Hear, O Israel declares that the Lord who is Israel's God is one Lord, and there is none besides Him. Joined to that oneness is the first and greatest command to love Him with the whole heart and soul and mind and strength, taking the whole person into covenant relation with Him. This supreme love to God, with love to neighbor as self, is the great fundamental principle on which hang all the law and the prophets. His words are to be kept continually in the heart and taught diligently to children and grandchildren in daily life, when sitting and walking and lying down and rising up. Hearing and obeying from the heart brings it well with prolonged days and increase under His blessing and protection, while disobedience removes that protection and leaves transgressors exposed to the enemy.
Words and Historical Setting
The declaration was spoken by Jesus Christ through Moses to more than a million people come out of Egypt as God's command to Israel going to possess the land. It was delivered from the pillar of cloud and fire by Christ as Israel's visible Leader in the wilderness. He who spoke through Moses to the Hebrew people is the same who proclaimed the law from Sinai and spoke the Sermon on the Mount, so the gospel teaching is only a reiteration of what He had already spoken. The same voice that declared God is one Lord to Israel then gives lessons to His people today and repeated the same command to love God fully when He lived on earth in humanity.
The verse belongs to Deuteronomy 4-8, also described as chapters 4-11, showing what God required of His ancient people in order to be a holy people unto Himself and how He dealt with them. It is joined with chapters 5 and 7, continuing the definite requirement of chapter five including the Sabbath command. God's directions there, from the greatest to what may seem least, are to be carefully observed as part of Israel's calling to serve Him. That surrounding instruction presents loving and fearing God and obeying His commands as essential to faithful life and is instruction all should follow.
The verse calls Israel to hear and observe to do the commandments, statutes, and judgments so it may be well with them and they may increase mightily in the land flowing with milk and honey promised to their fathers. It was spoken in God's command to Israel as they went to possess that land, requiring obedience from the heart by parents and sons and grandsons all the days of life. The whole chapter is a lesson to be studied, setting forth hearing and obeying, loving fully, keeping His words in the heart, fearing and serving Him alone, and doing what is right and good to possess the land.
One God Alone
Hear, O Israel: the Lord who is Israel's God is one Lord, Israel's one God, and there is none besides Him. This is direct and explicit truth holding first place, the declaration that God is one. His words and commandments are to remain continually in the mind and guide obedience, kept in the heart, taught diligently to children, and kept present in daily life when sitting in the house and walking by the way and lying down and rising up, bound as a sign and written on house posts and gates. The call is to hear and observe to do what He commands for good and well-being, with promise of mighty increase in the land flowing with milk and honey promised to the fathers. It grounds the command to love Him with all the heart and all the soul and all the might, taking in the whole person, with dependence wholly on the Lord assuring prosperity.
That oneness demands exclusive worship and trust, to fear and serve Him alone and swear by His name. Israel is not to go after other gods because He is a jealous God, nor to tempt Him as at Massah, but to diligently keep His commandments and testimonies and statutes and do what is right and good to possess the land. The eyes are to be kept fixed on the divine Ruler, fearing and honoring Him as Leader and trusting Him to bring safely through even in trying circumstances. Parents were to teach children to know Him in this way, so that the heart's affections and thoughts are not given to created things instead of the Creator. Remembering Him when brought into the promised land of cities and houses and wells and vineyards not built by Israel, and when full not forgetting the Lord who brought Israel out of Egypt from bondage, preserves life and is counted as righteousness when His statutes are kept in godly fear rather than servile fear.
His oneness makes unity in diversity His plan. Among Christ's followers diverse elements and different temperaments are to blend together, one adapted to the other. Each is to do its special work for God and fill its place in one great plan bearing Christ's image, since no one mind alone is sufficient but several united are needed in the work.
Supreme Love for God
The declaration that the Lord is Israel's one God is joined to the command to love Him with all the heart and all the soul and all the might, including mind and strength and understanding. That love takes in the whole person and brings the whole man into covenant relation with God, and depending wholly on the Lord is involved in it and assures prosperity. The command was meant to be inward, with His words kept in the heart shaping mind and character and then taught diligently, not kept as outward display. God's words are to be held in the heart and taught throughout ordinary daily life, when sitting in the house and walking by the way and lying down and rising up, bound as a sign and as frontlets and written on house posts and gates.
