Thread by @JoelBaden

#Deuteronomy 6:5

The Shema, cont.

Another super famous line - “you shall love the lord your god with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” - that has come to mean something pretty far from what it once did. Lots to unpack here. Sorry in advance.

One of the great scholarly realizations of the mid twentieth century was that Deuteronomy followed the basic form of an ancient Near Eastern vassal treaty (see yesterday’s thread). YHWH is in place of the conquering king, and Israel is the vassal that must obey.

Part of that discovery was that some of the language used in D is actually formal treaty language. Like, imagine that someone wrote something today, and used the “whereas…whereas…therefore” structure. You’d know it was modeled on legal documents. Same thing here.

Except one of the key words in ANE treaties, it turns out, is the word “love,” which doesn’t mean “have emotional affection for,” as we use it, but rather means “be loyal to.” Vassals were commanded to love the kings who had conquered them, and not to love any other kings.

In that light, an ancient writer or reader, familiar with the genre of the treaty and recognizing it in D, would also have recognized “you shall love YHWH your god” not as an appeal to the emotions, but as a command to undivided allegiance. It meant “be loyal to.”

And part of the point of such a command is that you aren’t expected to just naturally feel affection toward the king - you’re being commanded to obey because you’re obligated to. Same here. How do you command love? But you sure can command fealty, obedience. That’s D’s whole bag.

“Love” isn’t the only word in this verse that doesn’t mean now what it meant then. “With all your heart” - hey, doesn’t that speak to love as love, the emotion? It’s the heart, after all! Sadly, in ancient Israel the heart didn’t signify that, either.

The connection between various organs or body parts and different aspects of a person isn’t natural - it’s culturally determined. In Israel, and the Bible, the heart is the seat not of emotion but of cognition. That’s where thoughts happen, not feelings.

You want feelings, well, I’m afraid you’ll have to turn to your liver - that was the seat of emotions. So “with all your heart” really means “with all your mind,” that is, not emotionally, but intentionally. You have to be loyal and mean it.

“With all your soul” - but not really with the modern, or even ancient, idea of a “soul,” as distinct from a body. The word translated as “soul” here originally meant “throat,” and came to stand for a person’s whole being, their life force. It’s not a separable entity.

Here too, then, the sense is that you have to be fully committed to obedience and loyalty: in modern parlance, “with every inch of your being.” You can’t go halfway on this thing; that’s not how covenantal treaty loyalty works.

And finally, “with all your might,” which is probably pretty close to the right idea (finally). Here, though, one might hear, in the treaty language, a hint of military force, which would make sense for a king and vassal: you have to pledge support for your ruler.

Long story short: when we read this verse, and the rest of D, as participating in the ANE treaty genre, some familiar texts come out slightly (or more) different. But they end up fitting better with D’s overall project; loyalty to YHWH as expressed through obedience to his laws.