The Great Shema

The One and only

Read Deuteronomy Chapter 6:4-9

- Introduction

Some time ago in my reading plan I came across this section in Deuteronomy and I was reminded that Jesus refers to this passage in Matthew 22 when asked what the greatest commandment of them all is, to which he famously said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”

But what perplexed me about this text was not that Jesus picked this passage in Deuteronomy out from all the others, but rather the first statement that begins this great command in verse 4 o

Repeat after me,

Me: שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל them: repeat

Me: יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ them: repeat

Me: יְהוָ֥ה׀ אֶחָֽד׃ them: repeat:

Me: Nice Job!

Me: Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, The LORD is one!

So what’s the significance of this statement? And why is it inserted here before the great commandment?

Today I want to share with you the importance of this statement, and in order to we must first start by traveling back to the time and the world of the modern day Israelite.

So let’s try to fill in the picture for what exactly was going on for the Israelites to whom this was addressed to.

When and where is this taking place?

- A speed run of the story of Israel

If we can recall, way back in Genesis, the one true GOD made a covenant with Abraham and promised to give him a great name, a great nation, and a great land. So then Abraham has Isaac, Isaac has Jacob, and then Jacob has 12 sons, who would eventually move to Egypt and later become slaves. Not while many thought that the promises to Abraham were forgotten of when the Israelites were forced in to slavery there, what we actually see is God fulfilling the first of the promises by greatly growing them in population. boom, there’s the first promise. According to the text, that was actually the reason why the Pharoah drove the descendants of Abraham into slavery. Then after 430 years God uses Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and towards the land that he promised to give to Abraham’s descendants. So God demonstrates his unmatched power in the plagues, the Pharoah lets the Israelites go, and the Lord parts the Red Sea along their way to to the promised land. They make a pit stop at Mount Sinai, The Lord shows his glory and splendor there, gives the 10 commandments and law, and from there they make their way straight for the land flowing with milk and honey. When they get their, the Israelites don’t believe that the Lord will help them prevail over those occupying the land, and as a punishment of their unbelief, God sends them to wander in the desert for 40 years while the unbelieving generation above the age of 20 dies off, including Moses. So the Israelites go out out and wander, in the wilderness as the Lord is with them every step of the way, though they continue in disobedience and unbelief. So these forty years pass as God never abandons them for one step of the way, and finally, finally here we are where this scene is taking place!

After all of the wandering, there the Israelites stand in the desert plains of Moab, where the river of Jordan is to the East of them, and just beyond it is the promised land the Lord promised to give us. There they stood as Moses, the last one to die, addresses us them one final time before he gives the leadership over to Joshua, and they enter into the land that God promised to give to the descendants of Abraham.

While the story up to this point seems to finally be perking up for these beaten and battered Israelites, while it seems like the worse of their troubles are in the past, and though their attitude in this moment might sound similar to the ring of, “the best is yet to come!”

There is a huge problem, a huge huge problem that has yet to have been mentioned in the story.

- Tick illustration

Raise your hand here if you have ever found a tick on your body or clothes before? I know I have. It’s actually happened several times, and it was because I used to go to a charter school that would take weekly walks with our class on some of the nearby trails to learn about nature. Some where along our hike in the midst of those trails, I would contract some little tiny bug, that if left unnoticed, it could prove to be greatly harmful. There actually happened to be a younger student one of these days that ended up contracting lime disease because of a tick left unchecked on her for too long.

In the same way, somewhere along the the journey of Israel, something went terribly wrong, and they adopted a lifestyle that was completely against everything that God had in store for them.

Where was that point in the story?? Egypt

Though the Israelites Egypt and sought to move onto bigger and better things, the culture of polytheistic god worship remained in their thinking, in their values, and in their beliefs. Just as the Egyptians who enslaved them saturated every aspect and detail of their lives to the worship of deities who would provide for their desires, so the enslaved Israelites learned to do the same, and that Idol worship stuck along with them the rest of their journey.

Here are a few examples of some of the gods they learned to worship during their enslavement in Egypt.

- Explanation of the idolatry that was practiced and propagated in Egypt and mention of some of the gods they learned to worship

1. Ra who was in charge of the sun

2. Khnum who was associated with the fertility of crops and of mothers bearing children. She is believed to have been the one who looks out for the young children and protects them

3. Amun (The supreme god) who was worshipped for his power over the Nile river which was an essential piece to the health and the economic welfare of the entire nation.

