Hear, O Israel: the Shema and the teaching of the next generation

Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Torah. Its English name comes from a Greek phrase meaning 'second law', taken from an early translation of Deuteronomy 17:18, but the Hebrew title is 'These are the words' (elleh haddevarim). The book is a set of speeches by Moses on the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan, in the last weeks of his life (1:1-5). Jewish and Christian tradition has held that Moses wrote it, and the book itself says he wrote down 'this law' (31:9, 24). Many critical scholars date the book in its present form to the seventh century BC and connect it with the reform of Josiah (2 Kings 22-23), while others defend a much earlier origin. Either way, the text addresses the people as standing on the edge of the land.

The audience is the generation that grew up in the wilderness. Their parents left Egypt, heard the law at Sinai (called Horeb in Deuteronomy), and then died in the desert. Those now listening were children at Sinai or were born afterward. Moses is therefore not simply repeating the law. He is preaching it afresh to a people who must keep the covenant without the founding generation and without him, since he will not cross the Jordan.

Many scholars have noted that the shape of Deuteronomy resembles ancient Near Eastern treaties between a great king and his subject peoples: a preface that recalls what the king has done, the main demands, the blessings and curses, and provisions for keeping the document. Meredith Kline and Kenneth Kitchen are among those who developed this comparison. If it holds, Deuteronomy portrays the LORD as Israel's king and the book as the covenant document. Chapter 5 restates the Ten Commandments. Chapter 6 opens the exposition of the first of them, the call to have no other gods.

Deuteronomy 6 is preaching. It is a sermon in Moses' voice that mixes command, explanation, warning and pleading. Its sentences are built to be heard and remembered, which explains the repeated 'Hear' and the pairing of four settings for teaching in verse 7. Because Moses is speaking to the nation, the 'you' in the opening verses is mostly singular in Hebrew: the whole people addressed as one person. The laws are not offered as a list of private rules.

Two features help with interpretation.

• First, the chapter sits between the Ten Commandments (chapter 5) and the detailed laws (chapters 12 to 26).
• The first commandment is not a bare rule. It is the root from which everything else grows, and Moses explains it in terms of love, memory and teaching.
• Second, the book assumes that law and grace belong together. The Ten Commandments opened with the reminder 'I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt', and chapter 6 closes by returning to that same ground. Obedience is the answer to rescue, not the way to earn it.

Some questions in the chapter divide readers even when the text is clear. The grammar of 6:4 can be translated in more than one way, and the instruction to bind the words on the hand and forehead can be taken literally or as a figure. Each is treated below.

Verses 1–3

Moses opens with the purpose. The 'commandments, statutes and ordinances' are given so that Israel may 'fear the LORD' all their days, and so that they will live well in the land. To fear the LORD is not terror but reverent loyalty, the right response of a people to the one who rescued them. The promise of long life and numerous offspring is tied to the land as the place where the covenant will be lived.

Verse 4

'Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.' This sentence, the Shema, takes its name from the first Hebrew word, shema, 'hear'. In Hebrew, to hear is to listen and obey. The sentence has no verb in the Hebrew and can be rendered 'The LORD our God, the LORD is one', or 'The LORD is our God, the LORD alone', or with other variations. All the options confess the same thing in their context: Israel's God is not one of many, and he is not divided. Around Israel were peoples who served pantheons of gods and goddesses, each with local concerns. The Shema says that Israel serves a single LORD, the covenant God whose name is Yahweh, who rescued them. Deuteronomy 4:35 and 4:39 make the same claim in plain terms: there is no other besides him.

Verse 5

The command that follows is to love. In the language of ancient treaties, 'love' was the loyalty owed to a king, and scholars have often pointed to this; in Deuteronomy it is also a warm response to a gracious Lord. The three phrases, 'heart', 'soul' and 'strength', describe the whole person. 'Heart' (lev) is the seat of will and thought. 'Soul' (nefesh) is the life or self. 'Strength' (me'od) is a word that elsewhere means 'very' or 'much', so it points to everything a person has. The point is totality: no part is held back.

