Deuteronomy - Lesson 10

Well, we're moving now into Moses’ second Shema in this address. This is the Shema that we actually call the Shema. To this day, Orthodox Jews around the world (really Orthodox Jews) begin their day by reciting the Shema and they end their day by reciting the Shema. If there is such a thing as a Jewish creed or creedal statement, this is it. The Shema. And my subheading here is, A Call for Wholehearted and Full-bodied Commitment, Deuteronomy 6:4-19. So, let's see how this works. 

This is the beginning now of Moses’ preaching. He has recited the Decalogue and inserted his pastoral comments there, as we saw. But like a preacher today, after reciting the scripture in the form of the Decalogue, he launches into a theological exposition of that text. But like lots of preachers, they have lots of points they want to make that they read in the text, but they never get beyond the first one or two. He gets stuck here. Most of this is about numbers one and two in the Decalogue. What we hear in 6:4 to 11:32, this is the rest of this address is exposition; theological exposition and pastoral proclamation at its finest. 

This is anything but law. There are a few commands and injunctions along the way. But it is theology, it is proclamation, it is preaching. Moses’ primary goal is to impress on the people's minds the sheer privilege and grace of the special relationship they enjoy with Yahweh, the Lord God. 

He had announced that grace in his citation of the opening line of the Decalogue. By grace Yahweh had rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt and by grace, He invited them to covenant relationship. It's all grace. Now we will learn that this grace may not be received casually. It must be embraced with grateful and unreserved devotion to their redeemer and their covenant Lord. 

This large section divides into five major parts, the first two of which are signaled by the summons to Israel - Shema Yisrael, Hear, O Israel, 6:4 and then 9:1. 

The third part begins with, “And now Israel, what does your God require of you?” 10:12. 

Then the fourth is a series of concluding exhortations for the present generation of Israelites, 11:2 to 32. 

The limits of the present larger unit, what we're talking about now in this session and the next two or three, are set by the Shema at the front end, 6:4, and by the Shema at the back end, 9:1 only, that's already into the next section. 

So, look at 8:20, this is how he concludes this part, “Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you so you shall perish because you wouldn't listen.” Oh, listen, Israel. Hear, O Israel. If you don't listen, your fate is like that of the nations. So that's what we've got here. 

Between these two markers, Moses expounds on the essence of covenant relationship. He announces the grand theme in 6:4 and then develops that theme from several different angles. And this is how I imagine this text or how I recognize it. It divides into four main parts. 

At the beginning, as a heading to this whole thing is Deuteronomy 6:4-9, that is the Shema formally. It's the declaration of the theme, A Call to Covenant Love. 

Then you've got the development of that theme in four parts, 6:10-25 and here you've got these become testing moments, testing the covenant love 6:10-25; 7:1-26; and then 8:1-20. 

Moses does so much in threes. He keeps dividing stuff into threes. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” I mean, that sort of thing. It's all over Deuteronomy, the three business, you'd think he was Trinitarian in his theology. 

But the interesting thing about these parts is that they share some common features. Each one begins with a rhetorical presentation of the test of covenant commitment. So, you've got in 6:10-25, the internal and external tests very briefly, then he picks it up in 7:1-26. He reverses the order and gives us a full statement on the external test. And then in chapter eight, he gives us a full statement on the internal test. We'll see how this motif of testing works. 

Then you have an audience. Somebody in the audience is interrupting, is responding. And in the first case the audience is from a child, What's the meaning of all these commands? the child asks. In the second case is a question, How can I dispossess these nations? And in the third, the audience, I have achieved all of this myself. But he puts that transition into the words of somebody in the congregation who is saying this. It's fascinating rhetoric if you look at how Moses is crafting his sermon. 

And of course, in response he has the rhetorical answer. A catechetical answer to the child's question. A promise and a warning for the question in the audience, how can I dispossess them? And then a reminder and a warning in response to the I have achieved this by myself. So, it's a very deliberately crafted sermon, three big parts, and each of these parts divides into three. And so, we'll see how this works. 

 Our task in this section is simply the top, A Call to Covenant Love. So, we're going to talk about the Shema proper first, and then we'll talk about what the Shema represents, and Israel's response to that. 

So, let's talk about the proper form of the Shema right off the bat. Notice this is taken right out of the Leningrad Codex. It's a page of there. But notice the Shema. You probably can't read the Hebrew, but that's okay. But look what happens. This is the Shema. We work our way from right to left, which is the proper way of reading - when we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that'll be, we’ll all read right to left. And here we go. 

So, Shema, Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh ‘Eḥad, and of course, our Jewish friends would never say Yahweh. And to me, that's the sad thing. They say either HaShem, the name or they say Adonai. But it's not Adonai. It's not. Yahweh. The God who has introduced Himself by name. Yahweh is our God. So, Shema, Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh ‘Eḥad The first letter here is big, and the second letter here, or the last letter of the first word, and the last letter of the last word are virtual uppercase. Capitalized. 

