One Lord, One Love, One Loyalty: 6:1–6:3 This section starting back in 5:32 links the earlier recollection of the past events at Horeb and the actual exhortation and teaching of the law to the present generation that is launched at 6:4. Since it has now been established that Moses is God’s authorized spokesman, then the people’s obedience to what he tells them is effectively obedience to God, and any deviation to the right or to the left will be a rejection of the way of the Lord. In Hebrew, chapter 6 begins with “And this is the command . . . , ” which suggests that it is a continuation of the previous verses. The sequence of meaning is: “God gave me all this command (5:31) . . . So you be careful to do it (5:32f.) . . . And this is it (6:1ff.) . . . !”
The emphasis on motivational factors is almost overwhelming in this short passage. Five times we read “so that” or “that.” The stakes were high. The rewards were great. The blessing and promise were in place. But obedience was the heart of the matter, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days . . . so that you . . . may fear the LORD your God . . . so that you may enjoy long life . . . so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly. Not that obedience would earn such blessing. The final line of 6:3 recalls that the lush future in the land will be theirs because of God’s faithfulness to the promise made to their forefathers. It was a gift of grace, but to be appropriated and enjoyed through obedience—a constant biblical pattern in both Testaments.
6:4–5 Just as the Decalogue is both statement (Deut. 5:6) and command (5:7ff.), so this most fundamental of Israel’s “credal” traditions, the “Shema” (Deut. 6:4–5), is both an affirmation about God and a call for commitment to God. Its Jewish name, “Shema,” is the first Hebrew word of the summons, Hear, O Israel, a favorite form of address in Deuteronomy (cf. 5:1; 6:3; 9:1; 20:3; 27:9) that is similar to the Wisdom tradition’s portrayal of parents calling a child’s attention to their teaching for the child’s own good (cf. Prov. 1:8). It is also a constant reminder that Israel was a people summoned by God to hear God’s word. They were not merely spectators at a divine “show,” but the recipients of divine revelation in words. They were to hear the truth and to respond to it. Even at a formal level, therefore, these two verses expose the falseness of the view that religious truth and revelation are “personal, not propositional”—i.e., the view that God does not reveal timeless truths propositionally, but simply acts in love and leaves to each individual his or her own interpretative conclusions as we respond in personal relationship to him and one another. Such reductionist views of revelation ignore the reality that truth in human experience is both prepositional and personal and deny the biblical emphasis on both. Deuteronomy 6:4–5 is one whole sentence; nothing could be more “propositional” than 6:4 and nothing more “personal” than 6:5.
The LORD our God, the LORD is one. The NIV is most probably correct in its translation of verse 4 (see the NIV’s footnotes and the additional notes for other possible renderings stemming from the absence of an explicit “is” in the Hb.). In the first half of the declaration, the Hebrew word “our God” is a qualifier, functioning like a relative clause: “Yahweh, who is our God, this Yahweh is one.” But what does this mean?
An exegetical understanding would be that the second two Hebrew words mean “Yahweh is one,” rather than “Yahweh alone.” The uniqueness and incomparability of Yahweh are a major affirmation of the context, as we have already seen (Deut. 3:24; 4:35, 39; cf. 32:39; Exod. 15:11; Ps. 18:31), and there is doubtless a lingering flavor of that uniqueness in this text (note how Mark 12:32 adds the uniqueness formula to the great commandment). A problem with this contextual approach is that the verbal forms that usually express the uniqueness and incomparability of Yahweh are quite different from the expression in verse 4, which seems to suggest the oneness or singularity of Yahweh. There are various suggestions as to how this is to be understood.
One possibility is that there is a polemical intent to define God as wholly different from the multitude of gods that surround Israel, perhaps especially from the multiple manifestations and forms of Baal in the Canaanite cults. Yahweh is not the brand name of a cosmic corporation. He is one God, our God, and Yahweh is his personal name. On this understanding, the emphasis lies on Yahweh’s singularity.