Verses 6–9

These words are first to be 'upon your hearts', and then taught 'diligently' to children, a verb that suggests repeating and sharpening. They are to be spoken at home and on the road, when lying down and rising up, which marks every part of the day. Verses 8-9 add that they are to be tied to the hand, bound on the forehead and written on doorposts and gates. Jewish practice has understood this literally for many centuries: it is the origin of tefillin (small boxes with Scripture inside, worn at prayer) and the mezuzah on the door. Tefillin have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Other readers take the language as a figure for constant remembrance, as Proverbs 3:3 and 7:3 use similar words. The most important point holds on either reading: the words of the covenant belong in the home before they belong in any institution.

Verses 10–15

Moses now warns of the danger of success. The land will have cities the people did not build, houses they did not fill, wells they did not dig, and vineyards they did not plant. All of it is gift. 'When you eat and are satisfied' is when the threat comes, because prosperity makes forgetting easy. The cure is memory of the rescue from 'the house of slavery'. The people are to fear, serve and swear by the LORD alone. The LORD is 'jealous' (qanna), a word that does not mean petty but exclusive, like a husband's claim on his wife. To follow other gods is to break the marriage.

Verse 16

'Do not test the LORD your God as you tested Him at Massah.' At Massah (Exodus 17:1-7) the people quarrelled over water and asked whether the LORD was among them or not. To test God is to demand proof that he is faithful, after he has already proven it.

Verses 17-19 restate the commands and attach the promise that the people will enter and drive out their enemies.

Verses 20–25

The chapter ends with a child's question: what is the meaning of the decrees? The answer is a short story, almost a creed. 'We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.' Law is explained by history. Verse 25 says that careful obedience 'will be our righteousness'. In this setting, righteousness means standing rightly within the covenant relationship that rescue has already created.

Deuteronomy 6 states several truths the rest of the Bible assumes.

• The first is that there is one God. The Shema is the Old Testament's most concentrated statement of monotheism, and the prophets build on it (Isaiah 44:6; 45:5).
• The second is that God wants to be loved and not only obeyed. The great commandment is a call to love, and obedience is how love shows itself.
• The third is that faith is handed down. The family is the first school of the covenant, and the chapter anticipates the point of Psalm 78:1-8, which says that each generation should tell the next.

• Fourth, the chapter understands the dangers of plenty as well as of hardship. The history of Israel in Judges and Kings is largely a story of the very forgetting Moses feared (see Judges 2:10-12).
• Fifth, redemption comes first. The Passover and exodus stand behind the commandments, so the law is the way a rescued people lives with its Rescuer.

The Shema was already central in Jewish worship in the time of Jesus and remains so today. In the New Testament, Paul's letters repeatedly depend on it when he insists on the unity of God (Romans 3:30; Galatians 3:20; Ephesians 4:6). Jesus' answer about the greatest commandment draws verses 4 and 5 together.

Jesus' use of Deuteronomy 6 is among the clearest connections in the Old Testament, and it is made by Jesus himself. When Satan tempts him in the wilderness, Jesus answers from Deuteronomy three times. Two of those answers come from this chapter: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test' (Matthew 4:7, from Deuteronomy 6:16) and 'Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only' (Matthew 4:10; Luke 4:8, from Deuteronomy 6:13). This is fulfillment by representation. Israel was tested in the wilderness for forty years and failed at Massah. Jesus, the faithful Son, is tested for forty days and keeps the words that Israel broke.

In Mark 12:28-34 a scribe asks Jesus which commandment is first. Jesus quotes the Shema in full and adds the command to love one's neighbour from Leviticus 19:18. Mark's Greek lists four things: heart, soul, mind and strength. This is not a replacement of the Shema but a reading of what it required all along.

Paul builds on this foundation in 1 Corinthians 8:4-6. He affirms that there is one God and then writes that there is 'one Lord, Jesus Christ'. Many scholars, including Richard Bauckham, read Paul as placing Jesus inside the Shema, so that the one God of Israel is now known as Father and Lord. The connection is a fulfillment that grows out of the New Testament's claim about who Jesus is. The Gospel of John does something similar in 10:30, where Jesus says that he and the Father are one.