📜WEB · Deuteronomy 6:5
What does Deuteronomy 6:5 mean?
"You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might."
— Deuteronomy 6:5 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
that you might fear Yahweh your God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you; you, and your son, and your son’s son, all the days of your life; and that your days may be prolonged.
Hear therefore, Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with you, and that you may increase mightily, as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has promised to you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one.
You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
These words, which I command you today, shall be on your heart;
and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.
You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes.
Explanation
Deuteronomy 6:5 commands total, undivided devotion to God. In plain language, it means that love for God is not meant to be partial or occasional but is to engage the whole person—the inner life of thought and emotion ("heart"), the very life force and being ("soul"), and the outward strength, resources, and actions ("might" or strength). Nothing is held back. This is not a suggestion or an ideal reserved for especially devoted people; it is a command given to the entire community of Israel as the foundation of their relationship with God.
The verse comes from Moses' address to the Israelites as they prepare to enter the Promised Land, after forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Deuteronomy is presented as Moses' final instructions before his death, reviewing the law and renewing the covenant with a new generation who did not personally witness the Exodus from Egypt. Verse 5 follows immediately after the Shema in verse 4 ("Hear, O Israel: Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one"), which declares God's unique identity and exclusivity. Because Yahweh alone is God, the appropriate response is not merely obedience or fear, but love—wholehearted, comprehensive love. This declaration and command together form the core confession of Israelite faith, recited daily in later Jewish practice.
Theologically, this verse establishes that the relationship between God and his people is fundamentally relational and affectionate, not merely legal or transactional. The Israelites are called to a covenant loyalty that flows from love, not from obligation alone. This anticip
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