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- DUCTION OF THE PHYLACTERIES.—We have now to inquire at what period of Jewish history the literal interpretation of the four passages in ques. tion took its rise. A stroug presumption against a date in the Exile, or even early in the post- exilic period, is furnished by the fact that the phylacteries are unknown to the Samaritan com munity (see Klein, loc. cit. 686f.; Hamburger, Realencycl. d. Judenthums, ii. 1065). The Aramaic form of the name ¢éphillin points unmistakably in the same direction. An evident terminus a quo, however, is supplied by the figurative passages from Proverbs just cited. These are admitte echoes of the Deuteronomic teaching (see Driver, LOT® 396), and it is incredible that a Jewish writer would have so expressed himself, if the literal interpretation of Dt 6° ete. already held the field. Now the passages in question are all contained in the later section of the book (Pr 1-9), which, if the earlier section (10 ff.) date from the late Persian period, can hardly be carlier than B.c. 300.* Even half a cent later, c. 250 B.C.,— the provisional date generally accepted for the beginnings of the Alexandrian translation (LXX), —the figurative interpretation was still accepted, at least in Egypt. This we see from the LXX rendering of the crucial n5pw (καὶ ἀφάψεις αὐτὰ els σημεῖον ἐπὶ τῆς χειρός σου, καὶ ἔσται ἀσάλευτον ape ὀφθαλμῶν cov, Dt 68) as something ‘immovably fixed’ (ἀσάλευτον ; + ef. Ac 2741, He 1238) before one’s eyes, the unchanging subject of one’s thoughts.