We don't know the significance, nobody's told us. But if you put these two letters together, the ion and the dālet, and (inaudible), if you put them together, ed, it's the word for witness. It's the word for witness. I don't know if that's the intent here. Some people are saying simply, look, this is a call to, at this point you recite very carefully. God is watching how you pronounce these words. 

And of course, in Jewish tradition, you don't pronounce the word at all because you might mispronounce it and that brings on you the curse. That's apparently why they forgot it. They stopped using it. But here it is. Shema, Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh ‘Eḥad; six little words. But how loaded they are with meaning. 

What does the Shema say? Well, what does it say? It says Shema, which means hear. Imperative. Listen up. Israel. That's the addressee. Vocative. Yahweh. That's the personal name of God. Eloheinu that the covenant relationship reflected, our God. It makes it really personal. Yahweh again. The personal name. ‘Eḥad, one. That's a literal translation. Yahweh, our God. Yahweh, one. This is ESV. (It's not actually ESV, they insert a verb in there.) 

Those are the words. This is locution. Speech Act Theory. Locution, the words we use. Illocution, the meaning we intend. Perlocution, the meaning people make it say, or hear it to say. Our concern is illocution. What's the purpose? Authorial intent is in the illocution. 

What is happening here? What does it mean? While there are lots of proposals and we can do this from our translation. 

Yahweh, our God, Yahweh is one. Moberly, McConville, Christian Standard. 

The Lord our God is one Lord. AV, ASV, RSV n in the footnote, the Lord is our God. 

The Lord is one. NAS, NIV, RSV. 

Yahweh is our God; Yahweh is one that is unique. This is a Jewish scholar, Cyrus Gordon, who argued that this is unique with a capital U. The Unique one. 

Or the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Ibn Ezra, NRSV, The New Jewish Publication Society, NJPS, Block. Well, that's what I think it means. But that's a long conversation. Let's talk. What does it mean? 

Well, the first primary possibility is, Yahweh is one. I mean, we know, the Lord our God. That's clear, there's no problem here, Yahweh is our God. But it’s the last part of this that's the problem. Yahweh ‘eḥad. Yahweh one literally 

The first possibility: Yahweh is one. There is some evidence for this interpretation. First, the meaning of Hebrew ‘eḥad, one. It is the cardinal number. One, two, three, four, five. ‘Eḥad. You start counting that way. And in 98% of the occurrences of this word, that's what it will mean. So that's the strongest argument for it. Yahweh is one. 

The Nash Papyrus. We mentioned this already earlier, the Nash Papyrus. It's at the bottom here. There's no point in me pointing it out where it is, but it is right at the bottom there. The Nash Papyrus actually changes the Hebrew to make it say, Yahweh is one. Yahweh ‘eḥad who. Yahweh one He. And when you have that syntactical construction, it has to mean Yahweh is one. It's all it can mean. So that by the time this Nash Papyrus was doing this, they added the word. And now there's no ambiguity. It clarifies it all. Yahweh is one. Nash Papyrus. 

The Septuagint. I'm not a Greek scholar nor son of a Greek scholar, but as I read this, κυριος ό θεος ήμων κυριος είς εστιν, the Lord is one. It is. That's the Greek. And now you understand the Nash Papyrus, which was produced about the same time as the Greek. That is how Jewish people were interpreting it at this time. The Septuagint is produced by Jewish scribes for Jews in Alexandria who had lost the Hebrew language. So, these are not Christians doing this. These are not Gentiles. These are Jewish people. That's how they're interpreting it at that point. 

 And then, of course, the New Testament. When all else fails, quote Jesus, “κυριος ό θεος ήμωνκυριος είς εστιν.” And He quotes the Septuagint precisely, “The Lord is one.” 

In my view when you say He is one, what does that mean? Well, as opposed to two or three. And so, when I published my work first of all on this in an essay in JETS (note: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society), the title of my essay is “How Many Is God?” And when you're saying one, you're talking about how many is He. Is He one or is He two or is He three or whatever? And so, this is why our Jewish friends to this day, this is a very key text to denounce Christianity because our Trinity makes God three. That's why they hang on to “one” here. But these texts, Septuagint is pre-Christian. That's the interesting thing here. So that raises a question. 

The second possibility, the Lord alone, or could we say the one and only? I mean, now we're talking something a little bit different. This is a possibility. Evidence for this interpretation: the meaning of Hebrew ‘eḥad. I just said 98% of the time it means one. But there are a half a dozen or eight times in which “one”absolutely doesn't work. And my doktorvater, my Torah mentor, my mentor always said, Never discount the evidence of a single exception. Just because a word is used one way a thousand times doesn't mean that's what it means in a single place where it doesn't make sense. And I think that's what we’ve got here. 

But as it turns out, we've got a half a dozen other verses we can talk about where ‘eḥad, one, doesn't mean one; that's senseless. “Did not Achan the Son of Zerah break faith in the matter of the devoted things and wrath fell upon all the congregation of Israel? And he did not perish one (*) for his iniquity.” That makes no sense but it's the same word. It has to mean. Did he perish alone? No. He perished with his whole family. 

