Albert Barnes Commentary Deuteronomy 6
Albert Barnes Commentary
Deuteronomy 6
Albert Barnes Commentary
Deuteronomy 6
"Now this is the commandment, the statutes, and the ordinances, which Jehovah your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it;" — Deuteronomy 6:1 (ASV)
Moses proceeds to set forth more particularly and to enforce the cardinal and essential doctrines of the Decalogue, the nature and attributes of God, and the fitting mode of honoring and worshipping Him. Two objects are indicated (Deuteronomy 6:2–3), the glory of God and the welfare of man, as the grand aims that he has in view.
"Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as Jehovah, the God of thy fathers, hath promised unto thee, in a land flowing with milk and honey." — Deuteronomy 6:3 (ASV)
In the land - Better: As the Lord the God of your fathers promised you a land flowing with milk and honey.
"Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah:" — Deuteronomy 6:4 (ASV)
These words form the beginning of what is called the “Shema” (“Hear”) in the Jewish Services, and belong to the daily morning and evening service. They may be called “the creed of the Jews.”
This weighty text contains far more than a mere declaration of the unity of God in contrast to polytheism, or of the sole authority of the revelation that He had made to Israel in contrast to other supposed manifestations of His will and attributes. It asserts that the Lord God of Israel is absolutely God, and no other. He, and He alone, is Jehovah (Yahweh) the absolute, uncaused God; the One who had, by His election of them, made Himself known to Israel.
"and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." — Deuteronomy 6:5 (ASV)
Since there is but One God, and that God is Israel's God, so Israel must love God unreservedly and entirely. The “heart” is mentioned as the seat of the understanding; the “soul” as the center of will and personality; the “might” as representing the expressions and energies of all the vital powers.
The New Testament itself requires no more than this total self-surrender of one's being to one's Maker (Matthew 22:37). The Gospel differs from the Law not so much in replacing an external and carnal service of God by an inward and spiritual one, as in supplying new motives and special aids for attaining that divine love which was, from the first and all along, commanded as the first and great commandment.
"And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates." — Deuteronomy 6:8-9 (ASV)
By adopting and regulating customary usages (for example, Egyptian ones), Moses provides both a check on superstition and a means of keeping the Divine Law in memory. Regarding the "frontlets" and "phylacteries" of the New Testament (Matthew 23:5), see Exodus 13:16.
The Jewish practice of the mezuzah is based on Deuteronomy 6:9 and Deuteronomy 11:20.
This word properly means door-post, which is how the term is translated in Deuteronomy 6:9 and 11:20, as well as in Exodus 12:7, 12:22, Exodus 21:6, and elsewhere. Among the Jews, however, it is the name given to a square piece of parchment inscribed with Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and Deuteronomy 11:13-21. This parchment is then rolled up in a small cylinder of wood or metal and affixed to the right-hand post of every door in a Jewish house.
The pious Jew touches the mezuzah on each occasion of passing, or kisses his finger, and speaks Psalms 121:8 in the Hebrew language.
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