Another possible understanding is that the oneness of Yahweh implies a unity of will and purpose. Yahweh is not inwardly divided, despite the fact that in the OT text Yahweh sometimes appears to act in contradiction to the declared purposes and character of God (e.g., Moses’ intercession in Exod. 32–34; Num. 14; cf. Deut. 9:7–29; Ps. 73; Job; Hos. 11). But, whatever the appearances, at the deepest level Yahweh is one, consistent, faithfui, and true within. The idea here would be the same as when we say of a particular individual, “There is only one John.” We imply he is not two-faced or inconsistent; you can rely on John to be the same whatever happens. Likewise, to say “Yahweh is one” is to affirm unchangeableness and consistency. There is no divine schizophrenia. The harmony of God’s purpose for the world and its people is grounded in the ultimate unity of God’s own being. On this understanding, the emphasis lies on Yahweh’s integrity.
Whether, then, we read the verse in terms of Yahweh’s incomparability (from the context, but not the text itself), his singularity (explicit, and probably the most likely meaning), or his integrity (implied, but not directly stated), it is clearly a most important text in relation to Israel’s monotheism. It is beside the point to insist that the verse is not explicitly monotheistic in the philosophical sense of categorically denying the existence of other deities than Yahweh. The incontrovertible emphasis was that Yahweh (alone) was God in covenant relationship with Israel; that Yahweh had done what no other god had done or could do; that Yahweh was one, not many.
Whether the full implications of all this were understood from the start may be impossible to verify, but such convictions certainly generated a hope that was missiological, universal, and unquestionably monotheistic. The Deuteronomistic historian records prayers of both David and Solomon that express the wider vision and hope of other peoples coming to recognize what Israel already knew regarding Yahweh (2 Sam. 7:22–26; 1 Kgs. 8:60; cf. 1 Kgs. 8:41–43, and the reflection of Deut. 6:5 in 1 Kgs. 8:61). And the only clear quotation of Deuteronomy 6:4 in the rest of the OT is both eschatological and clearly monotheistic: “The LORD will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name” (lit. “Yahweh will be one and his name will be one,” Zech. 14:9).
Finally, it is worth repeating the point made in relation to Deuteronomy 4:35, 39. The declaration at the heart of the Shema, and especially in its eschatological form in the text just cited (Zech. 14:9), is made about Yahweh in particular, not just about deity in general. That is why a preoccupation with abstract monotheism can lead us to overlook the primary challenge of the text. It is not being said simply that there is ultimately only one divine reality. Such a claim would certainly not be unique among the religions and philosophies of humankind. Nor is the eschatological hope of Zechariah merely that some day all human beings will profess monotheism of some sort per se. A philosophical monotheism that leaves the divine reality unnamed and characterless is alien (both unknown and hostile) to the OT faith. It is vital to see that, in OT terms, it is Yahweh who defines what monotheism means, not a concept of monotheism that defines how Yahweh should be understood.
This has very serious implications for the so-called “theocentric” theory of religious pluralism, according to which the ultimate divine reality at the center of the religious universe cannot be definitively or absolutely named in terms of any of the great divine names of human religions, including Yahweh or Jesus Christ or Allah or Brahman, etc. These are described as penultimate “personae” or “impersonae”—masks of human creation that attempt to express the inexpressible “noumenon” of the divine reality. The “theos” at the center thus becomes abstract, impersonal, and finally ineffable (nothing at all can be said about him/her/it). But the sharp precision of the Shema cannot be evaporated into a philosophical abstraction or relegated to a penultimate level of truth. Its majestic declaration of a monotheism defined by the history-laden, character-rich, covenant-related, dynamic personhood of “Yahweh our God,” shows that the abstract and definitionally undefinable “being” of religious pluralism is really a monism without meaning or message.
“And you shall love the LORD your God.” Statement and response is the typical form of Deuteronomic exhortation, characteristic indeed of the biblical faith. “We love, because he first loved us,” is a NT text that could as easily have been at home in Deuteronomy. So here in verse 5, the affirmation about Yahweh is followed by the claim upon Israel’s total allegiance. The two halves of the Shema thus mirror the opening of the Decalogue, with the declaratory preface followed by the exclusive claims of the first two commandments (5:6–10).
