Exodus 13 · a question people ask
Were the sign on the hand and the symbols between the eyes meant to be worn?
Right after the seven days of unleavened bread (13:6-8), the chapter says, "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" (13:9). Right after the redeeming of the firstborn (13:13-15), it says, "It shall be for a sign on your hand, and for symbols between your eyes" (13:16). Everyone agrees on the purpose the chapter gives: that the LORD's law be in their mouth (13:9), and that what the LORD did be told to the next generation (13:8, 13:14). Christians read the wording in two main ways.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Something to wear
Those who read it this way note that Deuteronomy uses the same picture for God's words together with a command to bind them: "You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes" (Deuteronomy 6:8; also 11:18).
Deuteronomy 6:6-8 · Deuteronomy 11:18
A figure of speech
Those who read it this way note that in this chapter the thing that "shall be for a sign" is a practice: the feast kept "in its season from year to year" (13:10) and the redeeming of the firstborn (13:15-16). Proverbs uses the same kind of picture for keeping wisdom close: "Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart" (Proverbs 3:3).
Exodus 13:9-10 · Exodus 13:15-16 · Proverbs 3:3
The verses
“Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to the LORD. Unleavened bread shall be eaten throughout the seven days; and no leavened bread shall be seen with you. No yeast shall be seen with you, within all your borders. You shall tell your son in that day, saying, ‘It is because of that which the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ 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.”