Deuteronomy 6:1

The Greatest Commandment

1 These are the commandments and statutes and ordinances that the LORD your God has instructed me to teach you to follow in the land that you are about to enter and possess, 1

Deuteronomy 6:1 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 6:1

Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the
judgments
Not the ten commandments repeated in the preceding chapter, but all others, whether moral, ceremonial, or judicial, afterwards declared; for what Moses now did was only to give a repetition and fresh declaration of such laws as he had before received, and delivered to the people; and so the Targum of Jonathan thus paraphrases this clause,

``this is a declaration of the commandments, statutes, and judgments:''

which the Lord your God commanded to teach you;
that is, which he commanded him, Moses, to teach them, though not fully expressed, as may be learned from ( Deuteronomy 4:1 Deuteronomy 4:5 ) ( 5:31 )

that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it;
this is often observed, to imprint upon their minds a sense of their duty, even of obedience to the laws of God, which they were carefully and diligently to perform in the land of Canaan they were going into, and by which they were to hold their possession of it.

Deuteronomy 6:1 In-Context

1 These are the commandments and statutes and ordinances that the LORD your God has instructed me to teach you to follow in the land that you are about to enter and possess,
2 so that you and your children and grandchildren may fear the LORD your God all the days of your lives by keeping all His statutes and commandments that I give you, and so that your days may be prolonged.
3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe them, so that you may prosper and multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you.
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 and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Cross References 1

  • 1. (Matthew 22:34–40; Mark 12:28–34)
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