The command to love God is one of Deuteronomy’s favorite ways of expressing the response God expects from the people (10:12; 11:1, 13, 22; 13:3; 19:9; 30:6, 16, 20). It features also in the covenant renewal texts, Josh. 22:5; 23:11, which draw so much on the Deuteronomic model. In the context of a broken covenant, it is found in the prayers of Daniel (Dan. 9:4) and Nehemiah (1:5), drawing, perhaps on the worship of the Psalms as well as Deuteronomy (Pss. 31:23; 97:10; 145:20). A very early poetic use in the context of the early wars of Israel in Canaan is in Judges 5:31.
For Deuteronomy, the command to love is so often linked with the command to obey, in a sort of prose parallelism, that the two terms are virtually synonymous (though they should not be simply identified; “love” clearly has a distinctive range of affective meaning not entirely equivalent to the practical sense of “obey”). The simple fact that Deuteronomy’s love is one that can be commanded shows that it is not merely an emotion. It is also a commitment to Yahweh, which generates corresponding action in line with his word. “If you love me, keep my commandments.”
This committed, covenantal response to Yahweh was to be total: with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. The wholeness, or oneness, of Yahweh (v. 4) is to be met with a response involving the wholeness of the human person (v. 5). The expression “heart and soul” is another characteristic Deuteronomic phrase (seen in 4:29; 10:12; 11:13; 13:3; 26:16; 30:2, 6, 10). The heart (lēbāb) in Hebrew was not so much the seat of emotions and feelings—as it is in English metaphors—as the seat of the intellect, will, and intention. You think in your heart, and your heart shapes your character, choices, and decisions. It is also the center of the human being as a moral agent (cf. also its prominence in Proverbs). It is understandable, therefore, that the gospel version of the great commandment adds the word “mind” (dianoia) to the list. Dianoia (understanding, intelligence) is the word the LXX uses to translate lēbāb, in this text and most others.
Soul is more often than not a misleading translation of Hebrew nepeš, since it has connotations in English that are simply not present in Hebrew. Nepeš means the life of each individual, and applies to animals as much as humans (cf. Gen. 1:20, 24; 2:7; Lev. 17:11, 14). In the legal texts it is frequently used in the sense of “a person, an individual, anyone,” or in the sense of “a life” that can be taken or lost. But most often it is used to express the whole inner self, with all the emotions, desires, and personal characteristics that make each human being unique. “Bless the LORD, O my nepeš,” sings the Psalmist, who then amplifies his meaning, “and all that is within me bless his holy name” (Ps. 103:1 RSV).
To love God, then, with all your heart and with all your soul, means with your whole self, including your rationality, mental capacity, moral choices and will, inner feelings and desires, and the deepest roots of your life. To this profound pair, the Shema adds a third, remarkable item: (lit.) “and with all your very-muchness” (m e ʾōd). This word is everywhere else used adverbially, meaning “greatly,” “exceedingly.” Here it is almost uniquely used as a noun in its own right and is open to various translations, of which strength is the most common. However, the earliest Jewish versions (including the Targum) translated it as “your substance” or “your possessions”—an acceptable possibility that has some support in Proverbs 3:9 and may lie behind some of Jesus’ parables and conversations (such as Matt. 6:19–24; Luke 12:13–21). It may even be that this third word is simply intensifying the other two as a climax. “Love the Lord your God with total commitment (heart), with your total self (soul), to total excess!” Loving God should be “over the top!” Such commitment characterized Josiah in his reforming zeal after the discovery of the Book of the Law of the LORD. Josiah alone in the Deuteronomistic History is credited with explicitly measuring up to the second verse of the Shema (2 Kgs. 23:25).