Such supreme love is evidence that truth is an abiding principle in the mind and heart. It expresses the completeness of Christ's character, and keeping God's commandments in this way is wisdom and understanding. It calls for obedience with the whole man, with mind and heart and soul and strength, in full and entire surrender of the whole being, which is true sanctification and the condition for life. The standard God gave at Sinai remains the same under the gospel and is stated in the terms of eternal life, warning against giving the heart's affections and thoughts to created things instead of the Creator.
This wholehearted love is a requirement of God's law and the right answer to what a person must do to inherit eternal life. It is the same instruction given to the lawyer seeking eternal life, to love the Lord with all heart and soul and might with His words kept in the heart. Doing this gives life, making obedience a life-or-death question where obedience means life and disobedience means death.
Law's Enduring Foundation
Joined to the call to love with all heart and soul and might and mind, the declaration that the Lord is one states the first of the two great principles of the law, supreme love to God with love to neighbor as self, on which hang all the law and the prophets. It is the first of all the commandments, answering which of the ten precepts is of greatest importance and holding first place above all others. It is the great fundamental principle of love to God on which the ten commandments rest, joined to love for neighbor as covering the whole duty to God and fellow man, adapted to all mankind for the instruction and government of all, entrusted to Israel as a sacred trust for the whole world and carried out in the ten brief, comprehensive, authoritative precepts. Keeping the first four commandments keeps the other six because supreme love to God involves all other requirements, and love for neighbor flows out of and is founded on love for God.
The same principle was taught when He lived on earth in humanity and when the Word became flesh to teach how to be saved, giving the same instruction to the lawyer seeking eternal life. To confess one God and none other, to love Him fully and the neighbor as self, is more acceptable to God than whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices, because outward ceremony without inward piety, love, and obedience is worthless. Honestly acknowledging the one God and answering discreetly with moral courage in opposition puts one near and not far from the kingdom of God, yet still leaves the need to recognize Christ's divine character and receive through living faith pardon and power to do the works of righteousness the law enjoins.
God's claims and principles of government remain unchanged across the ages, with the same teacher, same claims, and same principles in both dispensations in one continuous plan of redemption unfolding gradually with different degrees of development and manifestations of power to meet human needs, because all proceeds from One with whom is no variableness. By contrast the Jewish leaders claimed God's oracles and were outwardly strict while continually breaking the law, teaching human traditions for God's commandments and misleading the people in spiritual blindness and ignorance of the Scriptures and the power of God.
Teaching Children Diligently
The declaration that the Lord is one lays a sacred duty on parents, including sons and grandsons, and on all entrusted with training the young, including teachers, to train children from very infancy and from their earliest years to form characters that meet God's approval. Nothing is to be regarded as important enough to take the place of that work, and failure in it is sinful neglect. The work is to be done line upon line and precept upon precept, by patient, careful, merciful and diligent physical, mental and moral instruction that keeps God's claims ever before the children. It calls for self-control for the sake of the Creator and Redeemer, for every precaution to prevent objectionable traits of character from growing up, and for never neglecting religious training. This same instruction is to be given to students as the foundation of higher education.
God's words are to remain continually in mind and heart, kept as a continual reminder and as the guiding rule of experience. They are to be taught diligently by talking of them continually in ordinary daily life, when sitting in the house and when walking by the way and when lying down and when rising up. They are to be bound for a sign upon the hand and as frontlets between the eyes, and written upon the posts of the house and on the gates. The truth is to be preserved and passed on from parents to children from generation to generation, so that children know God and His requirements, and the declaration is not to be passed by indifferently.
Parents are to be prepared to tell their sons that they were Pharaoh's bondmen and that the Lord brought them out with signs and wonders to give them the land promised to the fathers. In this way children are taught what honoring father and mother means in obedience to the commandment. Careful instruction joined with parents' own obedience leads children to obey and reverence God and to become loyal subjects of His kingdom, since honoring God includes keeping His commandments and teaching them to children. This instruction was to be read to believers so that the church in Portland would give the message in wisdom and righteousness. It belongs to giving children a sound education in the fear of the Lord and guiding them from Scripture to Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Had fathers and mothers followed this direction, the sins and crimes now committed even by youth and children would not exist. The present evil condition of society, like the days of Noah and Lot, exists because parents and even religious teachers have disregarded this instruction and dishonored God's holy, just, and good law.
