Deuteronomy6chapter 6

Deuteronomy 6:4-5

Jewish practice has recited these verses twice daily since antiquity and names them by their first Hebrew word, Shema. Asked which commandment is first, Jesus quotes verses 4 and 5 at Mark 12:29-30, where Matthew 22:37 gives the shorter form. Heart, soul and strength claim the whole person, and treaties of the period use love for a vassal's loyalty, so the word carries duty with affection.

The command answers verse 4, since the one LORD is to be loved with the whole of a person. Matthew Henry reads the three terms as calling for a love that is sincere, inward and in truth, and strong in its fervour. Ambrose of Milan sets the command beside creation and observes that the earth obeys its maker's word while human hearts stay deafer than rock.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7

The words go into the hearer before they go to the child, since verse 6 puts them "upon your hearts" and verse 7 sends them on. Diligent teaching is set in four moments, "when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up," covering a household's whole day.

Adam Clarke explains the verb for teaching diligently from a root meaning to repeat, and to sharpen a blade by repeated grinding, so the teaching is done by returning to the words again and again. Matthew Henry cites Bishop Patrick that the law was plain enough for every father to teach his sons and every mother her daughters.

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.

The doorposts mark the household and the gates mark the town, so the words stand at the threshold of private and public life alike. Adam Clarke charges that the Jews came to use the written slips as charms against evil and lost the purpose of the command. Matthew Henry observes that once Bibles were common there was less need for this means of remembering.

Deuteronomy 6:10-12

The danger this chapter names is prosperity, with cities "that you did not build," wells "that you did not dig," and vineyards and olive groves "that you did not plant" all handed over. The warning comes "when you eat and are satisfied," to "be careful not to forget the LORD" who brought Israel "out of the house of slavery."

Each gift in the list comes ready made, so Israel would inherit the labour of others. The verse ends at the point of danger, when you eat and are satisfied. Albert Barnes, on verse 10, names two dangers in the move to a settled life, a worldliness that forgets God and a false tolerance of the neighbours' idols.

The remedy for plenty is memory, and what Israel must hold in mind is the one who brought them out of slavery. John Gill sets the verse beside Proverbs 30:9, the prayer against a fullness that would deny the LORD. Matthew Henry urges the settled people to remember the smallness of their beginnings.

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.

The LORD's jealousy is tied to his presence among his people, so the God who is near is the one offended by other gods. The threat that follows is removal from the face of the earth. Adam Clarke reads the jealousy as a husband's, since the LORD had betrothed Israel to himself as a bride.

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.

The standard of right and good is God's sight, and the verse ties doing it to Israel's welfare and to entering the land sworn to the fathers. Matthew Henry reads the phrase to mean that what is right and good in God's sight is right and good indeed, and he gives it as the first reason for diligence.

The driving out is the LORD's work, and the words as the LORD has said rest it on his earlier promise. John Gill traces that promise, made as it seems with an oath, to Genesis 15:18, where the land is granted to Abram's descendants.

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.

The father answers in the first person plural, placing himself and his son among the slaves God rescued. John Gill reads the answer as leading the child to the source of the laws in God's goodness, which laid Israel under obligation to keep them. Matthew Henry adds that the statutes were given to keep the memory of that deliverance alive.

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.

The son learns to see the land as the goal of the rescue. Charles Spurgeon preached on this verse under the title Brought Out to Be Brought In, and drew from its setting that parents are themselves to answer their children's questions about God. John Gill reads the bringing in as the keeping of the oath made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Deuteronomy 6:24-25

The statutes are given "that we may always be prosperous and preserved," so the law is a gift before it is a demand. Verse 25 says careful obedience "will be our righteousness," and readers divide over whether that means a standing before God or the character of a life. Paul takes up the question at Romans 10:5 from Leviticus 18:5, and the two repay reading together.

The catechism ends on the word righteousness, and the older commentators read it three ways. John Wesley takes it as God owning as righteous those who sincerely obey him. Matthew Henry holds that such obedience is accepted through a Mediator, and notes the Chaldee reading, a reward to us. Adam Clarke reads it as the evidence that the fear and love of God are at work.