Hear, O Israel
Deuteronomy 6:1–25 – Deuteronomy: Then You Shall Live
First Sunday of Advent – December 1, 2019 (am)
The many ways in which God is good to His people are simply beyond measurement or even calculation. This is a God Whose greatness and glory (5:24) are unfathomable, but He pours them out on His chosen people just so that they—and the whole world through them—will be able to gain a glimpse of Who He is and how He works, and will perhaps enter a relationship with Him by faith!
Today’s passage is famous and familiar, full of instruction on these very truths—the greatness of God’s glory, the amazing works He has done on behalf of His people, and the response they ought to have to those works—the response they need to have, should delight to have. This is the primary passage that is identified as issuing the central call to Israel regarding their covenant relationship with God. Thus, it expresses the heart and soul of the law. One commentator aptly wrote: The [Ten Commandments] of Deu.5:6–21[embody] the great principles of covenant relationship that outline the nature and character of God and spell out Israel’s responsibilities to him. It is thus an encapsulation or distillation of the entire corpus of covenant text. [Deu.6:4-5] is a further refinement of that great relational truth, [a suggestion] of [a suggestion], as it were. It is the expression of the essence of all of God’s person and purposes in sixteen words of Hebrew text (Merrill 162). So, the Ten Commandments give us a sketchy foretaste or representation of God’s overall expectation of Israel in covenant relationship. And vv.4-5 here give us that same sort of foretaste of the core meaning expressed in the Ten Commandments.
And the value to us is that in Deu.6 we hear a call to OT Israel that is very similar to the call we hear as the NT church. We hear the similarity between God’s relational expectations of Israel under the old covenant compared to us under the new. And we can also appreciate the difference. Let’s unpack this instruction in three parts.
Hear, O Israel – 1-9
C.6 begins similarly to c.5 on the Ten Commandments—this repeated introduction to important instruction: Hear, O Israel. We see it five or six times in Deu. (5:1; 6:3, 4; 9:1; 20:3; 27:9). And in this context, hear is essentially equivalent to obey (Merrill 162). Israel was supposed to hear something, and listen to it such that they did it, they obeyed what they [heard], and not like doing chores or some other obligatory [obedience, but [obeying] from the heart! They were to get so caught by it that they delighted at the thought of responding to what they just [heard] by acting on it, doing it!
But the first thing they hear is not a charge. It’s an affirmation. 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. [Yahweh] our God is [unique]; He alone is God (Merrill 163). And [Yahweh] our God is one; He is self-consistent—He’s one being (Thompson 137)—with one purpose that He’s working out in creation and history (Merrill 163). So, the Lord our God is worthy of our devoted worship and obedience. He’s worthy of our undivided allegiance and undiluted devotion!
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Love God with all your [intellect and emotion] and with all your [volition and values] and with all you [energy and an expression]—with all [you are and have]! We’ve talked before about this word might, how it’s actually an adverb meaning greatly, exceedingly, very. It appears only twice in the OT as a noun with nonadverbial nuance. But even so here the notion is basically that of “muchness” (Merrill 164). Israel was to love the Lord [their] God with all [their] heart and with all [their] soul and with all [their muchness], their [umph]! (Younger, lecture)
Here is how love like this acts: you take the words that God [commands] into your heart (6) and teach them diligently to your children (7). You talk about] them [all the time]—7 … when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You bind these [commands] on your [forearm] and [forehead] (8) metaphorically speaking—even though faithful Jews began to take this literally—and you mark the very entrances to your [homes] and [towns] (9) with them! You display them proudly!
And you do all this for love of the Lord even though you know that there’s also great reward in it—long life (2, 24), securing of the land (18, 19) and [wellbeing] there (3, 18), and numerical growth as a nation (3), and good standing with God (25). Plus, he’s sending you into ready-made communities! It’s a land filled 10 … with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant…. Israel, what’s not to love about the Lord [your] God?
And one more quick note here: I love the fact that the pronouns referring to Israel here (5) are singular. Israel the nation is a plural unity just like their God, and they are to respond to this calling as a unit, as a people.
But there’s also a warning here, a solemn warning.
Take Care, O Israel – 10-19
In the beginning, middle, and ending of c.6, Moses tells Israel to be careful (3, 12, 25). This God Who [loves] and blesses so faithfully and generously is also a jealous God (15). He’s not a fiend, the way we think of [jealousy]. He’s jealous for their love because He knows it’s in their absolute best interest to love Him with all they are and have. And He also knows there must be consequences if their love diverts or dissolves. So, Moses warns them: 10 … take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
13 It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve…. It’s He Who’s deserving of your unswerving allegiance, so 14 [do] not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples… around you (14). And don’t doubt His presence and power right there among you, like you did a Massah (16) when you were thirsty in the desert and didn’t think He was present (Exo.17:7) or able to provide (Exo.17:3). 16 You shall not put the Lord your God to the test…, 15 for [He is able to] destroy you from off the face of the earth! And He will if you insist on turning away from Him! (cf. 4:25-28) The Lord your God is not to be trifled with, doubted, tested as though He needed to prove His power or His love. Jesus quoted v.16 as He was tempted by Satan (in the wilderness) to trivialize the care and compassion of God (Luk.4:12). You’ve already gone there, Israel! Hear! Be careful!