Promise Warning and Present Call
Hearing from the heart and observing to do all the commandments, statutes, and judgments brings the promise that it shall be well and days shall be prolonged, with mighty increase in the land flowing with milk and honey as promised to the fathers. This obedience is to be from the heart by parents and sons and grandsons all the days of life, loving God not with part of the heart but with all the heart and with all the soul and with all the might, with His words kept in the heart and taught diligently to children when sitting in the house and walking by the way and lying down and rising up, bound for a sign upon the hand and as frontlets between the eyes and written upon the posts of the house and on the gates. Keeping them brings God's blessing and protecting care and guardianship, with heavenly intelligences ready to cooperate, and depending wholly on the Lord assures prosperity. Keeping God's commandments is wisdom and understanding, and full and entire surrender of the whole being in obedience with mind, heart, soul, and strength is true sanctification and the condition for life.
It means remembering Him when brought into the promised land of cities and houses and wells and vineyards not built by Israel, and when full not forgetting the Lord who brought Israel out of Egypt from bondage. It means fearing and serving Him alone and swearing by His name, not going after other gods because He is a jealous God, not tempting Him as at Massah, and diligently keeping His commandments and testimonies and statutes and doing what is right and good to possess the land. Parents are to be prepared to tell their sons that they were Pharaoh's bondmen and the Lord brought them out with signs and wonders to give them the land, and keeping all these statutes in godly fear, not servile fear, preserves life and is counted as righteousness.
Disobedience removes that protection and leaves His possessions exposed to the enemy who claims transgressors, making obedience a life-or-death question where obedience means life and disobedience means death. Parents must therefore listen to the Word of the Lord rather than men and must not close their eyes to the truth or teach their children that the commandments of God are not obligatory.
The instruction belongs to what God required of His ancient people in order for them to be a holy people unto Himself, presenting loving and fearing God and obeying His commands as essential to faithful life and to preserving His commandments and passing them on to future generations. It is to be studied now with profit because the world is nearing God's great final review, when all 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. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is to be examined as part of God's Word to determine whether a person bears the King's mark and has been chosen and set apart to honor God.
Hear, O Israel declares that the Lord who is Israel's God is one Lord, and there is none besides Him. Joined to that oneness is the first and greatest command to love Him with the whole heart and soul and mind and strength, taking the whole person into covenant relation with Him. This supreme love to God, with love to neighbor as self, is the great fundamental principle on which hang all the law and the prophets. His words are to be kept continually in the heart and taught diligently to children and grandchildren in daily life, when sitting and walking and lying down and rising up. Hearing and obeying from the heart brings it well with prolonged days and increase under His blessing and protection, while disobedience removes that protection and leaves transgressors exposed to the enemy.
Words and Historical Setting
The declaration was spoken by Jesus Christ through Moses to more than a million people come out of Egypt as God's command to Israel going to possess the land. It was delivered from the pillar of cloud and fire by Christ as Israel's visible Leader in the wilderness. He who spoke through Moses to the Hebrew people is the same who proclaimed the law from Sinai and spoke the Sermon on the Mount, so the gospel teaching is only a reiteration of what He had already spoken. The same voice that declared God is one Lord to Israel then gives lessons to His people today and repeated the same command to love God fully when He lived on earth in humanity.
The verse belongs to Deuteronomy 4-8, also described as chapters 4-11, showing what God required of His ancient people in order to be a holy people unto Himself and how He dealt with them. It is joined with chapters 5 and 7, continuing the definite requirement of chapter five including the Sabbath command. God's directions there, from the greatest to what may seem least, are to be carefully observed as part of Israel's calling to serve Him. That surrounding instruction presents loving and fearing God and obeying His commands as essential to faithful life and is instruction all should follow.
The verse calls Israel to hear and observe to do the commandments, statutes, and judgments so it may be well with them and they may increase mightily in the land flowing with milk and honey promised to their fathers. It was spoken in God's command to Israel as they went to possess that land, requiring obedience from the heart by parents and sons and grandsons all the days of life. The whole chapter is a lesson to be studied, setting forth hearing and obeying, loving fully, keeping His words in the heart, fearing and serving Him alone, and doing what is right and good to possess the land.
