FRONTLETS — a rare word of uncertain origin, probably a band or ornament worn on the head. It appears in the twin commands 'it shall be for a sign on your hand and for TOTAFOT between your eyes' (Exodus 13:16; Deuteronomy 6:8; 11:18). ⚠️ Read literally these verses are the basis of TEFILLIN, the small boxes of scripture bound to arm and forehead in Jewish practice to this day — the 'phylacteries' Jesus mentions being widened for show (Matthew 23:5). Read figuratively they are an idiom for keeping something constantly before you, like Proverbs' 'bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart' (7:3). Both readings are ancient; note that Exodus 13:9 gives the purpose as verbal — 'so that the law of Jehovah may be IN YOUR MOUTH.' ⭐ At Deuteronomy 6:8 (already on these pages) the word is spelled SHORT, without its middle vowel letter, where the other two occurrences spell it full — confirmed directly against the archived Hebrew. ⚠ And what is worth watching on the shelf there is not the untranslatable word but the PLACE: the Hebrew says BETWEEN YOUR EYES, and the NIV, the TLB, the NWT's 2013 revision and the TNM 2019 all quietly move it to the FOREHEAD, where the practice actually puts the box. Their own earlier editions do not, ⭐ The third occurrence is now on these pages too: Deuteronomy 11:18, in the passage that re-issues the Shema's instruction in the plural — and the same forehead-for-eyes substitution shows up there in the same versions. and the KJV, Geneva, ASV and both Reina-Valeras keep the eyes. → first discussed at Exod 13:16