TOTAPHOTH.1 This Word is found in Exod. xiii. 16. and Deut. vi. 8. xi. 18. St. Jerome translates it by appensum quid, an Appendage, and elsewhere, by a Sign. Several Commentators think, that Totaphoth is an Egyptian Word, and that it stands for some sort of Ornament which we do not well know. The Septuagint generally translate it by things immoveable, Aquila by things that are appendant. The Chaldee Paraphrasts sometimes translate it by Thephelim, Preservatives, and sometimes by a Tiara, a Crown, a Bracelet, probably in respect to the Custom of the Jews of that Time, who took the Totaphoth for Rolls of Parchment, which they wore upon their Foreheads. The Syriac has it, a Memorial before your Eyes; Paguinus, Bandages before the Eyes.
Some Rabbins will have it, that Totaphot signifies a Looking-glass; and several learned Men pretend,2 that in Egyptian it signifies Spectacles. Scaliger and Lightfoot3 explain it by amuleta, Phylacteries, Preservatives: Samuel Petit4 by those obscene Figures that the Pagans carried about them by way of Preservative. St. Jerome imagined, that they were Rolls of Parchment that were moveable before, or between the Eyes of the Jews. Deut. vi. 8. Movebuntur ante oculos tuos: And Ch. xi. 18. Inter oculos vestros collocate. And Exod. xiii. 16. Quasi appensum quid. And in his Commentary upon St. Matthew xxiii. though he quotes the Septuagint, who translate Totaphoth by immoveable things, yet he does not omit to observe, that the Pharisees explained the Words of Moses too literally, and wrote the Decalogue upon Slips of Parchment, folded them up, put them upon their Foreheads, and made as it were a Crown of them, which was in motion upon their Eyes. He takes notice, that the Jews of India, Babylonia, and Persia, still retained this Custom in his Time; and those that wore those Rolls were esteemed as the most devout.
To conclude; I should think that the Word Totaphoth signifies Pendants, which they wore upon their Foreheads, and which hung down between their Eyes. See Gen. xxiv. 22. And that Moses requires that the Law of God should be always present to the Mind of the Israelites, as those Ornaments for the Foreheads were always before the Eyes of those that wore them. The Word Totaphoth might perhaps be Egyptian. I observe in most of the Figures of Priests, represented in the Pictures of Isis, a little Ornament raised upon the Forehead, fixed to their Bonnet. This Ornament does not seem to be floting upon the Forehead, but as a turned up Leaf. By the Words of Moses, it should be an Ornament peculiar to Men, because he exhorts Men not to forget the Com mandments of God, and not to lose sight of them, no more than they do of the Totaphoth, which they hang upon their Foreheads.
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