Or, “And who is like Your people Israel, one (*) nation on earth whom God went and redeemed as His people.” One nation. There are lots of nations on earth. One nation. No, it's, I think, unique nation. They are unique; not because they're a nation, their own nation. They're unique because they are the only ones who were redeemed by the Lord. 

“David said to all the assembly, Solomon, my son, who is one (*) God has chosen.” No, whom alone God has chosen. He is the single one out of several candidates whom God has chosen. It's not because he is a unity as opposed to twins or triplets or whatever, “and the work is great.” 

Or, “But he stands alone (*) who can oppose Him? He does whatever He pleases.” He stands one. Makes no sense. And NIV here does it exactly right. He stands alone all by himself. He is unique in this case, the only one in the class. The only one. 

“Did not He who made me in the womb make him? And He one (*) fashioned us in the womb.?” No, he alone fashioned us in the womb. 

Or Song of Songs, “But my dove, my perfect one is one (*)”; that makes no sense. No, she's special. That's the point. She's special. Unique. “The only daughter of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore her.” It's not that she has one daughter, nor she's the only daughter. 

And then, “Yahweh will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Yahweh, and his name the one (*) name.” One Yahweh? How many Yahweh’s do we have? Well, that does actually become a theological problem for ancient Israelites. And we could talk about that, but not today. 

Brichto is a Jewish scholar formerly at (I mean, he's long dead now), but he was at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. He writes, and I think he's right on, “A translation affirming that a person known by a proper name [Yahweh] ‘is one’ is as meaningless of a deity as it would be of a human being.” 

My name is Daniel. And I'm sure to my mother, I was the only Daniel in the world that mattered. But she, with that comment, she wouldn't be saying, “Well, you're not schizophrenic, you're not bipolar. You're not.” I mean, how many people are we at once or internally coherent, which is what some argue this means. No. 

 “A discrete entity is not normally in danger of being taken for more than one or less than one. The assumption that the Hebrew word ‘eḥad means ‘one’ in its every appearance is an example of the folly of literalness.” The semantic folly. The irony is people who push this notion of semantic folly, watch out. They're the ones exactly who defend this. I don't get it. 

This folly, “the assumption means ‘one’ in every appearance is an example of the folly of literalness. This folly would appear obvious to every speaker of English were he to remember that only means ‘one-ly’ and alone is ‘all-one.’ The endurance of this mistaken rendering is a tribute to the mischief that has been done to biblical meanings by the substitution of a common noun lord, rendered as a proper noun the Lord, for the ineffable name Yahweh and also to an anachronistic assumption by theists of the biblical persuasion that Moses anticipated the unitarian-versus-trinitarian division.” (H.C. Brichto). 

Apparently by the time that the New Testament was, I mean the Septuagint was, produced there was debate in Jewish circles about how many is God. I mean, it's happened in Egypt. How many is God? And so it was in the air. And that translation is responding to what's in the air. Does that make it the ultimate? 

Let's back to the second possibility, the Lord alone. And now I say the Hebrew ‘eḥad is not definitive in favor of the first interpretation. It can be interpreted another way and a half a dozen places where it is. 

The syntax of the Shema. What does this Shema say? Well, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh ‘Eḥad That's very. It's ambiguous. You can make it go one way or you can make it go another way. So, you can use the syntax to argue for the first. But that's not the exclusive significance. Which is why when we're interpreting, context is always so important. We need to ask, Well, if it could mean that and it could mean that, what does it mean? Who decides? The context. 

What's going on here? What have we got in this text? Well, Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh ‘Eḥad, the Lord is our God, the Lord, whatever. Then come to verse five. What is this? “You shall love Yahweh, your God with all your heart and with all your being and with all your resources.” What's the issue? The issue is a divided heart. And what's a divided heart? Where part of it is devoted to one god or one allegiance, and the other part is devoted to another allegiance. That's the problem. You shall be all in for Yahweh alone. Only Yahweh, nothing left over for another god. Your whole inner being. We'll talk about these words yet. Your whole being, person. And with all your resources devoted to God. That's commentary on the Shema. Which, as far as I can tell, means only Yahweh. 

What does it mean to be a true Israelite? A true Israelite is one who worships Yahweh alone. Nobody else. There's only one God. “That you may know that I am Yahweh, there is no other.” We just heard that, didn't we, at the end of chapter four? There is no other. That is the point as far as I can tell. 

Now, we have a comparable construction in Isaiah 33:22, for one or two of you here that know Hebrew, but the text is for - you have exactly the same structure - Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh ‘Eḥad, for our Judge is Yahweh, our Lawgiver is Yahweh, our King is Yahweh. Yahweh Šōpțēnû, Yahweh Məḥōqqēnû, Yahweh Malkēnû, Yahweh ‘Eḥad. It's the same. Exactly the same construction. So, you turn it around so that the subject of the English translation is the second part. Our king is Yahweh. You're identifying the one. And then in the end, He is the one who will save us. 

