Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Israel's Creed
Six Hebrew words — Shema Yisrael, YHWH Eloheinu, YHWH echad — became the daily confession of Israel, recited morning and evening to this day. In a world crowded with gods who divided life between them (one for rain, one for war, one for the womb), Israel confesses one LORD over everything. Monotheism here is not a philosophy; it is loyalty. If the LORD is one, life cannot be divided among rival loves.
Love With Everything
The command that follows the creed is not first obedience but love — heart, soul, might ('might' is literally 'muchness': everything you have and are). Law in Deuteronomy flows from love in both directions: God's love chose Israel (7:7-8), and Israel's love answers. When a scribe asked Jesus which commandment is first of all, he recited this — and joined Leviticus 19:18 to it: love God, love neighbor. 'On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets' (Matt 22:40).
The First Classroom
The words are to be on the heart, then taught diligently to children — talked of in the house and on the road, at lying down and rising, bound on the hand, fixed between the eyes, written on doorposts and gates. Faith in Deuteronomy is transmitted domestically, woven into the ordinary day. The mezuzah and tefillin keep the literal sign; every tradition of catechesis — creeds at bedtime, prayers at table — keeps the substance. A faith not handed down is one generation from forgotten.
When You Have Eaten and Are Full
The chapter's warning is prosperity, not persecution: cities you did not build, cisterns you did not dig, vineyards you did not plant — 'then take care lest you forget the LORD.' Affluence amnesia is the covenant's quietest enemy. The remedy is rehearsed memory: 'When your son asks you... you shall say to him: We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, and the LORD brought us out.' The people of God survive by telling the exodus to their children — and the church, by telling the greater exodus.
One LORD, and Jesus
The New Testament's boldest move with the Shema is Paul's: 'for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things... and one LORD, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things' (1 Cor 8:6). Paul splits the Shema's two divine titles — God and LORD — and places Jesus inside the confession without adding a second deity. Scholars call it the christological Shema. Israel's creed, the church discovered, had room at its center for the Son.
Go deeper: Kyrios — the LORD of the Shema (Lexicon) · Theos — one God (Lexicon) · Sola Scriptura — handing down the words (Disputed Questions)