Monday
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
- Deuteronomy 6:4-5
Sh’mah yisrael adonai elohenu adonai echad (Duet.
6:4 in Hebrew)
This passage from Deuteronomy contains is what is known as
the Shema, it is the central
confessional prayer of Judaism.
The term Shema comes from
the first word, and it means “hear”.
This prayer or creed is to be recited aloud by every faithful Jew each
morning and evening and it has a great deal to teach us as Christians.
There are two primary emphases in verse 4…
First - Yahweh is unique, and the only God of the Jews.
The word “LORD” in your English Bibles (with all capital
letters) is the translators’ way of translating the name Yahweh. The translators do this to follow the Jewish
custom of saying the word “Lord” whenever they come to God’s Holy Name.
The Jews will insert “Adonai”
instead of “Yahweh” out of
respect to God and for fear of mispronouncing His sacred name. But the underlying Hebrew text contains
God’s name, Yahweh. This is the sacred and personal name of
God given to Moses at Mt Horeb (Ex. 3:14).
Second – God, Yahweh,
is one God. He is one in nature
and essence. This doesn’t
contradict the doctrine of the Trinity, which describes God as “three persons
in one”. The word for “God” (Elohim) is a plural word, and
the word for “one” (echad) can
be used to describe a “compound unity”, as it is also used of the union of Adam
and Eve (Gen. 2:24) to describe two persons becoming one flesh. This also carries the idea that there
is no other god besides Him.
Deut. 4:35 – “You were shown these things so that you
might know that the LORD is God; besides him there is no other.”
The second portion of this passage from Deuteronomy
commands us to love this God with all of our heart, soul, and strength (Deut.
6:5). In fact, when Jesus was
asked what the is the greatest commandment in all of the Scriptures, He responded
by quoting this portion of the Shema (Mark 12:28-30). So, in these two verses, we are commanded both to know God
and to love God. Of course these
two commands must go together, you cannot really love God unless you know Him.
The ancient Israelites lived in a world where they
were surrounded by pagan, polytheistic nations on all sides. Nearly every nation, tribe, and region
had its own set of gods. It is all
too easy for us to assume that we do not have these same kinds of issues
today. We aren’t surrounded by
idolatrous ideas and pagan religions on all sides in our culture, or are
we? The truth is that we are
living in an era of history that is just as hostile to the God of the Bible as
the world of the ancient Israelites.
There seem to be as many ideas about who God is and what God is like
today as there are people who have them.
Genesis 2 tells us that God has made man in His image. However, it seems as though most people
would much prefer it if they could make God in their image.
The God of the Bible is personal God and He has made
Himself known to us through His revealed word! This was not a god that the Jews invented. This is not a god of their ideas or
imaginations. This is not a god
borrowed from the pagan religions of other nations. This is God, the one, true, infinite, creator and sustainer
of all that exists. This God is
morally perfect, perfectly just, the source of all wisdom and truth, completely
faithful, loving, gracious, generous, unchanging in His character for all
eternity, without beginning or ending, this is GOD!
You cannot love this God unless you know Him, and you
must know Him as He has made Himself known, as He has revealed Himself to you
in His Word!
Jeff Frazier
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