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The First Commandment: A Theological Reflection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Gordon J. Hamilton
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It is easy to forget priorities, particularly our priorities about Scripture. The novel or obscure often dominate our scholarly publishing about the Bible because academics give priority to new interpretations and to solving problems. In this article I would like to reflect on two of our foundational texts: the commandment to love God in Deuteronomy 6: 4—5 and Mark 12: 28—34.

In Deut 6, we encounter the most famous statement of Israelite faith, v.4, joined to the most fundamental commandment of the Old Testament, v.5: ‘(4)Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; (5)and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might’.

A balance between the collective belief of the ancient Israelite community and the obligation of each individual is immediately struck by the simple use of pronouns: in v.4 the Lord is identified as our God; in v.5 he is called your (ms. sg.) God. Moreover, the latter has a double reference both to the collective Israel evoked in the preceding verse and to each individual Israelite. To reflect this balance between the individual and community perspectives I shall employ both ‘you’ and ‘we’.

Each of us is then commanded to love God in three ways, but ways that are usually masked in English translations. By returning to the language in which the author wrote, in this case, Hebrew, we can gain a fuller sense of God’s Word to us.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 69 , Issue 815 , April 1988 , pp. 174 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 This paper was written during a University postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Religious Studies at The University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I would like to dedicate it to Mr. K.A. Waites.

2 Moran, William L., ‘The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 25 (1963), pp. 77–87Google Scholar.

3 John L. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible. (Milwaukee, WI: Bruce, 1965), p. 780.

4 See Hillel the Elder's famous dictum ‘What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbour. That is the whole Law, and all else is commentary’ (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a).

5 For a very full discussion of the early Jewish techniques of biblical interpretation witnessed in this and the parallel passages of Matthew 22:34–40 and Luke 10:25–28 see Ellis, E. Earle, Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Erdmans, 1978), pp. 247–51Google Scholar). I am grateful to Professor W. McCready of The University of Calgary for this reference.

6 It is surprising how few modern Christians realize that the commandment to love your neighbour originates in the book of the Law to which many of them have the most difficulty in relating, Leviticus.

7 See Hugo Meynell's poignant dialogue, ‘Quaestio Disputata—Sex and Catholicism’, New Blackfriars 67 (Nov. 1986), pp. 485–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.