One God Alone
Hear, O Israel: the Lord who is Israel's God is one Lord, Israel's one God, and there is none besides Him. This is direct and explicit truth holding first place, the declaration that God is one. His words and commandments are to remain continually in the mind and guide obedience, kept in the heart, taught diligently to children, and kept present in daily life when sitting in the house and walking by the way and lying down and rising up, bound as a sign and written on house posts and gates. The call is to hear and observe to do what He commands for good and well-being, with promise of mighty increase in the land flowing with milk and honey promised to the fathers. It grounds the command to love Him with all the heart and all the soul and all the might, taking in the whole person, with dependence wholly on the Lord assuring prosperity.
That oneness demands exclusive worship and trust, to fear and serve Him alone and swear by His name. Israel is not to go after other gods because He is a jealous God, nor to tempt Him as at Massah, but to diligently keep His commandments and testimonies and statutes and do what is right and good to possess the land. The eyes are to be kept fixed on the divine Ruler, fearing and honoring Him as Leader and trusting Him to bring safely through even in trying circumstances. Parents were to teach children to know Him in this way, so that the heart's affections and thoughts are not given to created things instead of the Creator. Remembering Him when brought into the promised land of cities and houses and wells and vineyards not built by Israel, and when full not forgetting the Lord who brought Israel out of Egypt from bondage, preserves life and is counted as righteousness when His statutes are kept in godly fear rather than servile fear.
His oneness makes unity in diversity His plan. Among Christ's followers diverse elements and different temperaments are to blend together, one adapted to the other. Each is to do its special work for God and fill its place in one great plan bearing Christ's image, since no one mind alone is sufficient but several united are needed in the work.
Supreme Love for God
The declaration that the Lord is Israel's one God is joined to the command to love Him with all the heart and all the soul and all the might, including mind and strength and understanding. That love takes in the whole person and brings the whole man into covenant relation with God, and depending wholly on the Lord is involved in it and assures prosperity. The command was meant to be inward, with His words kept in the heart shaping mind and character and then taught diligently, not kept as outward display. God's words are to be held in the heart and taught throughout ordinary daily life, when sitting in the house and walking by the way and lying down and rising up, bound as a sign and as frontlets and written on house posts and gates.
Such supreme love is evidence that truth is an abiding principle in the mind and heart. It expresses the completeness of Christ's character, and keeping God's commandments in this way is wisdom and understanding. It calls for obedience with the whole man, with mind and heart and soul and strength, in full and entire surrender of the whole being, which is true sanctification and the condition for life. The standard God gave at Sinai remains the same under the gospel and is stated in the terms of eternal life, warning against giving the heart's affections and thoughts to created things instead of the Creator.
This wholehearted love is a requirement of God's law and the right answer to what a person must do to inherit eternal life. It is the same instruction given to the lawyer seeking eternal life, to love the Lord with all heart and soul and might with His words kept in the heart. Doing this gives life, making obedience a life-or-death question where obedience means life and disobedience means death.
Law's Enduring Foundation
Joined to the call to love with all heart and soul and might and mind, the declaration that the Lord is one states the first of the two great principles of the law, supreme love to God with love to neighbor as self, on which hang all the law and the prophets. It is the first of all the commandments, answering which of the ten precepts is of greatest importance and holding first place above all others. It is the great fundamental principle of love to God on which the ten commandments rest, joined to love for neighbor as covering the whole duty to God and fellow man, adapted to all mankind for the instruction and government of all, entrusted to Israel as a sacred trust for the whole world and carried out in the ten brief, comprehensive, authoritative precepts. Keeping the first four commandments keeps the other six because supreme love to God involves all other requirements, and love for neighbor flows out of and is founded on love for God.
The same principle was taught when He lived on earth in humanity and when the Word became flesh to teach how to be saved, giving the same instruction to the lawyer seeking eternal life. To confess one God and none other, to love Him fully and the neighbor as self, is more acceptable to God than whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices, because outward ceremony without inward piety, love, and obedience is worthless. Honestly acknowledging the one God and answering discreetly with moral courage in opposition puts one near and not far from the kingdom of God, yet still leaves the need to recognize Christ's divine character and receive through living faith pardon and power to do the works of righteousness the law enjoins.
