Commentary on Deuteronomy 6:1-9

In Deuteronomy 6, we encounter Moses as the great teacher, the one who is about to impart—once again—instructions, laws, and statutes to the people of Israel, who are on the verge of crossing the Jordan River into the promised land. The chapter introduces the theological themes of reward and retribution that are later developed in the curses and blessings of Deuteronomy 27 and 28. God, through Moses, is teaching the people what to do so that life will go well for them in the land. If they follow the instructions and keep them, they will live long and become numerous, fulfilling God’s first command to humankind to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28).

The heart of this passage is traditionally known as the shema in Jewish traditions:

Hear (shema), O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. (Deuteronomy 6:4–5, New Revised Standard Version)

According to Alan Mintz, Jewish traditions emphasize two major concepts in the shema: exclusive loyalty to God and God’s internal unity.

The first demands that no system of value—not just another religion but any ideology, art, success, or personal happiness—be allowed to replace God as the ultimate ground of meaning. God’s unity, conversely, asserts that all experienced moments of beauty, good, love, and holiness are not in and of themselves; they are disparate and scattered signals of the presence of the one God.¹

Christians may be more familiar with the second half of the shema, as this is the teaching that Jesus cites as the greatest commandment in Matthew 25:37:

He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”²

Jesus adds a second commandment derived from Leviticus 19:18, saying, “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 25:39).

The remainder of the passage in Deuteronomy teaches the community how to keep Moses’ instructions central in their devotion. They are to write the words on their hearts (Deuteronomy 6:7). They should recite the words when they wake up and when they lie down to sleep (verse 7), keep the instructions on their hands and foreheads (verse 8), and inscribe them on their doorposts and gates (verse 9). In the tradition of Deuteronomy, practice and theory go hand in hand. Moses instructs the people to both “do” the laws (verse 3) and continually meditate upon them (verses 7–9).³

The pastoral task for Christian preachers and teachers, however, is not to simply appropriate Jewish tradition when reflecting on the shema, though a close study of different Jewish practices around the shema can certainly enlighten our understanding of this passage. Rather, the pastoral task here is to determine what the central teaching of particular Christian communities should be and how those particular communities should practice that central teaching.

For many Christian communities, for example, Jesus’ teachings on the Greatest Commandment(s) have become their central mission. Deuteronomy 6 can then challenge pastors in such communities to devise ways to transmit the central mission to love God and neighbor from generation to generation. We might ask ourselves: What practices will keep this central principle on our hands, foreheads, gates, and doorposts?

That said, the timing of this text in the lectionary for 2024 offers its own unique challenges. This is the Hebrew Bible text two days prior to a contentious election in the United States, an election happening under the specter of Christian Nationalism and the ghosts of Manifest Destiny. The first verse of this text assumes that God has sanctioned one people-group to dispossess another people-group from their land.

The context of this passage within Deuteronomy amplifies the dangers of an uncritical approach. The problematic rules for genocide immediately follow the shema in Deuteronomy 7, along with their theologically and ethically problematic rationale. God instructs the people to doom other nations to destruction, “mak[ing] no covenant with them” and “show[ing] them no mercy” (7:2). Laws prohibiting intermarriage follow, citing the danger of foreigners who might lead the people away from their prime directive of worshiping God alone (7:4).

For those of us who have adopted the Greatest Commandments as something of a shema, we may critically engage the problematic ideas in Deuteronomy 6 by asking who our are neighbors (Luke 10:29) and how to love them. The urging in Deuteronomy 6:6–9 to continually meditate on God’s laws can compel us to search the entirety of Scripture as we answer these questions.

As we engage our neighbors throughout Scripture, we may pay a visit to the international sailors in Jonah 1 or the Ninevites in Jonah 3–4. We might sit down and have a conversation with the Moabite woman in the book of Ruth. Our meditations may lead us to accept the eunuch and the foreigner into our community as we read Isaiah 56. Perhaps we will read that chapter in conversation with another eunuch from Africa in Acts 8 after we have broken bread with the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15.

While Deuteronomy 6 does contain some problematic ideas, we can use its urging both to practice God’s good instructions and to critically engage with and meditate upon them.

Notes

1. Alan Mintz, “Prayer and the Prayerbook,” in Back to the Sources, ed. Barry W. Holtz (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), 408–9.
2. See also Mark 12:29–31 and Luke 10:27.
3. The Hebrew in verse 3 can be literally translated as “keep/watch/guard in order to do,” which the New Revised Standard Version renders as “observe diligently.”