Exodus 13:9 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the LORD's law may be in thy mouth: for with a strong hand hath the LORD brought thee out of Egypt. It shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes. These words point not, as some suppose, to the Oriental tatooing which is so common among the Arabs, and of which there are evidences that it also prevailed among the ancient Egyptians, but to the practice of wearing memorial signs-such as a bracelet upon the wrist or a band upon the front, as remembrancers of particular events (cf. Deuteronomy 6:8; Deuteronomy 11:18). 'If Moses appropriated this custom to sacred purposes, the patterns may have been so devised as to commemorate the deliverance of the children of Israel from bondage. Possibly the figure of the paschal lamb, whose blood on the door-posts caused the angel of death to pass over their houses, was worked into these tokens and frontlets. The direction in this passage specifies certain purples for which such signs and frontlets were to be used, and consequently were not akin to the idolatrous marks which the Israelites were forbidden to have upon their bodies' ('Land and Book').