God's claims and principles of government remain unchanged across the ages, with the same teacher, same claims, and same principles in both dispensations in one continuous plan of redemption unfolding gradually with different degrees of development and manifestations of power to meet human needs, because all proceeds from One with whom is no variableness. By contrast the Jewish leaders claimed God's oracles and were outwardly strict while continually breaking the law, teaching human traditions for God's commandments and misleading the people in spiritual blindness and ignorance of the Scriptures and the power of God.
Teaching Children Diligently
The declaration that the Lord is one lays a sacred duty on parents, including sons and grandsons, and on all entrusted with training the young, including teachers, to train children from very infancy and from their earliest years to form characters that meet God's approval. Nothing is to be regarded as important enough to take the place of that work, and failure in it is sinful neglect. The work is to be done line upon line and precept upon precept, by patient, careful, merciful and diligent physical, mental and moral instruction that keeps God's claims ever before the children. It calls for self-control for the sake of the Creator and Redeemer, for every precaution to prevent objectionable traits of character from growing up, and for never neglecting religious training. This same instruction is to be given to students as the foundation of higher education.
God's words are to remain continually in mind and heart, kept as a continual reminder and as the guiding rule of experience. They are to be taught diligently by talking of them continually in ordinary daily life, when sitting in the house and when walking by the way and when lying down and when rising up. They are to be bound for a sign upon the hand and as frontlets between the eyes, and written upon the posts of the house and on the gates. The truth is to be preserved and passed on from parents to children from generation to generation, so that children know God and His requirements, and the declaration is not to be passed by indifferently.
Parents are to be prepared to tell their sons that they were Pharaoh's bondmen and that the Lord brought them out with signs and wonders to give them the land promised to the fathers. In this way children are taught what honoring father and mother means in obedience to the commandment. Careful instruction joined with parents' own obedience leads children to obey and reverence God and to become loyal subjects of His kingdom, since honoring God includes keeping His commandments and teaching them to children. This instruction was to be read to believers so that the church in Portland would give the message in wisdom and righteousness. It belongs to giving children a sound education in the fear of the Lord and guiding them from Scripture to Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Had fathers and mothers followed this direction, the sins and crimes now committed even by youth and children would not exist. The present evil condition of society, like the days of Noah and Lot, exists because parents and even religious teachers have disregarded this instruction and dishonored God's holy, just, and good law.
Promise Warning and Present Call
Hearing from the heart and observing to do all the commandments, statutes, and judgments brings the promise that it shall be well and days shall be prolonged, with mighty increase in the land flowing with milk and honey as promised to the fathers. This obedience is to be from the heart by parents and sons and grandsons all the days of life, loving God not with part of the heart but with all the heart and with all the soul and with all the might, with His words kept in the heart and taught diligently to children when sitting in the house and walking by the way and lying down and rising up, bound for a sign upon the hand and as frontlets between the eyes and written upon the posts of the house and on the gates. Keeping them brings God's blessing and protecting care and guardianship, with heavenly intelligences ready to cooperate, and depending wholly on the Lord assures prosperity. Keeping God's commandments is wisdom and understanding, and full and entire surrender of the whole being in obedience with mind, heart, soul, and strength is true sanctification and the condition for life.
It means remembering Him when brought into the promised land of cities and houses and wells and vineyards not built by Israel, and when full not forgetting the Lord who brought Israel out of Egypt from bondage. It means fearing and serving Him alone and swearing by His name, not going after other gods because He is a jealous God, not tempting Him as at Massah, and diligently keeping His commandments and testimonies and statutes and doing what is right and good to possess the land. Parents are to be prepared to tell their sons that they were Pharaoh's bondmen and the Lord brought them out with signs and wonders to give them the land, and keeping all these statutes in godly fear, not servile fear, preserves life and is counted as righteousness.
Disobedience removes that protection and leaves His possessions exposed to the enemy who claims transgressors, making obedience a life-or-death question where obedience means life and disobedience means death. Parents must therefore listen to the Word of the Lord rather than men and must not close their eyes to the truth or teach their children that the commandments of God are not obligatory.
The instruction belongs to what God required of His ancient people in order for them to be a holy people unto Himself, presenting loving and fearing God and obeying His commands as essential to faithful life and to preserving His commandments and passing them on to future generations. It is to be studied now with profit because the world is nearing God's great final review, when all 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. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is to be examined as part of God's Word to determine whether a person bears the King's mark and has been chosen and set apart to honor God.