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Commentary: Deuteronomy 6:1-9

The first lesson centers on the Shema or Great Commandment (6:4-5) often described as the most important single passage in the Old Testament. It is a summary statement of the demand of God, and comes to epitomize the whole of Torah. Jesus himself acknowledges its central role by reciting the text of the Shema when asked which commandment is first of all (Mk 12:28-30).

Context

The Shema stands as a bridge between the Decalogue on the one hand (Dt 5:1-21) and the body of statutes and ordinances (Dt 12-26) which concretely order the people's lives before Yahweh. Many have claimed it to be the pivot around which Deuteronomy revolves.

In the Decalogue the people have been given a direct word of God, but they draw back in fear and ask Moses to act as mediator and teacher. Our text with its central focus on the Shema is Moses' first teaching of the people. The Shema summarizes in a positive restatement the content of the first two commandments of the Decalogue. What follows in Deuteronomy 6:10-11:32 is a lengthy sermonic reflection from Moses on the Shema and the Decalogue (primarily the first two commandments). Only then are the detailed statutes and ordinances for the concrete life of the community given (12-26).

Introduction (Vv. 1-3)

These few verses are but prologue to the imperative demand of the Shema which begins in v. 4. It describes the Shema as both commandment and as Moses' teaching (v. 1). This suggests the Shema's dual role as a link to the authority of God's word in the Decalogue and also as a teaching which restates and makes God's commandment clear in its central role for Israelite life.

These verses, in a series of characteristically Deuteronomic phrases, stress the relationship between observance and well-being which is a theological hallmark of Deuteronomy. What God makes available in the Decalogue and now in its summary in the Shema is central to the full life of the community of faith if its word is heeded.

The Great Commandment (Vv. 4-5)

These verses mark the beginning of Moses' teaching of the people. Beginning with the command to "hear" Moses focuses attention on the first two commandments of the Decalogue as the foundation for Israel's faith and obedience. These two verses summarize in a positive form the commandments against giving loyalty to other gods or worshipping other gods in any form. The effect is to single out relationship to God as the foundation stone upon which Israelite identity is built. Since much of the remainder of Deuteronomy 6-11 is commentary on the Shema and the first two commandments, the effect is to separate this matter of divine identity and relationship to God from the rest of the Decalogue.

In later Judaism each Jew was to recite these words at the beginning and end of the day. Although this might strike us as a legalistic requirement, it served to remind them of the comprehensive character of the confession made in the Shema. It was intended that all of life be seen through the transforming character of loyalty to Israel's God.

The Shema or the Great Commandment actually consists of two powerful imperatives, a command to hear (v. 4) and a command to love (v. 5). In the command to hear Israel is called to acknowledge the proclamation "The LORD (Yahweh) is our God." The use of the first person plural implies an appropriation of this proclamation as Israel's own.

Then follows the two simple words yhwh `ehad. For these two Hebrew words the NRSV suggests three alternative translations besides the one incorporated in the text. The options are really two, and each has a different theological nuance. If we translate "The LORD is one" the emphasis is on the unity of God. It stresses the reality of God in the world as indivisible and reliable, singular and not multiple. If, however, we translate "The LORD alone" the emphasis shifts from the unity of God to the unity of Israel's loyalty. The LORD alone deserves Israel's worship and obedience. The emphasis here becomes more directly related to the emphases of the first two commandments of the Decalogue.

It is impossible to choose between these on clear linguistic grounds, and perhaps it is not desirable to do so for theological reasons. It may be well to hear the Shema in both these dimensions. Our God will not be divided; neither can our loyalties be divided. In Mark 12:32 both of these meanings to the first verse of the Shema are mentioned, suggesting that early Judaism heard both meanings as dimensions in the one text.

In verse 5 the relationship to the God confessed in verse 4 is defined by a love which commits ones whole resources into the relationship. The use of the term love for this relationship is characteristic of Deuteronomy and is to be understood in the context of covenant relationship. It is not primarily related to the affective side of relationship but indicates the total devotion, reverence and commitment of Israel to its divine covenant partner. The evidence of this love, as wider reading in Deuteronomy makes clear, is to be seen in obedience to God's commandments and ordinances, i.e., the Torah.

The command is to love God with one's total being--heart, soul and might. These not subdivisions of our humanness so much as three different modes for loving God in our totality. Heart indicates commitment of will and loyalty; soul/life indicates willingness to even lay down life itself for the sake of that love; might indicates not strength but prosperity and wealth, the commitment of one's resources to the love of God.

The Keeping of Commandment (Vv. 6-9)

To underline the importance of the Shema as a summary of Israel's entire covenant commitment, vv. 6-9 prescribe a set of measures designed to keep this important imperative constantly visible in the community's life. It is significant that the first of these provisions is internal. These words are to be kept "in your heart" (v. 6). This is an important corrective to our tendency to caricature the Old Testament law as formal and external. Here the Shema is extended first to internal obedience, the reorienting of will and spirit. A second imperative is to teach these words to the children. A community of remembrance and reappropriation of commitment to God is being established through the generations. Finally, these words are to be placed as signs on one's body, home and city. Although this may strike us as a formal ritual, its intent is to place the Shema visibly in the midst of our lives, reorienting the whole of life to its demand that God be at the center. One could wish for some way of our own to keep that centering relationship to God visible and actual in our midst.

Bruce C. Birch Wesley Theological Seminary