A Strong Hand: Wearing Tatapah is a Law

[9] wA-hayh la-cha la-‘oth ghal yad-cha wa-la-zacharon bayn ghaynay-cha la-main thah’ayh Thorath YA’OH ba-pay-cha chay ba-yad khazakah hotsay’a-cha YA’OH ma-Matsraym
And it will be to you for a sign upon the hand of you, and for a memorial between your eyes, so that the Thorah of YA’OH will be in your mouth. For by a strong hand did YA’OH bring you out of Matsraym.

We are commanded to put a sign upon our hand that serves as a memorial between our eyes. The sign will make the hand physically strong, just like YA’OH brought us out of Matsraym by a strong warrior’s hand. It cannot be a memorial between our eyes if the sign upon the hand is not literal. There is nothing figurative about this law. It must be obeyed literally.

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[16] wA-hayh la-‘oth ghal yad-cha wa-la-tatapath bayn ghaynay-cha chay ba-khazakah yad hotsay’a-no YA’OH ma-Matsraym
And it will be for a sign upon your hand, and for encircling wraps between your eyes. For by a strong hand YA’OH brought us out of Matsraym.

This verse clarifies that the sign to be worn upon the hand is the binding of a literal hand wrap to make the hand strong, just like the hand of YA’OH was strong when He brought us out of Matsraym by destroying the enemy forces in the Red Sea. The structure of the human hand consists of small joints and small bones that are fragile and subject to fracture from an impact during hand-to-hand combat. Hand wrapping strengthens a warrior’s hand and wrist, preventing injury, by protecting and supporting the tendons, muscles, and bones in the hand.

There is nothing heathenish about fighting with both hands, but these heathens nowadays will teach you that the first time hand wrapping is mentioned in history was in ancient Greece in the 7th century BCE during the Olympic hand-to-hand combat games. This is not true. Boxing and strengthening a fighter’s hand by hand wrapping are obviously much older than 7th century Greece. Our Thorah mentioned hand wrapping in the 15th century BCE, which is eight centuries earlier than the Olympic games in ancient Greece. Although our Thorah is not commanding us to wrap the hand for an actual fist fight (only one hand is to be wrapped), it is ordering us to make the hand strong by wrapping it and that this is to be for a “sign,” a show of strength that is visible to everyone.

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[8] wA-kashartha-m la-‘oth ghal yad-cha wA-hay’o la-tatapath bayn ghaynay-cha
And you will bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they will be for encircling wraps, between your eyes.

The verb kashar in this verse means “to bind” and the idea that this is not to be taken literally is absurd when you examine the context. The preceding verse 7 says we must diligently teach the laws of Thorah to our children and that we must speak about the laws throughout the course of our daily routine. Are the verbs shanan, “to diligently teach,” and dabar, “to speak,” in verse 7 not to be taken literally? Of course they are! The following verse 9 states that we must write the laws upon the door posts and gates of our homes. Is the verb chathab, “to write,” in verse 9 not to be taken literally? Of course it is! The verb kashar in verse 8 must therefore be taken literally, just like these other surrounding verbs.

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[18] wA-kashartham atham la-‘oth ghal yad-cham wA-hay’o la-tatapath bayn ghaynay-cham
And you all will bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they will be for encircling wraps between your eyes.

This is the last of the four verses in Thorah dealing with the law of hand wraps, and I have waited until we got to this verse before taking a good look at a key noun that has many people confused. The noun is tatapath (טטפת) in the feminine plural absolute (the singular form is tatapah). The heathen convert Jews mispronounce tatapath as totafot and they believe the phrase “between your eyes” means it is an amulet frontlet box that is tied to the forehead (the makers of the 1611 Queen James Virus agreed with this Jewish interpretation). Another amulet box is tied around the bicep. Both of these small amulet boxes contain scrolls of parchment inscribed with bible verses. Yet the heathen convert Jews of the Talmudic period argued that טטפת is not even a Hebrew word. They believed טטפת was derived from two words from heathen languages (Sanhedrin 4b) which supposedly justifies their interpretation that amulet boxes are meant. This is incorrect and it exposes their ignorance and their unfamiliarity with the ancient source language, as well as the law penned in that language by Mashah (Moses).

In the Pure Language of Ghabarayth (ancient Hebrew) the word tatapah means “an encircling wrap”; from whence came the Assyrian cognate tatapu which means surround, go around, encircle. For the cognate term tatapu, see F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford University Press: New York, 1939), p. 377, and look for the Assyrian (As.) word tatapu under the entry for טטף on that page. I would kindly ask the reader that you do not read this article where I provide a scholarly source to back up my assertion and then walk away claiming I did not provide a reference to back up my assertion. Simply take the time to run down and look up the reference I provide.

As I have said, the injunction to bind the tatapah on the hand (Thorah 2.13:9, 16; Thorah 5.6:8; 11:18) is to be taken literally. This law was taken figuratively by later heathen Christians who also claim the laws of Thorah were abolished by their idol christ god. Nor does the phrase “between your (pl.) eyes” mean between your right eye and your left eye as the heathen Jews suppose. It means between the eyes of each other in the nation, that is, the tatapah must be visible for everyone to see, including the person wrapping it on his own hand.

The purpose of this law is to keep the written laws of Thorah perpetually within eyesight, as a memorial between our eyes. There is absolutely nothing amuletic or apotropaic magical in nature about this law.

It may also interest you to know that the word tefillin, a term heathen convert Jews use to describe tatapah, is not a biblical word. It is not found in the scriptures and it has no certain etymological origin. The earliest heathen Jewish texts to use the term tefillin are the Aramaic Targumims and the Aramaic Peshitta, both of which were composed for converts who did not speak or read Hebrew fluently. If you are the true people of the book who never lost the source language, as the convert Jews claim about themselves, then what do you need Aramaic translations of the Hebrew bible for?

The biblical tatapah is only wrapped around the hand, and not the forehead also. This law is about the hand and making it strong by wearing the visible sign of a warrior’s fighting hand. It is about mimicking the strength of YA’OH’s hand in battle, and our strength is rooted in the keeping of His laws.

We do not market and sell the tatapath on this website, so please do not ask how you can buy one unless you are part of the fold. I have a video where I explain how you can make one on your own. The men in our nation have made their own the same way. If you are part of the fold and cannot make your own we do have men willing to make one for you.

What I am teaching here is not being taught by anyone anywhere else. So who taught me? The Higher Power who has me proclaiming His holy name from the islands of the far east where the sun rises. The one who is a “man of war” (Thorah 2.15:3), He is the one who taught me.

His name is YA’OH
Always has been. Always will be.

#EXODUS2023

1.15.7252 (April 5, 2023)