Do not practice their practices. They are only preachers. Jesus does not here disapprove any of their teachings as he does elsewhere. A picturesque proverb. They are taskmasters, not burden-bearers, not sympathetic helpers.
Ostentation regulates the conduct of the rabbis.
So a fortified place, station for garrison, then a safeguard, protecting charm or amulet. The phylactery of the arm was to contain a single slip, with the same four passages written in four columns of seven lines each. The black leather straps by which they were fastened were wound seven times round the arm and three times round the hand. They were reverenced by the rabbis as highly as the scriptures, and, like them, might be rescued from the flames on a sabbath. It is small wonder that Jesus ridiculed such minute concern for pretentious externalism and literalism.