6:6–9 The law, however, was not just for kings like Josiah. It was for everyone. It was to be in the heart as well as the head, in the home as well as the courts. These verses powerfully dispel two misconceptions. The first misconception is that OT law was a matter of legalistic conformity to an external code. On the contrary, Deuteronomy 6:6 is part of a strong stream of OT teaching that calls for the internalizing of the law in the heart, i.e., at the center of a person’s mind, will, and character (cf. 4:9; 10:16; 11:18; Jer. 4:4; 31:33; Ezek. 18:31; 36:26f.). The second misconception is that religious traditions and observances are the preserve of a professional elite with esoteric knowledge, whether clerical or academic. The priests of Israel were, indeed, to teach the law, but not as something only they within the confines of the professional guild could understand. On the contrary, the law was to be the topic of ordinary conversation in ordinary homes in ordinary life, from breakfast to bedtime (v. 7; cf. the comments on the law being accessible and “near” in 30:11–14). Such would be its popular scope and relevance.
Once again, the rapid sequence of verbs helps us feel the force of the advice: impress them [the commandments] . . . talk about them . . . tie them . . . bind them . . . write them. The law of God is thus to be applied to the individual (your hands and your foreheads), the family (your houses), and public, civic society (your gates, the place of public business, courts, markets, etc.). The believer must work out the meaning of loving God in appropriate ways for all three levels. The love-commitment of the whole person in verse 5 is thus expanded to the whole community in verses 7–9.
Christian readers of 6:8–9 may be tempted to dismiss the Jewish use of tefillin (phylacteries) and mezuzot (scrolls inscribed with these verses, placed in cases, and fixed on doorposts) as unnecessary literalism (see additional note). However, the question is whether we are any more serious or successful in flavoring the whole of life with conscious attention to the law of God (v. 7, which is not at all “symbolic”) as a personal, familial, and social strategy for living out our commitment to loving God totally.
6:10–16 Nothing, said the Apostle Paul, can separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8:35–39). Unfortunately there is plenty that can separate God from the love of God’s people. Verses 10–19 follow the positive commands of 6:4–9 with a sharply contrasting warning against three ways Israel may be distracted from the wholehearted love of Yahweh. These verses are often regarded as an insertion, in view of this sudden change of tone, and in some ways verses 20–25 do follow very naturally from verses 7–9. The effect of the whole passage, however, is to sandwich the negative thrust of the warnings (vv. 10–19) in between two very positive sections on Israel’s response to Yahweh (vv. 4–9, 20–25). The overall flavor of the chapter is thus characteristic of the balance of Deuteronomy as a whole: obedienee, though sanctioned by the reality of God’s wrath, should be primarily motivated by gratitude and love in responding to God’s grace.
The three warnings are indicated by the triple do not in verses 12, 14, and 16, each of which flashes danger lights marking temptations Israel would be exposed to. Each of the three warnings, given in brief form here, is considerably expanded in the following two chapters, so our comments at this point will be similarly brief and preliminary.
The danger of forgetting God because of affluence (6:10–13). There is no embarrassment in Deuteronomy in anticipating the abundance and richness of life in the land that lay ahead. God’s desire for the people of God was (and still ultimately remains) a full life, enjoying the gifts of creation. But equally there is no illusion regarding the likely behavior of the people; in the enjoyment of the gift they might forget the giver. So these verses build up to that danger with rhetorical skill. First, there comes the reminder that the land itself is a promise-gift of God’s grace (10a). Next, there is a description of the land, full of material bonuses that had a traditional prestige (10b–11; cf. Josh. 24:13; Neh. 9:25), climaxing with “and you will eat and (lit.) be full.” The dreamlike sequence is shattered with the opening words of verse 12: “Watch out!” Fullness can lead to forgetfulness, especially forgetfulness of where they came from and what Yahweh had rescued them from—the land of slavery.
In order not to forget, they must determine to fear Yahweh and serve him only (v. 13). The English obscures the sharpness of the Hebrew, in which “slavery” and “serve” are the same root word (and the NIV spoils the contrast further with its paragraph break after v. 12). Those whom God had emancipated out of slavery to Egypt must live as God’s own loyal slaves. The structure of verse 13 in Hebrew emphasizes that God should be first in allegiance; God comes first in the word order of the sentence; (lit.) “The LORD your God shall you fear and him shall you serve and in his name shall you swear.” To swear in the name of Yahweh was to acknowledge Yahweh as the highest authority (hence the seriousness of doing so frivolously or with evil intent, 5:11). This entire chapter seems to have been foremost in Jesus’ mind when he went into the wilderness following his baptism. Jesus cited this verse when he refused to bow down and worship Satan or acknowledge Satan as in any way comparable to his Father God (Matt. 4:8–10).