These are the deities the Israelites learned to pay homage to and sought to please in their everyday lives during their time there in Egypt.

Now I am not saying that Israel learned to do evil only because of the lifestyle and the culture of one group of people, because if you look at the entirety of the story apart from what we covering now, you would see that Abraham’ descendants were doing evil long before they went to Egypt.

That also means that I am not implying that the people of Israel were at one point morally good, and then learned to do evil and practice idolatry at this one point.

But instead Egypt became a key time in the story where the people of Israel cemented their rebellious ways and unbelief of the one true god into the beliefs and values of their Egyptian captors.

Transition: So in the back drop of everything we have talked about, we hear Moses saying in the midst of Israel in verse 4,

Hear O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One.

Explanation of the text

The verse begins with an imperative command שְׁמַ֖ע

This verb is used over 1,000 times in the Hebrew Old Testament, and Hebrew verbs often can be rendered into more than one meaning. In some stories in Genesis, the verb is translated as obey, in other places like the story of Exodus, the verb best is rendered as listen το, or pay attention to, and in other instances the verb is best translated as “to hear”.

So though in this instance we see this verb shema translated as Hear, there is a sense to this command that says we are to do more than just hear, but to listen, to pay careful attention to what is to be said.

The use of this verb as an imperative at the beginning of the sentence adds an emphatic element to the statement that is to be said. That is why it’s rendered as, Hear O Israel!

It’s because what is going to be said is important

So Shema! Hear, listen, Pay attention.

When we look at the other half of this verse, we must note that because of the way some Hebrew texts are structured in comparison too English translations, there are several ways this half in this verse has been translated into English to be understood. Its been translated as,

The LORD our God, The LORD is one,

The LORD is our God, The LORD is one, or

The LORD is our God, The LORD alone.

But given this, either way one translates this phrase, the same idea is captured.

The Lord our God, The Lord is one.

He is the only God whom we owe ultimate allegiance, commitment, and adoration towards.

There was only one God who is the giver of life, only one God who the protector of children and the bestower of prosperity. There is only one true God whom Abraham made a covenant with to which his descendants would be blessed, there is only one God by which the glory of God was displayed in the ten plagues, one God by which the Israelites left their oppressors of Egypt, and there was only one God who split the Red Sea to save them from the wrath of Pharoah in pursuing them.

There is only one God who appeared who led them in a pillar of cloud by day, and by fire at night, one God who displayed his majesty and awesomeness at Sinai, only one God who gave them the 10 commandments, there was only one God who time and time again proved his steadfast love and faithfulness time and time again throughout the wilderness as the Israelites rebelled, and even now there is only one God who is bringing you into the promised land, O Israel.

This one statement was the death blow to any thought or inclination to ascribe praise and glory to any deity for the good things in life except the one true God, and him alone.

Transition: So, if that is what this statement meant for them, for the Israelites what does this mean for us today?

Application of the text

First - We should lay down our idols

While we may not worship the Egyptian sun god ra, or khnum, or Amun, our nation is known for worshipping the god of sports, of money and of self.

Any time we elevate, isolate, or partake apart from the God who gave us them, we make idols out of them, and Scripture tells us that The Lord will not share his glory with another.

So let us not take the good things that God has given us in this life, like the joy of sports, of march madness, of racing and competing, and give glory to ourselves, and other people.

This leads us to our second application and it is that..

2. Second - we should acknowledge the True God as the sole giver of all good things, and we should praise him because of it.

Do you have a close knit family whom you love dearly? Praise God for it. Has God given you the ability to excel in your races lately? In Academics? Praise the Lord for the ability! Has God given you a friendship that lifts up our soul? Has the Lord gifted you with the blessing of living in a sovereign country that offers you peace, security, and protection from foreign invaders? Has the Lord not been lifting up the sun more and more these last few weeks to rain down upon us warmer days. Thank the Lord.

When God is acknowledged as the giver of all good things and is worshipped for it, there is a joy that you have that is incomparable, and that’s because that’s how things truly are. Regardless of whether the Lord acknowledges that or not.

Give God the praise alone.

3. Third - Listen to the voice of the Lord

Has God spoken. Yes! What’s the message? The Gospel. What does God tell us in the Gospel.

That we like Israel have gone astray worshiping other gods. giving credit and praise to them, and glorying in ourselves rather than the one true God, and because of it, we have been declared as guilty sinners and deserving of his eternal wrath and punishment. Though we are given chance after chance to turn to God,

The homiletical idea: The Lord God is the only one worthy of worship (v. 4)