Deuteronomy 6 · a question people ask
Were the words meant to be tied on the hand and written on the door posts?
"You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates" (6:8-9). Exodus 13 uses the same picture, and its honest question sets out the same two readings; here they are set beside this chapter's words. All agree on what comes first: "These words, which I command you today, shall be on your heart" (6:6), taught to the children and talked of at home, on the way, lying down and rising up (6:7).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
To be done as well
Those who hold this view note that the verbs are things done with the hands, "bind" and "write" (6:8-9), and that Deuteronomy commands other writing that is plainly done: great stones on which "You shall write on the stones all the words of this law very plainly" (27:8), and a king who "shall write himself a copy of this law in a book" (17:18). On this reading, the words were to be bound and written as well as kept on the heart.
Deuteronomy 6:8-9 · Deuteronomy 27:2-3 · Deuteronomy 27:8 · Deuteronomy 17:18
A picture of words kept close
Those who hold this view note that in Exodus the same kind of words, "It shall be for a sign to you on your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes" (Exodus 13:9), are said of a feast kept "in its season from year to year" (Exodus 13:10). Proverbs uses the same kind of picture for teaching kept close: "Bind them on your fingers. Write them on the tablet of your heart" (Proverbs 7:3). On this reading, hand, eyes, house and gates picture the words kept before Israel everywhere.
Exodus 13:6-10 · Proverbs 7:3
The verses
“These words, which I command you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates.”
“It shall be for a sign to you on your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes, that the LORD’s law may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand the LORD has brought you out of Egypt.”
“It shall be for a sign on your hand, and for symbols between your eyes; for by strength of hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt.””