So here we have, Hear O Israel Yahweh is our God So, Yahweh alone. So, demonstrate love (remember our translation of love?) demonstrate love for Yahweh, your God with your whole heart, with your entire being, and with all your resources. So that's immediate context. To me, that's the clincher. But we're not done yet. 

The broader context. Now look at verses 12 to 15. I am cutting out the lecture on this section so we can quickly go through this, you know, to save us time and we'll get right into chapter seven in the next session. But let's look at verses 12 to 15 and you can see what's happening here. Let's pick it up, “Then when the Lord your God brings you into the land that He promised to your ancestors, and you're enjoying houses full of good things that you didn't fill, hewn cisterns you didn't dig, vineyards and olive trees that you didn't plant, and you eat and are satisfied, then watch out, lest you forget Yahweh your God, who brought you from the land out of the house of slavery. You shall fear only Yahweh.” Actually, it is ”Yahweh only you shall fear. Him only you shall worship, by His name only you shall swear. You shall not follow any other gods, any of the gods of the peoples around you, for Yahweh, your God is in the midst of you, an impassioned God. Otherwise, the anger of Yahweh your God will be kindled against you.” He'll wipe you out. You shall not put the Lord your God to a test. Daring Yahweh to do something when you go and worship other gods. 

What's the context? The context is idolatry. The issue here is not how many is God? That would have been meaningless. This leads me to the final and the contextual situation. Nobody in Israel was struggling with how many is God in Moses’ day. Nobody was. It's not how many is God? It is, Who is the God of Israel? And the answer is Yahweh alone or only Yahweh. Our God is Yahweh, Yahweh alone, or only Yahweh. 

So, “Only Yahweh your God, you shall fear only Him you shall serve, only by His name you shall swear. You shall not go after any other gods because He’s an impassioned God” and He'll treat you like He treats other nations if you go that way. 

 And then the final argument, the historical context of the Shema. As I said, nobody in that world in Israel or outside of Israel was debating how many is God? That is a much later thing. But actually, I've got some New Testament evidence here, too. We mentioned Jesus’ quotation of the Septuagint. Of course, He’s going to quote the Septuagint. That's what the people are familiar with. He's using the Bible. But His point is not to make, to answer the question how many is God? God is one. His point is, What's the great command? That's the focus. That's the illocution. Don't make it say more than He is intending it to say. What's the great command? Yeah, you should love the Lord, your God with all your heart, and Him alone. 

Well, here you have the Mark version, “Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear O Israel: Yahweh, our God, Yahweh is one.” is one. “And you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Well, actually, that's an NLT translation. Did you see that? “You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” How many elements? Four. How many elements are there in the actual Shema? Three. What's Jesus just done? He's added to the Scripture. No, He has fleshed out the meaning. We'll come back to this. If you translate it only ‘heart’, you miss 50% of its significance. We'll talk about that in a moment. 

But then, look, “The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There's no greater command than these.” But then look at this, “And the scribe said to Him, ‘You're right, Teacher.” Isn’t that awesome? Jesus was right. Again, and He’s always right. “You have truly said that He is one,” that's the Greek grammar, but look at his commentary. He is not two. But that is not what he said. He says, “and there is no other besides Him.” It's spot on. He has it exactly. Only Yahweh, only Yahweh. And here the scribe, this guy who has come with the cynical questions and whatever else, he's the one who has it right. 

Or First Corinthians 8, eating food sacrifice. “We know that ‘An idol is nothing’, ‘There is no God but one.’” An idol is nothing. There is no God but one. It's not about how many is God. It's who is God? There's only one God. It's not the only God there is, is only one. “For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven and earth, and as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God.” That's what the Shema is about. For us, Yisrael. Shema, Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh ‘Eḥad. For us, there's only one God, His name is Yahweh. 

This isn't technically even a monotheistic statement. He is not hereby saying that there are no other gods. That's not his point. He's saying if you're an Israelite, for you there's only one. You cannot claim to be a member of the covenant community and have your devotion divided. 

Well, there's but one Lord Jesus Christ. This is a remarkable text for it identifies Jesus with Yahweh and it declares Him to be the one and only God. Well, that's the Shema. 

But now let's look at the kind of covenant commitment we're talking about. The locus of covenant commitment. 6:5, “So demonstrate love for Yahweh your God, with your whole heart, with your entire being, with all your resources.” Well, I've already given you here my interpretation in part, but usually it's with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength, strength, which is what the Greek has at this point. But this a huge problem. What does this mean? 

Well, here's what I call the psychological interpretation of Deuteronomy 6:5. When I was in Bible College, which is where I met my wife and we were in theology class together. And when I was in Bible, we were taught to be trichotomists in our anthropology. That's a lot of big words. That is, to be human is to consist of three parts, parallel to the God who is Triune. If you look at Scofield reference Bible, it makes those connections. But to be human is to have heart, have strength, and have soul. These are the three things that constitute us as human beings. Heart, strength, and soul. That's what I call the psychological interpretation. Or is it anthropological? 

