These will serve as tassels for you to look at, so that you may remember all the commandments of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by following your own heart and your own eyes.
Parallel translations
- WEB and it shall be to you for a fringe, that you may look on it, and remember all Yahweh’s commandments, and do them; and that you not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you use to play the prostitute;
- KJV And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring:
- NKJV And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined,
- NASB It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, so that you will do them and not follow your own heart and your own eyes, which led you to prostitute yourselves,
- NLT When you see the tassels, you will remember and obey all the commands of the Lord instead of following your own desires and defiling yourselves, as you are prone to do.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The tassels were to prompt them to remember and obey God's commandments rather than follow their own hearts and eyes into unfaithfulness. The heart's wandering must be restrained by remembering God.
Overview
The fringes were meant to redirect Israel from the spiritual prostitution of pursuing their own desires back to faithful obedience. The verse exposes the heart's tendency to stray after sin. It points to the need for a new heart, ultimately given in Christ, who frees believers from the tyranny of their own wandering desires (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Prov 28:26He who trusts in himself is a fool, but one who walks in wisdom will be safe.
- Ps 73:27Those far from You will surely perish; You destroy all who are unfaithful to You.
- Ps 106:39They defiled themselves by their actions and prostituted themselves by their deeds.
- Ezek 6:9Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.
- Exod 13:9It shall be a sign for you on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that the Law of the LORD is to be on your lips. For with a mighty hand the LORD brought you out of Egypt.
- Prov 3:1My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments;
- Deut 29:19because when such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself, saying, ‘I will have peace, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my own heart.’ This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.
- Eccl 11:9Rejoice, O young man, while you are young, and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment.
- Jas 4:4You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God.
- Deut 4:23Be careful that you do not forget the covenant of the LORD your God that He made with you; do not make an idol for yourselves in the form of anything He has forbidden you.
- Job 31:7If my steps have turned from the path, if my heart has followed my eyes, or if impurity has stuck to my hands,
- Hos 2:2Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not My wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adultery from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
- Exod 34:15–16Do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you, and you will eat their sacrifices.
- Jer 9:14Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts and gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them.”
- Deut 11:28–32but a curse if you disobey the commandments of the LORD your God and turn aside from the path I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.
- Deut 6:6–9These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts.
- Deut 6:12be careful not to forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
- Deut 11:18–21Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as reminders on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
In the wilderness Christ is the water from the rock, the bronze serpent lifted up that the dying might look and live (John 3:14), and the star and scepter that Balaam saw rising out of Jacob.
How Numbers 15:39 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.