as in other tongues, are borrowed from the common objects and processes of nature, or from the familiar facts of Se life. So it must be in the case before us.

Thus, as regards the ‘sign’ upon the hand, we have only to recall the widespread practice, among all primitive races, of tattooing or branding various parts of the body with the name or symbol of the Naty to whom one wishes to dedicate one’s self, and whose protection it is desired to secure (see CUTTINGSIN THE FLESH in vol. i. 538"). Such, doubtless, is the underlying idea of the mark (nix)* of Cain, by which he was pies under the special protection of J” (see esp.

Stade’s brilliant essay, ‘Das Kainzeichen,’in ZA7W, 1894, p. 250: In this essay Stade has further shown [p. 310ff.] that jn of Ex 13° is a synonym of nix in this sense).

t The forehead,—for such is the meaning of ‘between the eyes’ in all our passages,—even more than the hands and wrists, was specially adapted for the reception of these religious tokens, and is so used by the most widely scattered savage and semi-savage races at the present Gah ut even in the canonical and extra- canonical literature of the Hebrews we find un- doubted references to this practice.

Thus we have the young man who bore on his forehead some mark or token that he belonged to the prophets of J” (1 Καὶ 20" ; see Stade, loc. cit. 314f.; and Kittel, Handkom. wn loc.), Ezekiel’s cross (1p 9*) on the foreheads of the faithful (cf. Rev 7 14"), the ‘token of destruction’ (σημεῖον τῆς ἀπωλείας) on the forehead of the wicked (Ps-Sol 15”, ef. v.®), while ‘the mark of the beast on hand or forehead’ (Rev 1315 14° etc.) is familiar to all.

These instances more than suffice to give us a glimpse of the circle of ideas which sup fied the metaphors of the pas sages we are considering. The ordinances of the Torah were to serve the same ipa gee as these στίγματα of the ancient cults; they were to be outward and visible tokens of the Hebrews’ allegi- ance to J” their God, and of “58 special propriety in them. In three of the cardinal passages, however (Ex 1319.

Dt 6° 115), for the zikkdrén of Ex 13° there is * These marks were called στίγματα by the Greeks (see Stade, ut sup., and Deissmann, Bibdelstudien, 266 ff.); of. LXX Ly 1 γράμματα στικτα, ἡ Cf. Nu 1658. 40 ( Heb. 175. δ), where mix and ΠΥΡῚ are used interchangeably. ——— ee 872 PHYLACTERIES, FRONTLETS substituted a word of uncertain signification, nby\o t{aphéth, EV ‘frontlets.

’ The singular of this word appears as πρὶ in post-biblical Hebrew, and the ΠΕΟῚ of the MT should in all probability be so pointed.* In form it resembles 2)\D for 2333, by reduplica- tion from # root which must be either 75m or "ib (see Konig, Lehrged. τι, 1. § 60, 64). The latter form is generally preferred on the stre of the Arab. {¢d/a, ‘to encircle,’ but the sense ‘fillet, head-band’ (so Ges. 7’hes., Dillm., Driver, etc.)

suits neither the descriptive expression ‘ between thine eyes’ nor the circle of ideas from which, we are convinced, the figure in the text is borrowed. The rendering téphillin of the Targums is merely a reflexion of the interpretation which had long been current among the Jews (see below). The root 45d is therefore to be preferred, but its significance can only be conjectured. Several modern scholars favour a conjecture, first pro’ d by Knobel, viz.

‘to strike,’ then ‘to make an incision,’ so that totaphoth would thus also denote erizuare (Klein, ‘ Die Tota- photh nach Bibel und Tradition,’ in Jahrb. 7. protest. he he vii. (1881) p. 678; Siegfried-Stade, Lez. s.v.; Nowack, Hebd. Arch, i. 184). This conjecture, it may here be added, has the support of the Peshitta in Dt 68 1115, where fétaphéth is ren- dered by rishmd, ‘a mark,’t which is also used to render Ezekiel’s mark and the mark of the beast in Revelation.

In the absence, however, of all trace of the above signification in the extant literature, it is more probable that we have in 755 a root akin to ‘D3 ‘to drop,’ and actually found in this sense in the Talmudic ΠΘΡῸ ‘to drip or drop’ (used of wine, oil, blood, etc.); cf. the series 0D, 017, ὉΠ), and Arab. hamhama, Ges.- Kautzsch, Heb. Grammar, § 30k.

πο is thus akin to nips} ‘[ear-]drops’ (Jg 8%, Is 3%), as is further confirmed by the rendering of the Samaritan Targum j5», which must be the Aram. x39 ‘a drop’ (of blood, ete.; see Levy, s.v.) It prob. denoted a ‘drop,’ bead, or jewel worn as an amulet,t i.e. as a true φυλακτήριον. In the Mishna, Shabb. vi. 1, 5, tétépheth clearly signifies a jewel worn by Jewish women, attached to their head- dress.

§ The Deuteronomic authors, then, do not shrink from the use of another bold metaphor to express the thought that the commands of J” shall be as constantly present to the thoughts of His people, and as highly prized as the most precious of jewels by their superstitious contem- poraries. The results of our investigations may now be summed up.

The passages in Ex and Dt on which the institution of the phylacteries is based cannot be kept apart in such a way that the expressions of Ex are to be taken figuratively but those of Dt literally. The figurative interpretation of both passages, further, is confirmed by such additional considerations as the following: (a) numerous other expressions in the contexts are plainly figures of speech ; such are the references to the words of J” being in the mouth (Ex 13°, ef.

Schoett- gen’s remarks, Hore Heb. et Talmud., 194f.) and in the heart (Dt 6°), to the duty of impressing (μ᾽ ‘ to prick with a sharp instrument’) them upon the children (67), and of laying them upon the heart and the soul (1118, but see above, § i., for an attempt to do this literally) ; (6) similar expressions elsewhere have never been taken otherwise than figuratively, e.g.

Dt 30, Pr 3° (‘ bind them [kindness and trath} upon thy neck, write them upon the tablet of thine heart’), 1° 67 78, Jer 17! 31 ete.

; (6) there is the impossibility of carrying out the injunctions in the literal sense when these refer to the whole Deuteronomic code, as we saw to be the case even in Dt 6°,—a consideration, it may be added, which * It should be noted that the Hebrew text has twice ΠΕΡῚ and once nbd, never, as in the Samaritan Pentateuch, mpyp ae τε plural termination: 4 vours the singular pointing, as suggested above. Σ It is well known that the practice of tact jewellery in the ears, nose, etc.

, had its origin in the desire to guard the orifices of the body against the entrance of eyil spirits (cf. W. R. Smith, RS1 4381.) As rings could not be inserted in the eyelids as through the ear-lobes and nostrils, the same end was secured by hanging a jewel ‘ between the eyes.’ 6 Of. the explanation of the Jerus. Gemara in Levy, 8.v., ene worn in the place of the téphilltn,’ ie. on the fore. PHYLACTERIES, FRONTLETS effectually disposes of the strictly literal interpre- tation of 6'° (=11").

iii. THe RISE OF THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION oF Ex 1316 Erc., AND THE DATE OF THE INTRO-