But now we have to talk about what each of these words mean. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.” Well, this word appears hundreds of times in scripture. It is your organ in the left side of your body, I think. If you feel pain there, you got a problem. It's the machine that pumps blood through your whole system. It's physical. It's the organ in the body. That's what the word means. But it is used of heart-shaped cakes. It is the seat of emotions. Exodus 4:14, Judges 16. Seat of intention and will. Disposition. Attitude. Mind. In Deuteronomy 29:3. You understand with your heart, it's the seat of thought. “The Lord saw that every imagination of human beings was only evil continually.” Imaginations of the heart were evil. 

But we know better. We don't think with our hearts. But 50% of the time in scripture heart is your thinker. Biblical Hebrew has no separate word for brain. It's heart. The heart is the seat of thought. It's the seat of emotion. It's the seat of the will. It's your inner being. The inside. 

Jesus said, “Out of the heart come the thoughts.” Really? Scientifically, that's wrong. It's a lie because we don't think with our hearts. But he's thinking in Hebrew. He means, from the inside. And that's what defiles, it is not what you put into your body, that defiles it’s what comes out of it that proves you're defiled. Out of the heart, from your inner being.Or, to think in Hebrew is, he said in his heart. Or when you people talk to themselves, that's a Hebrew idiom, he said to himself, he thought. That's heart. Well, that's 50% of the time in the First Testament, it's your thinker, not your feeler, emotions. So that's the first. 

Now, back to Jesus’ quotation of that, “You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” What's Jesus just done? He says, I'm not going to pick which of these two we're talking about because it means both. And He captures the sense with heart and mind; one word in Hebrew lev. And that's what he's doing there. That's NLT’ish. 

How about nephesh, which the Greek regularly translates as psychē. Soul? Well, what is a nephesh? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and He created all kinds of living creatures. Ne eš ḥay ‘ô, creatures that have a nephesh. I thought we always said the difference between a human being and an animal is that we have a soul and they don't. Sorry. That won't work. In Hebrew you don't have a soul. It's not what you have, it's what you are. Remember? God took a piece of dirt and He formed it into the shape of a human. He breathed into it His breath, and it became a living nephesh. A living being. So that in contexts like this, don't think now in simplistic Greek terms where the real you is the soul within this body. 

You know, when my father passed away, at the gathering of the family in the presence of the corpse, my father's corpse, one of my brothers says, Dad's not there; he's elsewhere. And you ask yourself biblically, anthropologically, is that accurate? Is that precise? Is that true? It's the body's there. And it assumes that there is an entity that exists apart from the body. And that's the real you. And so the body is simply the container that holds the you. 

That's not Hebrew thinking. It's a being whose life resides. You shall not eat the blood because the life - nephesh - is in the blood. Or sometimes it's life for life. Exodus 21, Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, nephesh for nephesh. And it's translated life for life. It's not soul for soul, makes no sense. 

A person himself or herself is a nephesh, an idol nephesh. Sometimes the word refers to a corpse. That was my dad's nephesh there and my brother was in effect saying, No, the nephesh is gone, the soul is gone. But here, these references, the nephesh is what's left after the breath is gone. 

So, all of these possibilities force us to ask, what does it mean here? Literally, the word nephesh means the gullet, that with which you swallow food. And then it comes to mean appetite, seat of appetites, that’s what you like to eat. Like all that good stuff. That's good for the gullet. And of course, the seat of desires and the seat of mental acts. Well, what are we going to do with this in this context? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart/mind and with all your nephesh. 

Well, let's go to the third one. We'll sort it out yet. Meud. “You shall love the Lord your God.” This is the most bizarre of all. If I had greeted you this morning in Hebrew, or you had greeted me, you'd have said, “Boker tov.” Good morning. Tov the word for good and boker is the word for morning. Boker tov, good morning. 

But I mean, we are here in Camas, and this is a beautiful world. And I wanted to say it's not just a good morning, it is a super good morning. And I'd say Boker tov meud, very good morning to you. That's what this word means. Very. It's always used for very. It's an adverb. It's not even a noun. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your very.” It makes no sense at all, Which is why I think when the Septuagint guys were translating it, they translated it as strength. They're guessing. They're guessing we have to have a noun here. You love the Lord your God with your heart. That's a noun. With your being, that's a noun. And with your very, that makes no sense. And so, they put in, with all your strength. Well, let's look at all this. 

It's an adverb. Genesis 1, “And God saw that all that He had made and behold,” ESV, archaic English, “It was very good.” Or Deuteronomy 10. “very far away” or 30:14 “very near.” The word isn't far away from you, it's near, it's in your heart, It's very near. 

There are two places in all of Scripture – it occurs hundreds of times – two places where it means, it has to be a noun. Here, “You love the Lord your God with meud” has to be a noun. It happens here and it happens in 1 King. 23:25. Actually, it's not 1 Kings, it's 2 Kings. It's Josiah. I love–one of my favorite characters in scripture because he is recognized as the embodiment of the Shema. 

