Listen Up, Israel!
The Lord, our god, is God over Everything. Think about that for a bit.
Deuteronomy 6:4
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one."
Hear, Israel: The Lord (Yahweh) our god (Noun, Plural, not Proper), the Lord (Yahweh) is one (singular, pausal).
Grant Fishbook preached about this passage while discussing the Trinity today (March 8, 2009) at CTK Bellingham. It features 2 names for God, both Capitolized as Proper Nouns, so I was curious what the root was and if they held any deaper meaning. Mostly, I just wanted to see if I could find any evidence of Plurality in the original text by exegeting the words. This is what I found:
- The Lord (Yahweh)
- The word for Lord, is Yahweh, the personal name of the God of Israel. it is used twice as if to bring more impact to the statement and get our attention. (Repetition is very common throughout the Old Testament for enphasis)
- God
- The word for God is actually not referring to God, the deity, but the singular form of gods in general.
- Example: Many nations and religions have gods, Israel's god is Yahweh.
- One
- Finally the passage ends with the word for one, being translated here as one, or singular."Israel's god is Singular, one god."
- The word for one is also the same word for First. I think it may be a play on words, as if to say both. God is a singular being and He is also first. Yahweh is more important than anything else.
- Also, it is "pausal" which I assume means it comes at the end of a complete statement, as if the author paused tolet us think about it for a minute and discover some hidden truth.
So I guess if I were to translate it out in english, as thuroughly as possible, I would translate it as this:
MoG Translation (Deuteronomy 6:4):
"Listen, Israel: Yahweh is our god. He is only one being and he is first and formost above all other things. Meditate on that a moment."
What a cool statement.