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phulaktērion

φυλακτήριον

GreekG5440“phylactery, prayer box”

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Mat 23:5
Word studyResearch-gradefoo-lahk-TAY-ree-onnoun

What phulaktērion means

a phylactery: a small leather case holding words of Scripture, worn on the head and forearm at prayer (the item Jewish tradition calls tefillin)

TranslatabilityUntranslatableCertaintyStrong

The word comes from a Greek verb meaning "to guard," and its history runs from a guarded outpost or garrison, to a "safeguard" or means of security, and by the first century to an "amulet" or protective charm worn on the body. Matthew takes this everyday Greek word and applies it to a specific Jewish object: the small leather cases, holding passages of Scripture, that observant Jewish men bound on the head and arm for prayer.

It appears only once in the New Testament, in Jesus's rebuke of religious leaders who "do all their deeds to be seen by others." His complaint is not against wearing these cases, a practice rooted in the command to bind God's words "as frontlets between your eyes" (טוֹטָפֹת). It is against enlarging them for show. Widening the cases, alongside lengthening the tassels on the garment, turned a mark of devotion into a costume of public piety.

Matthew's choice of a word that elsewhere meant "charm" has long been discussed. The best-supported view is that this was simply the ordinary Greek name Jews themselves used for these cases; yet the name also fit because many people in that period regarded the cases as protective, guarding the wearer as well as reminding him. The two ideas, covenant reminder and protective charm, sat close together in how the object was understood.

Mat 23:5

Disputed

What Matthew's use of a Greek word that normally meant "amulet" implies about the prayer-cases.

  • majorityIt is simply the ordinary Greek name that Jews themselves used for these cases, carrying no charge of superstition.; Jeffrey H. Tigay, article on the term 'phylacteries' (Matthew 23:5), Harvard Theological Review 72 (1979); W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Matthew (ICC), on 23:5
  • minorityThe word fits because the cases genuinely carried protective, charm-like associations for many Jews of the period, not only a role as reminders.; Yehudah B. Cohn, Tangled Up in Text: Tefillin and the Ancient World (Brown Judaic Studies 351; 2008); Ariel Feldman, Tefillin and Mezuzot from Qumran (BZAW 538; De Gruyter, 2022)
  • minorityMatthew chose the word to caricature the cases as pagan-style charms out of hostility toward the practice.; Ludwig Blau, Das altjüdische Zauberwesen (1898); G. G. Fox, 'The Matthean Misrepresentation of Tephillin,' Journal of Near Eastern Studies 1 (1942)

What scholars say about phulaktērion

Outside the New Testament φυλακτήριον (from φυλάσσω, "to guard") moves from "guard-post, garrison" (Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon) to "safeguard" (Demosthenes, Plato) to "amulet, protective charm," the dominant Hellenistic sense (Dioscorides, Plutarch, the magical papyri); so LSJ, BDAG, Moulton-Milligan, Spicq, and TDNT. The word is absent from the Septuagint, which renders the frontlet commands with σημεῖον, μνημόσυνον, and ἀσάλευτον, apparently steering around its amuletic freight. At Matthew 23:5 it denotes tefillin, an identification secured by the pairing with κράσπεδα (fringes), by patristic testimony (Justin, Jerome, who report that Jews used the Greek name), by the Semitic amulet-term qamiaʿ applied to tefillin in rabbinic sources, and by the miniature Qumran and Murabbaʿat cases, which were rectangular and so could be "broadened." Jeffrey Tigay (HTR 1979) established the neutral technical reading against the older polemical thesis of Blau and Fox; Yehudah Cohn (Tangled Up in Text, 2008) argues tefillin originated as protective "length-of-days" amulets, and the functional side of his thesis, that the cases carried genuine protective associations, is now widely accepted (Davies-Allison, Feldman).

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • LSJ, s.v. φυλακτήριονlexicon
  • BDAG, s.v. φυλακτήριονlexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. φυλακτήριονlexicon
  • C. Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. φυλακτήριονlexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, s.v. φυλακτήριονlexicon
  • TDNT, s.v. φυλάσσω κτλ. (φυλακτήριον)dictionary
  • Jeffrey H. Tigay, article on the term 'phylacteries' (Matthew 23:5), Harvard Theological Review 72 (1979)article
  • Yehudah B. Cohn, Tangled Up in Text: Tefillin and the Ancient World (Brown Judaic Studies 351; 2008)monograph
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (ICC), on 23:5commentary
  • Ariel Feldman, Tefillin and Mezuzot from Qumran (BZAW 538; De Gruyter, 2022)monograph

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of φυλακτήριον

accusative n p

φυλακτήρια

Mat 23:5