Listen to 2 Kings 23:25, “Before him, there was no king like him who turned to Yahweh with all his lev and with all his nephesh and with all his meud. Wow, that's amazing, isn't it? He's the only person in all of scripture who is said to embody what Deuteronomy 6:5 calls for. It's my favorite, one of my favorite characters. Josiah. What a guy. 

But notice he changed the verbs. He doesn't say he loved the Lord with all his heart. He said he turned to, which is another word for commitment. You turn in the direction of God. Totally devoted to. He could have said love, but there's a hesitation among biblical characters and authors to ascribe that word actually to people. There are commands to do it. But they, even here he's hesitant. 

But Josiah turned to the Lord with all his lev, with all his nephesh, and with all his meud. These are the only places where it's used this way. It's totally unique. Shema Israel, Yahweh alone. Only here we have this. 

Well, there's help now on the way in cousin languages. Sometimes if the Hebrew doesn't help you, you know you can't apply ‘very’. It means ‘very’ every other time and it makes no sense here so we got to go. 

In Ugaritic you have a word mad/mid used as an adjective. Great, strong. Oh, now it sounds like Septuagint, with all your strength. 

Interestingly, Akkadian, Babylonian second cousin language you have a noun ma’du, same root, obviously, which means fullness, quantity, possessions. And now we really have possibilities. And when you see how this is working, it all makes sense. 

This is not a psychological picture of the three constituent parts of a human person. It is a covenantal picture that works in three concentric circles. “You shall love the Lord your God” - demonstrate love with your inner being from the inside out. You start there. “You shall love,” demonstrate love for “the Lord your God with your whole person.” I think that's what it means here. The soul that sins it shall die, Ezekiel says. But the soul doesn't sin. People do. He means the person who sins dies. So now it's your whole body love the Lord. 

And then with all your maud. That's everything connected to you. Yes, it is strength. But I prefer something more generic, and that is resources. And for those of us who sit at the books, it means my computer is devoted to God alone. Nobody else. My house is God's alone. And if I'm a farmer, my tractor is God's alone. My car, my pickup truck. It all belongs to God. Nothing for another god. That's what we got here. 

And of course, all of a sudden, I discover I'm in the New Testament world. I hear Paul's words ringing in my ears, “I beseech you, brothers by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God which is your…” And now I have to be careful how I say it. How do we have it here? Romans 12. And I weep, New American Standard, “which is your spiritual service of worship.” You've got to be kidding. Spiritual service? He just said, “I beseech you that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.” It's not a spiritual act of worship. It is full-bodied worship. And if anything, I think at this point, the King James’ guys actually had it right, because when we get to chapter ten, we'll see that the language here is borrowed from Deuteronomy 12, which is your reasonable service. 

Vassaldom. That's what the word means. It's not cultic worship. It's not spiritual worship. It is vassaldom, serving your master. That's exactly what we're talking about. This is Paul, I mean, this is Moses. Which is your… This is what it means to be fully devoted to God. Everything is committed to him. Nothing left over for any other god. Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh ‘Eḥad. Hear O Israel, Yahweh is our God only Yahweh. Nothing left for anybody else. This is focused, full-bodied, wholehearted devotion to Yahweh alone. 

Of course, we could talk a lot more about the afterlife of this Shema. It climaxes in the First Testament in Zachariah, “Hear O universe, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone.” It's not that His name will be one or people will call him “‘Eḥad,” but that the only God named will be Yahweh. He looks forward to the day when everybody will be saying Yahweh ‘Eḥad. Not Yahweh is one. But if anything, Yahweh is the one and only God for all of us. That's the point. The one and only. All other gods have been defeated and eclipsed. There's only one left. “And the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea.” This is how I interpret it. 

Now, let's see how this works in the rest of this text. Moses adds then, it's a slight commentary. “These words I charge you today, shall be on your hearts,” oh, there we are again, “You shall repeat them to your children. You shall declare them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. You shall tie them as insignias on your hands and wear them as symbols on your foreheads and you shall inscribe them on the doorposts of your houses and your gates.” What in the world is happening here? And of course, this is brilliant commentary on what this looks like in real life. So, let's look at this. 

The Dimensions of Covenant Commitment. Notice again, he's working with threes. “These words that I am giving you are to be on your hearts.” That means, your personal commitment. And again, he's addressing heads of households, remember? It's heads of households. They shall be the fundamental commitment of the head of the household from the inside out. 

But it doesn't stay there. It's not only about the head of the household. Notice, “You shall repeat them to your children. You shall declare them when you sit in your house, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.” I mean, what is this? This is making this covenant commitment beyond a personal matter for the head of the household. It extends to the whole family, everybody here. And so, you repeat the words of this Torah to the children so they get it. Everybody gets it. 

And notice how this educational provision happens. It doesn't mean, he doesn't say, Oh, and when you build your church, be sure you hire a youth pastor very quickly who will see to it that everybody, all the kids know the scriptures. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's this way. And I don't think we should now limit it to heads of this household in this household. I think he is talking to adults. It's your responsibility to see to it that the next generation gets it. 

