With All Your Strength?

Every day since Moses, Jews have quoted the Shema from Deuteronomy. Jesus summarized it and quoted it as well (Mark 12:29; Luke 10:27; Matthew 22:37). As it is written in Deuteronomy, this is what the text reads:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. (Deut 6:4-5)

Notice how in this text, it reads, “and with all your strength.” I recently received the question, What does this statement mean: “with all your strength”?

Deuteronomy 6 – Commentary

I had the fun of looking up these terms and studying this text in depth. I really appreciated the lexicon search and seeing the difference between this word in the Hebrew (וּבְכָל־מְאֹדֶ֑ךָ) as an adverb or as a substantive (in this sense, an object of a preposition). While studying it, I noticed that one commentator captured it best. I am providing his commentary here for your benefit.^[1] It is a bit technical, but I believe you will enjoy the read.

 

The Locus of Covenant Commitment (6:5)

VERSE 5 EXPLAINS WHAT Moses means by exclusive allegiance to Yahweh. As noted earlier (4:37), Hebrew ʾāhab (“love”) refers to covenant commitment demonstrated in actions that seek the well-being and pleasure of one’s covenant partner. Here Moses calls on the people to back up the verbal commitment expressed in verse 4 with wholehearted and full-bodied love.

Moses highlights the intensity of this commitment with a triad of qualifiers, which the NIV renders as “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” The rendering is traditional, but it is somewhat misleading and obscures the profundity of this statement. Although some have interpreted verse 5 as a Greek psychological statement reflecting a tripartite anthropology, this is intended as an emphatic reinforcement of the absolute and singular devotion to Yahweh called for by verse 4:7. Proceeding from the inside out, the three Hebrew expressions, lēb, nepeš, meʾôd, represent three concentric circles, each of which represents a sphere of human existence (see figure below).

The Dimensions of Covenant Commitment An Interpretation of Deuteronomy 6:5

The Hebrew word lēb (“heart”) often functions metaphorically for the seat of the emotions and will, but equally often it refers to the “mind” or the seat of thought. Here the word serves comprehensively for one’s inner being, including the “heart” and “mind.”⁸ Concretely nepeš means “throat, gullet,” but the word is used in a variety of derived metaphorical senses: “appetite/desire” (Prov. 23:2; Eccl. 6:7); “life” (Gen. 9:5; 2 Sam. 23:17; Jonah 2:5[6]); a person as a “living being” (Ezek. 4:14; etc.); the whole self (Lev. 26:11); even a corpse, that is, a body without life/breath (Lev. 21:11). Here the word refers to one’s entire person. The NIV’s rendering of m^eʾôd as “strength” follows the LXX, which reads dynamis, “power” (cf. ischys in Mark 12:30), but this flattens the sense required by the Hebrew. Except for this text and 2 Kings 23:25, which echoes this statement, elsewhere m^eʾôd always functions adverbially, meaning “greatly, exceedingly.”⁹ Here its meaning is best captured by a word like “resources,” which includes physical strength, but also economic or social strength, and it may extend to the physical things an Israelite owned: tools, livestock, a house, and the like.

The progression and concentricity in Moses’ vocabulary now become apparent. Calling all Israelites to love God without reservation or “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength., Moses begins with the inner being, then moves to the whole person, and ends with all that one claims as one’s own.¹⁰ This is the “yoke of the kingdom”—covenant commitment rooted in the heart, but extending to every level of one’s being.^[1]

 

 

My Summary

Notice how Block summarizes it: Calling all Israelites to love God without reservation or qualification, Moses begins with the inner being, then moves to the whole person, and ends with all that one claims as one’s own.

In essence, when we are called to love God with all our strength, it refers to all of us. Without holding anything in our being back, we are to love the Lord our God. All in. Without reservation. 100%. Total Commitment.

We, then, are faced with this important question: Do I love the Lord my God with all my strength? What about you? Do you love the Lord your God with all your strength?

Great questions – powerful truth!

 

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Citations:

⁸ Which explains why, in Mark’s citation of Jesus’ quotation of this verse, he uses four Greek words for Deuteronomy’s three: kardia (= Heb. lēb), psychē: (= Heb. nepeš), dianoia (= Heb. lēb), and ischys (= Heb. m^eʾōd).

⁹ Cognate adjectival expressions occur in both Ugaritic (mad/mid, “great, strong, much”; Kirta 1.ii.35 [Parker, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, 15]; Baal Cycle 10.v.15 [Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, 130]), and Akkadian mâdum, “many, numerous,” and maʾdu, “quantity, fullness,” from the verb mâdum, “to become numerous,” AHw, 573. Cf. HALOT, 2:538.

¹⁰ Just as “iniquity, rebellion, and sin” in Ex. 34:7 refer to “every conceivable sin,” so here “inner being, person, and resources” function superlatively for every part of a person.

^[1] Daniel I. Block, The NIV Application Commentary: Deuteronomy, ed. Terry Muck (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 182–184. (Bold and italics emphasis mine)