Deuteronomy 11

In The Heart And On The Hand

Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul; and ye shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. Deuteronomy 11:18.

Four times these words, or words very like them, are found in the commandments which Moses laid down for the children of Israel. Once he said that a feast which they were to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread was to be a sign on their hands and their foreheads. He meant once the custom of giving all the first-born animals or children to God, and twice he was speaking of the commandments themselves.

Now, how could any of these things be upon the hands or the foreheads of the people of Israel? If you were to go to India today, you would find people wearing on their foreheads a red mark. It is a sign that they worship a certain god. Or if you went to Africa you would find the Kaffir smearing himself with red ochre. That also is his way of showing his religion. When he becomes a Christian he washes that off. In other countries you find that the marks are made by tattooing, or pricking in a pattern with some color.

Such customs are very, very old, and were in use among the heathen peoples round Israel, to show to which god they belonged. Sometimes they were copied by the Israelites themselves, when they fell away from worshipping the true God. But Moses wished to teach them that keeping the commandments which he gave them was to be their way of showing their God, as much as though they wore marks cut on their hands and faces.

A very long time after the death of Moses hundreds of years after indeed there was a certain class among; the Jews who were very strict in keeping all the rules of their religion. They were called Pharisees. They gave nearly all their time to studying the Law of Moses, and to writing explanations of it. They were so anxious to keep every word of it that they sometimes missed the meaning of it, and tried to carry it out in a way that was never intended. They laid down so many rules about the way that the Law should be kept that common people felt it was no use to try to keep them they were too ignorant to understand them, and too busy with their work to have time for them.

The Pharisees, then, said that when Moses spoke these words he meant exactly what he said, and intended the people of Israel to bind these very words on their hands, and on their foreheads. They must surely have overlooked that he said, “Ye shall lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul.” So they made small leather boxes, one for the head and one for the hand, to hold the words of Moses, and every good Pharisee wore them. They wore them all day, and every day, except on Sabbaths and feast days.

These little cases, which are called phylacteries, are still used by the Jews, but now they put them on only while they are saying their prayers. Would you like to know what the phylactery for the head is like? It is a little square box of leather, divided inside into four divisions, or “houses.” In each “house” there is a slip of parchment with a text written on it in Hebrew. The texts are those which speak of binding the words of Moses on the hand and on the forehead. The leather box is sewed on to a square piece of leather, and fastened on the forehead by straps which go round the head.

The phylactery for the hand is like this but has only one “house” inside, and the same four texts are all written on one piece of parchment. It is fastened to the bare left arm, just above the elbow, so that it may rest against the heart. It is kept in position with straps like the other one.

But to fix some words of the law to the outside of your head is very different from laying up the meaning of it “in your heart and in your soul.”

Phylacteries are once mentioned in the New Testament. Christ was speaking to His disciples about the Pharisees. And He warned them not to be like them, for He said, “Their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.” And He went on to say that their religion was all outside show and hypocrisy.

The phylactery was outside not inside that was what was wrong with it. And when you come to think of it, there is that difference in religion all the world over, the difference between keeping the rules of it “to be seen of men,” and loving it with the heart and keeping its laws from love.

Some years ago an old Chinaman died in China. And all the people in the town in which he had lived mourned him deeply. Do you know why? “Because,” said they, “there was no difference between him and the Book.” They meant that he was a sort of real live Bible. He carried the Bible's sayings so much in his heart that he was always acting them in his life. They were not a thing apart. They were a bit of himself.

Boys and girls, an outside religion is no use. A religion that you put on for occasions like a Sunday coat or hat is not religion. It is a dressed-up, playacted pretense of religion. The religion we all want is the religion of the good old Chinaman the religion that is in our hearts and on our hands, and is so much part of ourselves that it enters into everything we say and do.