Deuteronomy 6:2
That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.
To fear the Lord is to keep all His statutes and commandments continually all the days of life. The duty binds three generations together, parent and child and grandchild, in the same obedience. Faithful obedience brings prolonged days with well-being and success in the land God gives, including health and strength of body when the laws governing the physical being are obeyed. Those who obey from the heart receive His blessing and protecting care, while wholehearted service rather than mere outward compliance is what carries the promise. Parents therefore bear the sacred responsibility to begin early and teach God's requirements diligently, line upon line and precept upon precept, with patient and thorough physical, mental, and moral training.
Meaning and Historical Setting
To fear the Lord is to keep all His statutes and His commandments all the days of life, with reverence shown by lifelong obedience and by teaching that obedience to children and grandchildren. The obligation reaches beyond the individual to bind three generations together, thou and thy son and thy son's son, making obedience a household and family matter across a lifetime. Parental instruction carries this forward, so that children learn obedience line upon line and precept upon precept and learn what it means to honor father and mother.
The verse continues the definite specification of the commandments in Deuteronomy 5, including the Sabbath day to be kept holy with rest for the whole household in remembrance of deliverance from Egypt. It gives the commandments, statutes, and judgments to be taught and done in the land Israel was going to possess. It was spoken by Jesus Christ to Moses to give to more than a million people who had come out of Egypt.
Keeping is joined with hearing and observing to do, for well-being and mighty increase in the land flowing with milk and honey promised to the fathers. It is joined also with loving the Lord with all the heart and soul and might, taking the whole man into covenant relation with God. The words were to remain in the heart and be taught diligently to children in daily life, in the house and by the way and night and morning. They were to be bound for a sign upon the hand and as frontlets between the eyes and written upon house and gates, kept constantly before them to keep them from every false way.
Promise and Generational Faithfulness
Faithful obedience is joined to prolonged days, well-being, and success and life in the land God gave, with reverence for God shown by keeping all His statutes and commandments throughout life and by teaching them to children and grandchildren. Keeping them belongs to parents, their children, and their grandchildren all the days of life, as words to be regarded as His own and followed diligently in daily household life, with God's law remaining in the heart. Obedience was to guide Israel in the land God gave them, and God's people must love and fear Him and obey His commands rather than disregard His Word or follow their own pleasure.
The prolonged life includes physical life, because obedience to God's requirements brings the obedient under the laws that control the physical being. Health, life, and happiness are the result of obedience to the physical laws governing the body, by bringing all appetites and passions into subjection, not indulging lustful passion and intemperate appetite, and remaining under control to God while wisely employing physical, mental, and moral powers so the bodily mechanism remains in good working order. When will and way are in accordance with God's will and way to do the pleasure of the Creator, He keeps the human organism in good condition and restores the moral, mental, and physical powers so He may work through them to His glory, with His restoring power constantly manifested in the body. Cooperating with Him brings health and happiness, peace and usefulness as sure results.
Everyone who obeys the commandments from the heart and follows the path of obedience receives the promise that days may be prolonged and it may be well, with heavenly intelligences ready to cooperate and with God's blessing and protecting care and guardianship over them. God can protect His obedient people against the enemy who claims transgressors and seeks to bring his power upon them, but the disobedient cannot have that blessing and protection and must consider their situation. The promise of long life and well-being belongs to such wholehearted service to God, not to mechanical compliance or work done merely to please people, by bringing the principles of God's Word into daily life and doing one's work willingly and faithfully as service to Him.
Parents carry the sacred duty to take responsibility for training their children in godly character, beginning children's instruction in Bible principles early and from their earliest years to fear the Lord and learn the Scriptures. They are to teach obedience to God's commandments diligently across generations, line upon line and precept upon precept, patiently, carefully, mercifully and diligently, giving physical, mental and moral instruction, keeping the claims of God ever before children and never neglecting religious training. This parental instruction is how children are taught what it means to honor father and mother in obedience to the commandment, a duty parents have neglected.
The instruction matters to everyone carrying responsibility in sacred work, from the greatest to those that may seem least, calling for reverence for God and careful obedience to all His statutes and commandments across generations including children and grandchildren. Its special lesson is to put the Lord's instructions into practice by walking in the light and doing the work God has specified, following what the Lord had given rather than neglecting or disregarding His Word or following own pleasure. It shows what God required of His ancient people that they might be a holy people unto Himself, to fear the Lord and keep all His statutes and commandments through generations of parents and children and grandchildren so their days might be prolonged. That requirement is to be studied and read with profit now because the day of God's great final review is near, when the people of this world must stand before the Judge of all the earth to answer for their deeds, in the present time of investigation when every character will have been investigated and every case decided for eternity.