The danger of abandoning God because of surrounding idolatry (6:14–15). In 4:16–19 the warning was given to avoid being enticed into worshipping the heavenly bodies. Here Canaanite idolatry is in view. The temptation would be very strong to adopt the religion of the people of the land in order to reap any potential benefits. But that would be fundamentally incompatible with covenant loyalty and would therefore arouse the jealousy and anger of Yahweh (see commentary on 5:9).
The danger of doubting God because of hardship (6:16). Deuteronomy 8:1–5 draws further lessons from Israel’s experience of need and hardship in the wilderness years. This verse singles out one event, the murmuring at Massah, when there was a shortage of drinkable water (Exod. 17:1–7). Both here and in the Exodus narrative the people’s reaction is described as “testing” the LORD. The Hebrew word (nissāh, from which the place was named) does not mean to tempt someone by trying to entice them to do what is wrong, but rather to test or prove whether someone will really do what they say. This is precisely the nuance of the people’s challenge at Massah (Exod. 17:7), “This God Yahweh, can he do what he promised, is he really competent, is he really with us?” Such “testing” of Yahweh flows from a lack of belief in Yahweh’s word and comes despite the fact that this people has witnessed Yahweh’s previous faithfulness (cf. 1:31–33). This kind of testing is commonly induced by need and hardship and this warning comes because life will not always be as idyllic and effortless as pictured in verse 11.
Jesus indicates the depth of his meditation on this chapter when he quotes this verse in response to Satan (Matt. 4:5–7). The suggestion that he should “prove” God’s protective commitment to him by jumping off the temple in Jerusalem when he still had ringing in his ears the voice of his Father God, with its combination of recognition, approval, and commissioning, was rightly resisted as utterly out of line with the command of Deuteronomy 6:16. Where Israel, God’s first-born son (Exod. 4:22), had so often distrusted and disobeyed, in spite of spectacular demonstrations of God’s benevolence, the Son of God would trust and obey.
6:17–19 The positive antidote to such forgetfulness, desertion, or doubting of God is the determined positive effort to keep God’s commands. Thus the negative do nots of the previous verses are replaced by the positive Do . . . of verse 18. There is no thought here of Israel earning possession of the land by doing what is right and good; rather, the land-gift was entirely grounded in the ancestral promise (v. 18b), and given so that it may go well with you. Possession without blessing would be worthless, and the driving out of their enemies would be a mere prologue to their own evacuation (8:19f.). These verses echo and balance the earlier challenge of the chapter in verses 2–3.
6:20–25 Bringing both balance and climax, this final section of the chapter returns to the teaching theme of verses 6–7. It continues the message of verse 9, with the intervening warnings serving to reinforce the importance of their message. Like a number of other texts (see additional note), this passage envisages internal family teaching, in which parents answer children’s questions regarding specific events, memorials, rituals, or observances. The child’s question then becomes the springboard for explanation and teaching, rather like a catechism (which some scholars suggest is what we have fragments of here). The first thing to notice is that such questions and teaching opportunities would arise only if the parents themselves were conspicuously observing the laws. What was true for Israel as a whole (cf. Deut. 4:6–8) was true for each family—no observance, no questions.
The son’s question in verse 20 is (lit.) “What [are] the stipulations, decrees and laws . . . ?” He is presumably not asking what they are in content, since he would already know that through the family’s observation of them. So we have to assume the question means something like “What is the meaning of . . . ?” or “What is the real significance of . . . ?” or “What is the point of . . . ?” or even, “Why do we keep these laws?” In fact, as it turns out, the father’s answer combines the historical basis of the law, its divine origin, and the beneficial value of keeping it.
