(Hebrew, "sign", "remembrance").
Literally interpreting Ex. 13:9, 16; Deut. 6:8; 11:18, some precepts of the law were written on strips of parchment; These precepts were enclosed in little boxes that were tied to the left arm or forehead with phylacteries or ribbons.
Jesus criticized the Pharisees for making the phylacteries strikingly wide (Mt. 23:5). Many pious people of their time wore phylacteries not only for prayer, but throughout the day.
The word "phylacteries" (Mt. 23:5) derives from the Greek word "filakterion" ("means of protection"), although this idea is not found in the Hebrew word "totafat" which, literally translated, means sign, memory, memory.
The phylacteries appear during the intertestamental period, when the Jewish people needed a good dose of defense against the syncretizing ideologies of that period.
In the later period they became a kind of amulets against all kinds of threats and for this reason Christ reproaches the Pharisees for the fact that they "enlarge their phylacteries so much" (Mt. 23:5), that is, that they go to extremes. the external celebration of acts of piety.
Meaning of PHYLACTERIES
(Hebrew, "sign", "remembrance").
Literally interpreting Ex. 13:9, 16; Deut. 6:8; 11:18, some precepts of the law were written on strips of parchment; These precepts were enclosed in little boxes that were tied to the left arm or forehead with phylacteries or ribbons.
