The Sign on the Hand and the Brow of Israel

Midrash Aggadah Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 13:16 View source

Curated by The Jewish Mythology Team · Published January 25, 2025

The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 13:16 closes the tefillin section with a repetition that is not really a repetition. Once again the text says the Exodus must be inscribed and set forth upon thy left hand, and on the tephilla between thine eyebrows.

Why say it twice? Once in verse 9 and once in verse 16? The rabbis read this doubling as the source for the two distinct boxes: one for the head, one for the arm. The Targumist encodes that reading directly into the verse.

The detail that catches the eye is "between thine eyebrows"—not on the forehead, not between the eyes in any loose sense, but the specific place where the head-tephilla sits, above the hairline at the root of the skull. The Aramaic is describing, not interpreting. It is pointing.

"Because by mighty strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Mizraim." The reason is the same as before. A hand that acts out history has to bear a witness. A head that thinks about history has to wear a reminder.

Takeaway: the Targum shows how a single phrase repeated becomes two commandments, and how memory is bound to the body at the two places where action and thought begin.

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Biblical References

Exodus 13:16

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