It would have been quite easy to imagine the text going straight from verse 20 to verse 24, “Why do we keep these laws? Because the LORD commanded us.” Period. (Most parents will have felt the temptation to answer children’s “why’s” in similar fashion.) The moral obligation of an imperative from God should be enough to elicit obedience. But will it be? If this is all that is given by explanation, the son might very well give Pharaoh’s response, “Who is Yahweh that I should obey him?” (Exod. 5:2) The full answer, therefore, takes the same classic form as the Decalogue itself by stating the facts of redemption on which Yahweh’s identity and Yahweh’s claim on Israel were simultaneously founded. The LORD who commanded us (v. 24) is the LORD who delivered us (vv. 21–23). These are the additional reasons for these stipulations, decrees, and laws.
Verses 21–24 provide such a concise but comprehensive summary of the central elements of Israel’s faith that some scholars regard them as an example of Israel’s earliest “creeds” (see additional notes), incorporating the traditions of exodus, land-gift, and patriarchal promise. It is virtually the OT “gospel” in a nutshell. The crucial point here, however, is that this definitive statement of Israel’s salvation history is given as the answer to a fundamental question about the law. The son asks about the law and is answered with a story—the old, old story of Yahweh and his love. The meaning of the law is to be found in the gospel. The basis of the law lies in the history of redemption (vv. 21–23); the reason for keeping the law is to enjoy the blessings of redemption (v. 24); the fruit of obeying the law is the righteousness that is the goal of redemption (v. 25).
In the light of the emphatic thrust of the previous verses, it is impossible to read into verse 25 any kind of alleged “works righteousness.” The context makes it impossible to think that righteousness (in a salvific sense, which is in any case almost certainly not its meaning here) is somehow achieved by obedience to the law. Rather the point of the father’s whole answer is that obedience to the law is the only right response to the saving acts of such a God as Yahweh. Indeed, “the righteousnesses of Yahweh” is one way the OT sums up his saving actions for Israel, done out of the redemptive initiative of his grace. Our righteousness is the obedient response that flows from the gratitude of those enjoying liberty, life, and well-being as God’s gift. It probably also includes that enduring blessing on family and social life that is the equally God-given fruit of such obedience. It is, in short, a righteousness that presumes the experience of redemption, not a righteousness that presumes to achieve redemption (see additional note).
Additional Notes
6:4 The Hb. words have no verb, because Hb. normally omits the verb “to be” in simple predicative sentences. The verse reads, Yahweh ʾ e lōhênû Yahweh ʾeḥād. Its sense is then governed by where we assume “is” should be understood and whether it should be understood once or twice. Thus, as the NIV footnote points out, four readings are possible:
(a) Yahweh is our God; Yahweh is one.
(b) Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone.
(c) Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one.
(d) Yahweh our God is one Yahweh.
The best recent discussion of the exegesis is by Moberly, “Yahweh is One.” Moberly excludes (a) and (b) on the grounds that “our God” is never used predicatively (i.e., with “is” understood) anywhere else in Deut. but is used exclusively (in its 300 instances) in a descriptive or adjectival sense. Also, it is questionable whether ʾeḥād, which is simply the numeral “one,” is ever used anywhere else in the OT to mean “alone” (for which l e bādād was used). He therefore argues that we must choose between senses (c) and (d), and he prefers (c) because of its easier sense and in view of its similarity to Zech. 14:9.
On the idea of the integrity of Yahweh as the implication of the text, cf. Janzen, “Shema.”
6:5 On the covenantal significance of the command to love Yahweh, its background in the treaty texts, and its filial significance, cf. Moran, “Love of God”; McCarthy, “Love of God”; McKay, “Man’s Love for God.” On the probable influence of these ideas on Jesus’ own conception of his divine sonship, cf. C. J. H. Wright, Knowing Jesus, pp. 117–35.
In Jewish tradition, the full form of the Shema, which was for daily recitation, was a composite text including Deut. 6:4–9; 11:13–21; and Num. 15:37–41, with appropriate benedictions attached. A very helpful exposition of the meaning of the Shema, including its Jewish interpretation, its NT forms, and its contemporary force, is McBride, “Yoke of the Kingdom.”
