Deuteronomy 6

Notes on the verses

Chap. Vi. Ver. 4. Hear, O Israel ~ The Lord your God is one Lord.—[Shema, Yisrael, Yehowah, Elohainoo, Yehowah aichod, “Hear, Israel, Jehovah, our God, is one JEHOVAH.” On this passage the Jews lay great stress: and it is one of the four passages which they write on their phylacteries. On the word Elohim, Simeon ben Joachi says, “Come and see the mystery of the word Elohim: there are three degrees, and each degree is by itself alone, and yet they are all one, and joined together in one, and are not divided from each other.”]—B. The Hebrew reads, “Jehovah our Elohim, Jehovah is one;” the last letters in the first and last words being written and printed much larger than the others; this, however, is probably a rabbinical whim.

That Elohim is plural we have stated in the very opening of our work, (on (Genesis 1:1).) and as it is quite certain that Jehovah is singular, this has been thought to point out “three persons in one God:” but the evidence would certainly have been much stronger had the incommunicable name been three times repeated, instead of twice. Ver. 7. Thou shalt teach them diligently.—The original word, (Shinnantem,) says Dr. Clarke, signifies to repeat, iterate, or do a thing again and again, as we sharpen a knife by rubbing it on a stone; hence the margin reads, “to whet, or sharpen.” (J 24) Ver. 8. A sign upon thine hand, and frontlets between thine eyes, &c.—The Tephillin, or phylacteries, are of two sorts; one for the head, and one for the arm.

The Rabbins maintain that they should be literally explained, as requiring schedules, with some portions of Scripture to be affixed to the doorposts, and certain signs, tokens, and frontlets, to be fastened to the hand and arm, and between the eyes….. The four paragraphs to be written on the Tephillin are, (Exodus 13:1-10), and 11—16. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9), and xi. 13—21, all. Lec Modena says, “The men ought continually to wear their frontlets, or tephillin for the head, which is commanded in (Deuteronomy 6:6-8); xi. 18, 19. Notwithstanding, at present, partly to avoid the scoffs of the nations among whom they live, and also because they account these holy things, and such as ought to be used with great discretion, and not upon every trivial occasion, they put them on only in the time of prayer.

A mezuza, is a piece of parchment, on which are written two portions of Scripture; (Deuteronomy 6:4-9-20). The parchment is rolled up with the ends of the lines inward, the Hebrew word Shaddai is inscribed on the outside, and the roll is put into a cane, or a cylindrical tube of lead, in which a hole is cut, that the word Shaddai may appear. The tube is fastened to the door-post by a nail at each end. The injunction of the law being in the plural number, “upon the posts of thine house and on thy gates,” it is considered that mezuzoth should be fixed on all the doors of dwelling-houses, whether parlours, bed-rooms, kitchens, or cellars; on the doors of barns or store-houses, and on the gates of cities and towns.—Allen’s Modern Judaism.

Ver. 13, And serve him.—[Our Saviour quotes these words thus: “And him only shalt thou serve;” from which it would seem that the word levaddo was anciently in the Hebrew text, as it was in the Septuagint, Coptic, Vulgate, and Anglo-Saxon. Dr. Kennicott argues, that without the word only the text would not have been conclusive for the purpose for which our Lord advanced it. It is proper, however, to observe, that the word levaddo is not found in any MS. yet collated, though retained in the above versions.]—Bag.