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📚Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, so that you might do them in the land that you will cross over to possess, 2 📚so that you might fear the LORD 📖 your God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may long continue 📖. 3 📚Therefore hear, O Israel, and observe to do it, so that it may be well with you, and that you may increase mightily, just as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you, in the land that flows with milk and honey.4 📚Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD 📖
6:4 Many pious Jews still recite verses 4 and 5 daily, considering them of the utmost importance in the revelation God has given.⚜
The greatest commandment of all
5 📚and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.
6:5 The Lord Jesus called the words of this verse the greatest of all the commandments (Matt 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27). Love is the fulfilling of the whole law (Rom 13:10; Gal 5:14).
Some who have misunderstood the Bible have called God as revealed in the Old Testament a harsh and unloving God, and God as revealed in the Lord Jesus in the New Testament a God of love. This is a huge mistake. There is only one God and He is revealed in both Old Testament and New Testament as a God who loves people and who wants their love in return (Ex 34:6; Deut 7:7-8; Ps 86:15; 103:8; John 3:16; Rom 2:4; 1 John 4:7-8). If we do not love the God revealed in the Bible, in both Old and New Testaments, we do not love God at all, and all our religion is a vain and empty thing.
The two greatest commands of the law are about love. This one in v 5 and the one in Lev 19:18. God is also a holy God who punishes sin and sinners and this too is revealed in both Old and New Testaments. Deut 6:4-5 teaches a truth continually emphasized in the Bible – there is only one God and He is the God revealed in the Bible as the God of Israel; the God who later in history came as a man in the Lord Jesus to redeem men (Deut 4:35, 39; Isa 43:10-12; 44:6-8; 45:5-7; Rom 3:29-30; 1 Cor 8:4; 2 Cor 5:19; Col 2:9; 1 Tim 1:17; 6:15-16; Jude 4,25; Rev 15:4).⚜
Further exhortations to keep God’s commands
6 📚And these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart, 7 📚and you shall teach them diligently to your children 📖, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk on the road, and when you lie down, and when you get up. 8 📚And you shall bind them 📖 as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as something tied on your foreheads. 9 📚And you shall write them 📖 on the posts of your house, and on your gates.
10 📚And when the LORD your God has brought you into the land which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you great and fine cities which you did not build, 11 📚and houses full of everything good which you did not fill, and dug wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, when you have eaten and are satisfied,
6:10-11 The peoples who inhabited Canaan before Israel had a well-developed civilization (Deut 9:1; Josh 24:13).⚜
12 then you must watch out that you do not forget the LORD who brought you from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
13 📚You shall fear the LORD your God, and serve him, and take your oaths in his name.
6:13 Part of this verse was quoted by the Lord Jesus when He was being tempted by the devil (Matt 4:10). By doing so He emphasized the truth that men must be very careful in the object of their worship, and that only Jehovah, the God of Israel, the God of the Bible, the Creator of the universe should be worshiped and served. The Hebrew word here translated “serve” also means “worship”.⚜
14 📚You shall not go after other gods, gods of the people who are around you, 15 📚so that the anger of the LORD your God does not burn against you, and destroy you from off the face of the earth; for the LORD your God is a jealous God among you.
16 📚You shall not tempt the LORD your God, as you tempted him in Massah.
17 📚You shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he has commanded you. 18 📚And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, so that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land which the LORD swore to your fathers, 19 📚by driving out all your enemies from before you, as the LORD has said.
20 📚And when your son asks you in time to come, saying, “What is the meaning of the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD our God has commanded you?” 21 📚Then you shall say to your son, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, and the LORD brought us from Egypt with a mighty hand, 22 📚and before our eyes the LORD showed great and terrible signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh, and against all his household; 23 📚and he brought us from there, so that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he swore to our fathers. 24 📚And the LORD commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, so that he might keep us alive, as it is today.
6:20-24 It is extremely important for parents to teach children the meaning of the Word of God (v 7; Eph 6:4).⚜
25 📚And it will be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments in the presence of the LORD our God, just as he has commanded us”.