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The Shema

Definition

The Shema (Hebrew shema, “hear, listen, heed”) is Israel’s foundational confession, drawn from Deuteronomy 6:4-9: Hear, O Israel: YHWH our God, YHWH is one. You shall love YHWH your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. It is at once a creed (YHWH alone is Israel’s God) and a command (undivided covenant love), and Jesus names it the greatest commandment in all the Torah.

Key proponents

Modern

  • Marty Solomon (Bema), who treats the Shema as the interpretive center of Deuteronomy and reads the wilderness tests of Exodus and Numbers as training for heart, soul, and strength.
  • Daniel I. Block, The NIV Application Commentary: Deuteronomy and the essay “How Many Is God? An Investigation into the Meaning of Deuteronomy 6:4-5,” arguing 6:4 is a confession of YHWH’s uniqueness and Israel’s exclusive allegiance.
  • S. Dean McBride, “The Yoke of the Kingdom,” the classic study reading the Shema as Israel’s pledge of total loyalty to the divine sovereign.
  • William L. Moran, “The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy,” showing that love in the treaty world is the language of loyal covenant service.
  • Jeffrey H. Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy, on the grammar of 6:4 and the liturgical life of the Shema.
  • N.T. Wright, who reads Paul reworking the Shema around Jesus in 1 Corinthians 8:6.

Premodern witnesses

  • The rabbinic tradition (Mishnah Berakhot 2:2) names reciting the Shema as “accepting the yoke of the kingdom of heaven,” the daily renewal of allegiance to God’s reign.
  • Rashi (on Deut 6:4) reads the verse eschatologically: YHWH who is our God now will be acknowledged as one by all the earth (cf. Zech 14:9).
  • Maimonides makes the unity and incorporeality of God in the Shema the first principles of faith.
  • Origen and Augustine read the love-command as the summary of the whole law; Aquinas treats Deuteronomy 6:5 (with Lev 19:18) as the double commandment on which everything hangs.

See How We Read. The Shema is one of the places where the Jewish liturgical tradition and the Christian gospel are reading the same text: the rabbis’ “yoke of the kingdom” and Jesus’ “the kingdom of God has come near” are closer than centuries of separation made them look.

Core insights

“Hear” is not passive. The Hebrew shema fuses hearing and doing; to truly hear is to heed. The same verb closes the covenant at Sinai (“all that YHWH has spoken we will do and we will hear,” Ex 24:7). The Shema is not a call to intellectual assent but to a listening that obeys.

“YHWH is one” is about exclusivity, not arithmetic. Deuteronomy 6:4 can be rendered “YHWH our God, YHWH is one” or “YHWH is our God, YHWH alone.” Either way, Block and McBride argue, the point is not a metaphysical headcount but covenant exclusivity: of all the elohim the nations serve (see divine council), YHWH alone is Israel’s. The confession is the covenant analog to a treaty’s demand that the vassal serve one king and no other. Oneness means undivided loyalty.

“Love” is covenant loyalty. Moran’s study showed that in ancient Near Eastern treaties a vassal is commanded to love the suzerain, language for wholehearted, demonstrated allegiance, not merely warm feeling. Deuteronomy keeps both registers: the love commanded is loyal obedience and genuine affection. To love YHWH is to cling to him, walk in his ways, and serve him (Deut 10:12-13, 11:22).

“Heart, soul, and strength” is the whole self, not three faculties. The triad (levav, nephesh, me’od) is a Hebrew way of saying everything you are and have, totalizing rather than partitioning. The rabbis read me’od (“muchness”) as “with all your resources,” even your possessions and your very life. The Shema claims the whole person.

The creed is meant to be lived into the body and the home. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 will not let the confession stay abstract: teach it to your children, speak it walking and lying down and rising, bind it on your hand and forehead (tefillin), write it on your doorposts (mezuzah). The Shema is a creed designed to be embodied and transmitted across generations.

Jesus and Paul stand inside the Shema. When asked for the greatest commandment, Jesus recites Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and joins it to Leviticus 19:18 (Mark 12:29-31), affirming the Shema, not replacing it. Paul, astonishingly, expands the Shema’s “one” to include Jesus: “for us there is one God, the Father… and one Lord, Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 8:6). The earliest Christology is written in the grammar of Israel’s creed.

Where it shows up in Scripture

  • Deuteronomy 6:4-9, the Shema proper.
  • Deuteronomy 11:13-21, the second paragraph (recited with the first).
  • Numbers 15:37-41, the third paragraph (the tzitzit), completing the liturgical Shema.
  • Deuteronomy 10:12-13, 30:6, love as the covenant’s whole demand (and the circumcision of the heart that makes it possible).
  • Leviticus 19:18, the neighbor-love command Jesus pairs with the Shema.
  • Mark 12:28-34 / Matthew 22:34-40, the greatest commandment.
  • 1 Corinthians 8:6, the Shema reworked around Jesus.
  • James 2:19, “you believe that God is one; you do well, the demons also believe.”

Common misreadings to avoid

  • Don’t reduce “one” to bare monotheism. Deuteronomy is not arguing about how many gods exist; it is demanding exclusive allegiance to the one who redeemed Israel.
  • Don’t sentimentalize “love.” Covenant love includes affection but is fundamentally loyal allegiance, demonstrated in obedience.
  • Don’t divide “heart, soul, and strength” into a psychology of parts. It is a totality formula: the whole self.
  • Don’t read Jesus as abolishing the Shema. He recites it as the greatest commandment; the gospel intensifies it rather than retiring it.

Further reading

  • Daniel I. Block, “How Many Is God? An Investigation into the Meaning of Deuteronomy 6:4-5,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47 (2004).
  • S. Dean McBride, “The Yoke of the Kingdom: An Exposition of Deuteronomy 6:4-5,” Interpretation 27 (1973).
  • William L. Moran, “The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 25 (1963).
  • Jeffrey H. Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy (JPS, 1996).
  • N.T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant (on 1 Cor 8:6 and the reworked Shema).