Frontlet bands or phylacteries — objects worn on the forehead between the eyes as commanded in Deuteronomy 6:8. The word appears only three times in the Hebrew Bible, all in the context of binding God's words on one's person. This practice was later literalized in Jewish tradition as tefillin (small leather boxes containing Torah passages).
Totaphoth embodies the principle that God's Word should be inseparable from identity. Whether understood literally (as in Jewish tefillin) or metaphorically, the command to bind God's words 'between your eyes' means letting Scripture shape one's entire worldview. Jesus criticized not the practice itself but the Pharisees' making phylacteries wide for show (Matthew 23:5), revealing the tension between external religion and internal transformation.