What Does This Mean, O Israel – 20-25
And tell your children to be careful! (24) This God has shown Himself to be powerful! He discredited all the gods of Egypt, the strongest nation on earth. He delivered you from slavery to them (12) and set you up in this land with ready-made houses and wells and crops! (11) This powerful God is for you, Israel! And He told you that if [you] are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord [your] God…, [that] will be [counted to you as] righteousness (25), just as it was for your [father], Abraham! How good is the Lord [your] God, Israel?
So, 20 [w]hen your son asks you in time to come, “What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?”—Why are they upon us? Why do we honor them?—21 then you shall say to your son, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. He delivered us! He set us free! 22 And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. We watched Him fight for us! 23 And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. 24 And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day.” This is what He requires; but it benefits us, not just Him! It improves the quality of our own lives! But even that is blessing from Him! We don’t obey for our own selfish gain; it is our love for the Lord lived out day to day! It is the way we were meant to live! That is what this means!
But, as we know, Israel was not faithful in the land to continue answering their [sons’] questions (21-25) and [teaching] their children diligently (7) regarding the command and testimonies and statutes of the Lord. They didn’t truly hear the instruction of Moses in this call to love the Lord [their] God with all [their] heart and with all [their] soul and with all [their] might (5). They didn’t take care lest [they] forget the Lord (12), and they did put [Him] to the test (16). And they experienced just what He promised: they were [scattered] among the nations, among the peoples whose gods can’t see or hear or eat or smell (4:25-28). They had no heart to hear and obey the Lord.
Conclusion
So, how are we any different from them? When we are called in NT Scripture to love the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart and with all [our] soul and with all [our] mind and with all [our] strength and to love [our] neighbor as [ourselves] (Mar.12:30-31), why should we expect any different result from what they experienced? The clearest way to put this, I believe, is to say that the deliverance we have now experienced is so far beyond what Israel experienced that it has addressed the problem they continued to face even after they were taken out of Egypt and were ready to enter into the land.
Our oppressor is greater than theirs, even though he was also active in their oppression. He was not finally defeated in their deliverance. Egypt was. But Satan is an enemy with far greater weapons and strongholds than any mere world power. His oppression, his bondage, enslaves our hearts and minds not just our bodies. We can be free of all forms of external incarceration and still be a slave to him. But, in Christ we can be delivered from his bondage!
Our deliverance is greater than theirs. Yes, ten plagues were poured out on Egypt. Their firstborn sons were taken in judgment. And their army drowned in the Red Sea. But Egypt recovered. It’s there to this day. But the enemy of our souls was stripped of the implements of his oppression when Jesus died on the cross as a substitute sin-Bearer for all who will believe, then rose again from the grave in victory of sin and death!
Our relationship with God is greater than theirs. The new covenant surpasses the old. No longer is the law of God written on stone tablets. It is written on [our] hearts (Jer.31:33). And we’ve been given a new heart and a new spirit within [us] (Eze.36:26). And God said, when He was promising that new covenant: Eze.36: 27 … I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. I’ll change you from the inside out so that you’re able to obey; you’ll be born anew!
That’s what makes the difference! Even though we’re no better able to love and obey God than Israel was, we have a better deliverance and a better covenant. And all that is true because we have a greater Deliverer. Moses was a great and faithful man. But he was a man! Jesus is also a man. But He is God in-the-flesh! He is a Deliverer Who is able to save to the uttermost! He can do even more than part the Red Sea or bring water from a rock. He can do more than defeat Sihon and Og, kings of the Amorites. He can save not just from earthly oppression, but He can save us from sin and death, enemies that enslave us and terrify us all, and that no merely human resources can defeat!
And He has already defeated them! We’re already experiencing His victory in down-payment form by knowing Christ as Savior and enjoying the internal witness and fellowship of His Holy Spirit Who lives within each one who knows Him!
Today is the first Sunday of Advent. The Advent season is used to prepare our hearts to celebrate the birth of Christ into human form, which happened at Bethlehem some 2,000 years ago. But even as it prepares our hearts for Christmas, it also builds our anticipation for the Christ’s return when we will finally receive our salvation in all of its fullness—finally be free of any urge away from loving and obeying God!
Do you long for that day? So do I! And as we wait, we continue to gather together like we are doing right now, reminding ourselves of what is true and what isn’t—because what is untrue is so much easier to see in this world! We’re urging one another to press on, to endure, to lay hold of God’s grace by faith to love and obey God with all our heart, soul, mind, and [umph] until that day!
Let’s now participate in the ceremony Jesus gave us to help us do just that: to remember the great deliverance He has accomplished and to press on in our relationship with Him until the days of our battling in this present wilderness are finally finished!