6:8–9 While there is no reason why these instructions could not have been intended literally (esp. those regarding doors and gates), it seems more likely that at least v. 8 was intended metaphorically, since the same imagery is used regarding specific ritual activities in Exod. 13:9 (the passover) and Exod. 13:16 (the sacrifice of first-born animals and the redemption and dedication of first-born sons). Cf. also Prov. 3:3; 6:21; 7:3. Jewish tradition has taken both verses literally. For details, see Hirsch, “Phylacteries.”
6:16 On the incident at Massah and other references to Israel “testing” Yahweh, cf. Exod. 17:1–7; Num. 14:22; Deut. 9:22; 33:8; Pss. 78:18; 95:8f.; 106:14. Ahaz misused Deut. 6:16 by refusing to ask for a sign when God actually offered him one in order to confirm the prophetic word (Isa. 7:10ff.). Ahaz piously quotes this verse in an attempt to conceal the very refusal to believe God’s word that the verse itself is directed against! No wonder Isaiah’s patience snapped (Isa. 7:13).
6:20–25 This pattern, in which a child asks a question and is given a clearly didactic answer, is found in four places, all of which relate to important aspects of Israel’s early history: Exod. 12:26f. (the passover); 13:14f. (the rite of the first-born); Deut. 6:20–25 (the meaning of the law); Josh. 4:6f., 20–24 (the stones from the crossing of the Jordan). It has been suggested that these texts may be evidence of a liturgical form of catechesis. See Soggin, “Catechesis.” Whether or not this was so, it is certainly evidence of the importance of the family in the preservation and inculcation of Israel’s historical faith and its implications (cf. the comments on the fifth commandment). Cf. C. J. H. Wright, God’s Land, pp. 81–89.
Verses 21–24 were isolated by von Rad as an example of what he described as an early Israelite “credo.” Other examples include Deut. 26:5–9 and a more expanded form in Josh. 24:2–13. On the basis of the fact that these summaries of Israel’s history do not explicitly refer to the tradition of the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai, von Rad (“Problem”) argued that the Sinai tradition was originally totally separate from the historical exodus-conquest tradition. For a survey and critical discussion of the large literature this proposal generated, see Hyatt, “Credo,” and Nicholson, Exodus and Sinai. Both of these scholars reject von Rad’s separation of the traditions on this basis. See also C. J. H. Wright, God’s Land, pp. 13–15, 24–43.
6:25 It is unlikely that the word “righteousness” is being used here in a forensic sense, i.e., of being “in the right” legally. This seems to be the basis (misleadingly in my view) of the REB “For us to be in the right we should . . . ,” and the NRSV, “If . . . we will be in the right.” That is hardly the issue in the context and if it had been intended would probably have been expressed differently in Hb. (“we shall be righteous [ones], ṣaddîqîm”). The Hb. text is (lit.) “and righteousness (ṣ e dāqâ) there will be for us.” The construction normally expresses a possessive relationship, as in the grammatically identical “There will be for you no other gods” (5:7), i.e., “You shall have no other gods.” The most natural meaning, then, is “ṣ e dāqâ will be ours,” i.e., “We shall have ṣ e dāqâ.” It is then more probable that the word ṣ e dāqâ (a notoriously flexible word) has a passive rather than an active meaning here. That is, it is not, “we shall be doing what is right,” (doubtless true, but somewhat redundant), but rather, “we shall have, experience, enjoy the blessing of, everything being right—in our family, in our society, and in our relationship with God.” Elsewhere, the fruit of Israel’s obedience is God’s blessing, and there are other contexts where righteousness and blessing (b e rākâ) are virtually synonymous, including the very appropriate Ps. 24:4–5. This view is indebted to Moberly’s stimulating study of the meaning of the righteousness reckoned to Abraham (Gen. 15:6), to Phinehas (Ps. 106:31), and in the text: “Abraham’s Righteousness.”
An interesting point of style in the whole chapter is that this law in the final verse is singular and is the same word as the commands in v. 1 (hammiṣwâ). If this singular expression, “this whole command,” has a particular reference to the Shema, as some think, then the beginning and end of the chapter “enclose” it rather attractively.