in the Jewish customs, certain pieces of parchment, which the Jews affix to the door-posts of their houses; taking that literally which Moses commanded them, when he said, "Thou shalt never forget the laws of thy God, but thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." This expression apparently meant nothing more than that they should always remember the laws of their God, whether they came into the house or went out. But the Hebrew doctors imagined that their lawgiver meant something more. They pretended that, to avoid making themselves ridiculous, by writing the commandments of God without their doors, or rather to avoid exposing themselves to the profanation of the wicked, they ought at least to write them on a parchment, and to enclose it in something. They, therefore, wrote these words upon a square piece of parchment prepared on purpose, with a particular ink, and in a square kind of character. The Hebrew word mezuzah properly signifies the doorposts of a house; but it is also applied to the roll of parchment now mentioned.