And don't limit it just to your family, because in a covenant community, everybody's kids are everybody's kids. Did you hear that? In a covenant community, everybody's kids are everybody's kids And when one family languishes with kids who are going off the rails, we all do. And so, he's not limiting it. That's why he goes on to say, “You shall repeat them to your children.” It is not talk. I think some translate it, “You shall talk about them.” No, it's not talk about them. It's talk them. Don't substitute God's word for your own commentary. Talk them. Thy word have I hid it my heart. So, this you shall talk them. It's a strange word here. It's not used often, but it means to say over and over again. Repeat, repeat, repeat. 

So, “repeat them to your children. Declare them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the way.” What is that? That's a figure of speech. We call it a merism, m-e-r-i-s-m. It means you refer to opposites to demonstrate the whole. “I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.” But it's not only the beginning and the end. It's everything in between, too. And so, this is when you sit down or when you're walking - talk about them, or when you lie down and when you get up. That means there isn't a single part of life that shouldn't be seized as a teachable moment for training your kids. 

I'll never forget when our grandson, Calvin, was just a little guy and living in Vancouver, British Columbia at the time. And we were at the house and I took him for a walk. I mean, he was all energy and he never slept. He was so hard on his parents and oh, dear, this is. But I took him for a walk. And then as we were walking along the sidewalk, all of a sudden he saw this little hole in the sidewalk with all kinds of sand there and ants running around. And he squatted down like this, and he was just mesmerized by the activity. 

So, I sat down right beside him. And I just let him watch. And then we had an interesting conversation. Do those ants know what they're doing? Who takes care of them? Where they come from. How do they get there? What's going on here? And it was a fabulous conversation with the little guy that I just had there. Any moment is an occasion for inculcating in them these covenantal values. Don't limit it to what you do in the schools, to morning devotions. The Bible knows nothing about morning devotions and evening devotions. Did you know that? That's our handy way of separating the world into sacred and profane. All of life is sacred. All of life. All of life. This is a sacred moment. And you shall. Yeah. So, all the time. So, it's a community matter, the whole household. 

And then, you shall tie them as insignias on your hands and wear them as symbols on your forehead and inscribe them on the gateposts of your house. It's a family matter. It is a communal matter. Well, here, these are phylacteries. They found these at Qumran. Leather pouches. And in those leather pouches, there are those scrolls at the bottom which have inscribed on them biblical texts like the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-9. It's repeated in 11:13-21 and a couple of other texts. This they found at Qumran. They're taking it very literally. In the Aramaic word for what this is, is tefillin or phylacteries. The Jewish friends take this very literally and they have gone to great lengths to see to it that if you're going to wear these, be sure you do it properly. 

I'll never forget the first time I went to Israel. I rode El Al and there are lots of Jewish people on there. And there was a guy sitting across the aisle from here. He was putting all this stuff on. I've never seen that before. I'm just a farm kid from Saskatchewan. What are we doing here? And then when he was all done (Dr. Block bows repeatedly). 

I mean, that's the literal you shall wear them on your hands and on your foreheads and there are instructions. If you go to Jerusalem, to the Wailing Wall, you'll see all of this. And of course, there's the biblical precedent. The high priest has this on his forehead Qōḍeš la Yahweh, holy to the Lord. And so that's what we do. 

Or not only on the person on the gateposts, doorposts of your house and the Jewish custom of the mezuzah comes from this. You shall put them on the doorposts of your house. And of course, they've got special blessings. This is their security policy. I don't know if you've ever walked into a house that has these along with a Jewish friend, but it was curious. The first time I encountered it, we walked into the house and as he walked into the house, he went like this. And without thinking of it, he touched that mezuzah and kept on walking. Our conversation carried on. It's their way of identifying with what's in that mezuzah. 

My brother in Winnipeg at the time he was renting an old, old, old house; it had been painted 37 times. Whatever. So, paint everywhere, thick paint. And one day when we got to this house, I noticed there's a bulge in the doorpost on the right-hand side of the doorpost. And I said to, My brother's name is Reuben. I said, Reuben, what's that? He said, I don't know. Never noticed it. I said, Have you got a little screwdriver? And we opened it up and inside there was a little parchment with this inscription, these inscriptions on it. It's a mezuzah that was a Jewish household at one point, and this is their good luck charm. Their security, on the right side. 

Notice the one on the picture here is at an angle. And there's at an angle there's a difference between Ashkenazi Jewish people and Sephardic Jewish people. I've forgotten which one goes which. I think, it's the Ashkenazi that have it on an angle. Sephardic do straight up and down. That has to do with tradition. And where does that come from? 

But in any case, they're obviously taking this literally. Is that what Moses intended? But that's the question. When you come to a text, should we do this literally? Well, we used to. I mean, I will never forget in the dining room of the house I grew up in. Thirteen kids in one small house. And, you know, in the dining room on that side, or opposite the bench where, you know, eight of us sat on one side. You look up and you see the mottos of all sorts, ‘Prayer changes things.’ I'll never forget that one. My parents also had one saying that's very relevant today, ‘Home is no home without a father.’ I mean, that's 70 years ago, home is no home. And I tell you, do we know that in our day? 

