Forehead and Hand

Philologos
Bible Prophecy Research
Title: Forehead and Hand
Submitted by: research-bpr@philologos.org
Date: March 23, 1998
Update: April 06, 2001
URL: http://philologos.org/bpr/files/f001.htm

Forehead and Hand

"And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him." - Genesis 4:15

"And thou shalt make a plate of pure gold, and grave upon it, like the engravings of a signet, HOLINESS TO THE LORD. And thou shalt put it on a blue lace, that it may be upon the mitre; upon the forefront of the mitre it shall be. And it shall be upon Aaron's forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things, which the children of Israel shall hallow in all their holy gifts; and it shall be always upon his forehead, that they may be accepted before the LORD." - Exodus 28:26-38

It was upon Aaron's forehead, and reached from ear to ear, and was fastened behind with a blue lace; this was like a crown or diadem, and denotes the honour and dignity of the priestly office.

(The New John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible)

"And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." -Deuteronomy 6:6,8,9

"...to help in keeping a sense of religion in their minds, it was commanded that its great principles should be carried about with them wherever they went, as well as meet their eyes every time they entered their homes. A further provision was made for the earnest inculcation of them on the minds of the young by a system of parental training, which was designed to associate religion with all the most familiar and oft-recurring scenes of domestic life. It is probable that Moses used the phraseology in De 6:7 merely in a figurative way, to signify assiduous, earnest, and frequent instruction; and perhaps he meant the metaphorical language in De 6:8 to be taken in the same sense also. But as the Israelites interpreted it literally, many writers suppose that a reference was made to a superstitious custom borrowed from the Egyptians, who wore jewels and ornamental trinkets on the forehead and arm, inscribed with certain words and sentences, as amulets to protect them from danger. These, it has been conjectured, Moses intended to supersede by substituting sentences of the law; and so the Hebrews understood him, for they have always considered the wearing of the Tephilim, or frontlets, a permanent obligation.

The form was as follows: Four pieces of parchment, inscribed, the first with Ex 13:2-10; the second with Ex 13:11-16; the third with De 6:1-8; and the fourth with De 11:18-21, were enclosed in a square case or box of tough skin, on the side of which was placed the Hebrew letter (shin), and bound round the forehead with a thong or ribbon. When designed for the arms, those four texts were written on one slip of parchment, which, as well as the ink, was carefully prepared for the purpose. With regard to the other usage supposed to be alluded to, the ancient Egyptians had the lintels and imposts of their doors and gates inscribed with sentences indicative of a favorable omen [WILKINSON]; and this is still the case, for in Egypt and other Mohammedan countries, the front doors of houses (in Cairo, for instance) are painted red, white, and green, bearing conspicuously inscribed upon them such sentences from the Koran, as "God is the Creator," "God is one, and Mohammed is his prophet." Moses designed to turn this ancient and favorite custom to a better account and ordered that, instead of the former superstitious inscriptions, there should be written the words of God, persuading and enjoining the people to hold the laws in perpetual remembrance.

(Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown)

"And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth." -1 Samuel 17:49

"They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD. Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed." -Jeremiah 3:1-3

"Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads." -Ezekiel 3:8

"And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side; And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary." -Ezekiel 9:3-6

"And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads." -Revelation 9:4

"And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads." -Revelation 13:16

...idolaters inscribe on their foreheads or their arms with paint or other substances, in various colors and forms--straight, oval, or circular, according to the favorite idol of their worship...[This also may] imply the prostration of bodily and intellectual powers to the beast's domination. "In the forehead by way of profession; in the hand with respect to work and service." - Augustine

(Jamieson, Fausset and Brown)

"And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads." -Revelation 14:1

"And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." Revelation 17:5

...the allusion is thought to be to harlots, who not only used to put their names over their doors, but some of them upon their foreheads, that all might know who they were.

(The New John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible)

"And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads." - Revelation 22:3,4

"Genesis 17:3 'And Abram fell on his face...' - the attitude of profoundest reverence assumed by Eastern people. It consists in the prostrate body resting on the hands and knees, with the face bent till the forehead touches the ground. It is an expression of conscious humility and profound reverence."

(Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown)

The composition of the sacred oil was no longer known in the second Temple, so high-priests were not called "anointed" but "invested" with their sacred office and were considered inferior to anointed high-priests. In olden days, when the high-priest had been anointed, "the sacred oil was not only 'poured over him,' but also applied to his forehead, over the eyes, as tradition has it, after the form of the Greek letter X."

Ceremonial purification of a leper, Mishnah (Negaim, xiii.).

"The priest having pronounced the former leper clean, a quarter of a log (the log rather less than a pint) of 'living water' was poured into an earthenware dish. Then two 'clean birds' were taken--the Rabbis say two sparrows--of whom one was killed over 'the living water,' so that the blood might drop into it, after which the carcass was buried. Next, cedar-wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool were taken and tied together (as at the burning of the red heifer), and dipped, along with the living bird, which was seized by the tips of his wings and of his tail, into the blood-stained water, when the person to be purified was sprinkled seven times on the back of his hand, or, according to others, on his forehead. Upon this the living bird was set free, neither towards the sea, nor towards the city, nor towards the wilderness, but towards the fields. Finally, the leper had all the hair on his body shorn with a razor, after which he washed his clothes, and bathed, when he was clean, though still interdicted his house for seven days."

(The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, Alfred Edersheim)

"...there are...three kinds of sweating: mental, emotional and thermoregulatory. Sometimes these occur together, sometimes they occur independently. In some areas the glands appear to have the capability of sweating in response to two different kinds of stimuli: in the palmar [palm] area, mental and emotional; and in the axillae [armpit], emotional and thermal. There is one unique area of the skin surface in which all three kinds of sweating may occur singly or together. This is in the forehead region."

"...there are different lines of communication (nerve pathways) for the different kiinds of sweating response. So any single area which can respond in two different ways probably has two different lines of communication, and these lines of communicaiton do not originate in the same area of the brain nor do they leave the spinal cord at the same level. That one area--the forehead region--where three kinds of response are possible may perhaps be supplied with three systems of communicaiton with the central nervous system. These anatomical features are not fully undestood yet, and the authorities have by no means reached complete agreement." (written in 1940s-1950s)

" considerable body of evidence exists to show that the few elements which do exist in the sweat are of importance to man, since his body is thereby washed with a slightly acid solution which serves to protect him against bacteria and fungi. Unevaporated sweat, which seems to be an overcompensation and a pure waste of body fluid, turns out to have a value of its own. In the one area of the body where the acid might be dangerous to himself, namely, in the forehead region, the sweat is prevented from running down into his eyes by the eyebrows.

"As Scripture says, truly we are 'wonderfully and fearfully made.'"

(The Flood: Local or Global? [http://www.custance.org] , Arthur C. Custance)

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. -Genesis 3:19

And being in an agony he [Jesus] prayed more earnestly: and his sweeat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. -Luke 22:44

"The Hindu gurus so prominent in the New Age first brought into America and the West the belief that each person has a hidden, third eye located in the middle of the forehead just above the central point where the eyebrows meet. The Greek myth of the one-eyed Cyclops creature was an ancient variation of this teaching, but the real foundation of the third eye doctrine is in the Egyptian Mystery Religion of the Goddess.

"The Egyptian priesthood taught first that Maat, the Goddess of truth and judgment, possessed a third eye. Later the central text of the Egyptian Mystery Religion was revised and a male god, Horus, son of the Goddess, was given the all-seeing eye. It is the mysterious all-seeing eye of Horus that is pictured inside the capstone of the pyramid found on the US dollar bill.

"In today's New Age and Hindu philosophies, the body is made up of certain energy points or chakras. Two important chakras are the one in the forehead and the other in the palm of the right hand...[these] body chakra points are considered initiation sites, with the individual receiving additional psychic and other godlike powers as each energy point on his body is 'opened up' to allow the flow of energy from the universal force field.

"New Age teachers call the forehead chakra the third eye, or the Ajna Center. This energy point on the forehead is thought to be the 'passport to higher consciousness,' or godhood, for a person. The Ajna Center is also said to be the site of the 'sacred fire.' Today's Hindu monks, swamis, gurus, and spiritual seekers literally mark themselves over the forehead with a bit of red, yellow, or white powder or paste on this center as a sign."

(Mystery Mark of the New Age, Texe Marrs)

Normally, the only visible places on a fully clothed man or woman is either the face or hands (and in some places, feet).