Deuteronomy6chapter 6

Deuteronomy 6:1-3

The charge is addressed to three generations at once, thee, and thy son, and thy son's son, before a single commandment is given. What it is for is stated twice, that thou mightest fear the LORD and that it may be well with thee, so obedience and welfare stand together rather than being traded against each other. The land is named as a place they do not hold yet.

Deuteronomy 6:4-5

Jewish practice has recited these two verses twice daily since antiquity and calls them by their first Hebrew word, Shema. Jesus is asked which is the first commandment of all and answers with them at Mark 12:29-30, quoting verse 4 as well as verse 5, where Matthew 22:37 gives the shorter form. Heart, soul and might is a demand for the whole man, and the treaty documents of the period use love for a vassal's loyalty to his king, so the word carries duty along with affection.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7

The words go into the man before they go to the child, since verse 6 puts them in thine heart and verse 7 sends them to the children. Teaching them diligently is then defined by four times of day, sitting in the house, walking by the way, lying down and rising up, which covers a whole day without setting an hour aside for it. What is described is a household rather than a school.

Deuteronomy 6:8-9

The instruction has four parts: bound on the hand, worn between the eyes, written on the door posts, and written on the gates. Jewish practice took it literally and produced the tefillin and the mezuzah, and Matthew 23:5 speaks of phylacteries being made broad, so the practice was established well before the first century. Others have read the language as a figure for constant attention, and both readings are old.

Deuteronomy 6:10-12

The danger this chapter names is prosperity. Cities thou buildedst not, houses thou filledst not, wells thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees thou plantedst not, and then when thou shalt have eaten and be full, beware lest thou forget. Forget is one of the two commands running through this book, nine occurrences against fourteen of remember, and what would be forgotten here is the house of bondage.

Deuteronomy 6:13

Jesus answers the third temptation with this verse at Matthew 4:10. The King James reads fear here and Matthew reads worship, because the quotation follows the Septuagint, and a note has to say so or a reader who checks will think the citation loose. Swearing by his name stands in the same breath as fearing and serving him, which makes an oath an act of allegiance.

Deuteronomy 6:14-15

The gods forbidden are named as the gods of the people which are round about you, so what is in view is the neighbours' religion rather than a philosophy. Jealous is the word God used of himself at Exodus 20:5, in the first thing he said about himself at Sinai. Verse 15 puts the reason inside a parenthesis and the consequence outside it.

Deuteronomy 6:16

Jesus answers the second temptation with this verse at Matthew 4:7. Massah is Exodus 17:7, where Israel asked whether the LORD was among them or not and Moses named the place after the question. The answer given in a wilderness therefore quotes a failure in a wilderness, and what it quotes is the demand that God prove himself on request.

Deuteronomy 6:17-19

Diligent keeping is set beside doing that which is right and good in the sight of the LORD, so the chapter asks for more than a list can hold. The older commentators take verse 18 as the ground for reasoning from the law to cases the law does not name. The promise attached is the land and the casting out of enemies, and both are stated as God's act.

Deuteronomy 6:20-21

The law is built to be questioned by a child, as the passover was at Exodus 12:26. The son asks what the testimonies mean and the answer he is given is a piece of history. It begins we were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt, so a boy learns what the commandments are by being told what happened to his family.

Deuteronomy 6:22-23

The answer runs from the signs and wonders to the reason for them in one sentence. He brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, which makes the exodus a means toward something else. The bringing in rests on an oath sworn to the fathers rather than on anything that generation did.

Deuteronomy 6:24-25

The statutes are said to be for our good always and that he might preserve us alive, so the law is given as a gift before it is given as a demand. Verse 25 then says it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments, and readers have long divided over what righteousness means there, whether a standing before God or the character of a life. Paul reaches for Leviticus 18:5 rather than this verse when he takes up the question at Romans 10:5, and the two repay reading together.