Proverbs 6:21 - Exposition

This verse recalls also Proverbs 3:3 , and reminds us of the use of the phylacteries, or tefellim, common among the Jews of our Lord's time, and the practice of binding which upon various parts of the person may have had its origin in this and such like passages. The "tying about" the neck may suggest the use of amulets, an Oriental custom, to ward off evil, but it is more likely that it refers to the wearing of ornaments. Them ; i.e. the commandment and law of father and mother respectively, expressed in the Hebrew by the suffix - em , in the verb kosh'rem, equivalent to liga ea, and again in ondem, equivalent to vinci ea. (For the personal use of this figure, see So Proverbs 8:6 .) Tie them; Hebrew, ondem. The verb anad , "to tie," only occurs twice as a verb—here and in Job 31:36 . Lee prefers "to bind;" Delitzsch, however, states that it is equivalent to the Latin circumplicare, "to wind about." The meaning of this and similar passages (cf. Proverbs 7:3 ; Exodus 13:9 ; Deuteronomy 6:8 ; Deuteronomy 11:13 ) is that the commandment, precept, law, or whatever is intended, should be always present to the mind. The heart suggests that they are to be linked to the affections, and the neck that they will be an ornament decking the moral character.