But in any case, is this about putting mottos on the walls or Ten Commandments we talked about earlier? Yeah, that's it. We can do this as a matter of fact. Well, there is something to this. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it. In fact, I think we should do it far more often. It should be obvious when people enter our homes that this is sacred space. The Lord lives here. Not just with these symbols, that can be hypocritical. 

This is what he's talking about. They should be on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates. And presumably at the back of this there would be a gate out, you know, the whole thing is fenced off, but on the doorposts and on the gates so that everybody walking by knows in this house they belong to Yahweh. 

So, it's personal: on your heart. It's family: you're teaching them to the kids, passing it on. And it's communal: it's public. This is not private religion. It is public religion. In this house, the name of the Lord is proclaimed. 

Which reminds me, and this picture was taken in, uh, with an old camera in 1968 in Soest, Germany, when my wife and I were in Germany for one year. We were up at Goethe Institute in Northern Germany, a quaint medieval town. I'll never forget this house. You walk by it and it's beautiful, black timber, black painted timber framing everywhere else but at the top, “An Gottes Segen ist alles glelgen.” Wow. I wonder if the people living there now believe it. But of course, it's a tourist town. They're not allowed to change anything. Even if the people living there are different, they're probably secular, atheist, whatever, whatever. 

But in any case, at one point, the builder declared to the world, Everything depends on God's blessing. “An Gottes Segen ist alles glelgen.” and you walk by on the sidewalk. And from the place where we were staying to the classroom where we were having our classes in German. Every day, twice a day, I walked by that and that has become such an important motto in my life. Everything hangs on God's blessing. This is it. Everything. This is so Deuteronomic. It is so Deuteronomic. 

But here, “you shall write these on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” But of course, if you're going to put that on your gates you better watch how you live inside this house. Because if you're not living this, it's bearing the name of the Lord your God in vain. It's a sham. It's hypocrisy. It's idolatry. 

And one more illustration, then we're done. In about, oh, my goodness what was it, 1998 perhaps? We bought a new car, a brand-new car. And I hadn't had a new car for a long time. And we are always buying either rental cars or whatever else. Couldn't afford a new. But I bought a brand-new car. I always wanted a Pontiac Bonneville and exactly the right one was available. There it was - my car. We got my dream car and I got a license plate in advance for this thing. 

And by the time we got had the car, I had the license plate and I put the license plate on in the morning and I drove to school, to the office that morning with my new car and on the way on Brownsboro Avenue in Louisville, Kentucky, suddenly there was this cherry (Dr. Block makes noise like a police siren). And a guy pulled me over. And he said, “Sir, do you realize that you were driving 57 miles an hour?” I said, “What? It's a 35 mile per hour speed limit here.” I was driving 57 miles per hour. 

Of course, with my old car, I mean, 15 felt fast. I mean, it's loud. It's whatever else. But this is just a boat riding along. It feels like you're not even moving. I had no idea. And my first response was to quote my father once when he got stopped for speeding. And then the cop came over and he says, “Oh, sir, I have sinned, I have sinned.” 

But what really troubled me is that morning I had put on my car, the license plate hesed. Really? Hesed, loving kindness, grace, mercy. compassion. This is the one, my favorite word in any scripture. And here I had betrayed my Lord. You are not demonstrating hesed if in a 35-mile speed limit you're going 57 miles an hour. Shame on you. I had brought shame to the Name. 

Couple of days later, I stopped at a service station to fill in with gas and a guy noticed my license plate, hesed, and he said, “Do you know that's a word?” He's a Jewish guy. He said, “That's a word. It's a Jewish word.” I said, “I know. Shall I tell you about it?” Beautiful opportunity to share the gospel. You know, that's what we're doing here. We're wearing the Name but not getting stopped by the cops for driving recklessly. That is scandalous. 

This calls for wholehearted commitment with your inner being, with your whole body, and with your car. All your resources devoted to God. We don't do so well, do we? But it's a challenge. This is the covenant. The call for covenant living. And it's a totally different paradigm than we're used to thinking when we think about law. 

Somewhere along the line we have to have a discussion of the difference between a law-based world and a covenant-based world. And when you put those side by side, you will discover that Deuteronomy is nothing like a law-based world. That's downtown Chicago. Downtown Chicago, if they've got problems, all they think is we need more laws to prevent this. And I'm sorry, you won't have enough trees to make books to fill all the laws you need if you're going to go that route. We don't need more laws. We need more human beings who are actually a mensch, a human being as God intended us to be. Covenant human beings. Covenantal human beings who are embodying righteousness. In that world you don't need laws. Against such there is no law. Just be what you are. 

All right. That's the Shema. I had no idea what the Shema meant until I started wrestling with this text and I tell you, once I was done, I could hardly wait to share it. It makes so much sense now in the context. Anyhow, that's it.