066. "They Make Broad Their Phylacteries"
"They Make Broad Their Phylacteries"
"All their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments." In Exodus 13:9-10; Exodus 13:16; Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Deuteronomy 11:18-21, we find the Israelites commanded to bind the law upon their heads and on their hands, a reminder that they must live holy lives. As a symbolic witness of this the orthodox Jew even todays binds small leather boxes on his forehead and arm. These are cubic in shape, made of leather specially prepared from the skin of a clean animal. The one for the forehead has on the outside the Hebrew letter shin, the initial of Shaddai - Almighty. Inside it is divided into four compartments, each of which contains a piece of parchment, inscribed with one of the above passages from the Pentateuch. The phylactery for the arm has only one compartment, and has all those passages of Scripture on a small scroll inserted. An expert prepares these phylacteries, and the very slightest mistake from the rules renders them worthless. They are fastened to the forehead and arm with leather straps with knots tied in a certain pattern. The young Hebrew wears these for the first time when he comes to the age of Bar- Mitzvah, twelve or thirteen years old. He then goes through a ceremony, and is considered a man, responsible for himself.
Jesus at the age of twelve must have gone through this ceremony, and after this He was found in the temple hearing the doctors and asking them questions. The wearing of phylacteries externally was too often a symbol with no reality back of it, and Christ rebuked the Jews for this outward show. "All their works they do to be seen of men," was what Jesus said to them.