Commentaria in Deuteronomium
Chapter 6
Moses renews and inculcates the precept of loving God with the whole heart. Secondly, verse 10, he exhorts them to be ever mindful of God and of the law of God in Chanaan, promising, if they do so, fertility and prosperity of the land.
1. These are the precepts, and ceremonies, and judgments, which the Lord your God commanded that I should teach you, and that you should do them in the land into which you pass over to possess it: 2. That thou mayest fear the Lord thy God, and keep all his commandments and precepts, which I command thee, and thy sons, and thy grandsons, all the days of thy life, that thy days may be prolonged. 3. Hear, O Israel, and take care to do the things which the Lord hath commanded thee, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest be greatly multiplied, as the Lord the God of thy fathers hath promised thee a land flowing with milk and honey. 4. Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord. 5. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength. 6. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart: 7. And thou shalt tell them to thy children, and thou shalt meditate upon them sitting in thy house, and walking on thy journey, sleeping and rising. 8. And thou shalt bind them as a sign on thy hand, and they shall be and shall move between thy eyes. 9. And thou shalt write them in the entry, and on the doors of thy house. 10. And when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land, for which he swore to thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and shall have given thee great and goodly cities, which thou didst not build, 11. Houses full of riches, which thou didst not set up, cisterns which thou didst not dig, vineyards and oliveyards which thou didst not plant, 12. And thou shalt have eaten and be full: 13. Beware diligently lest thou forget the Lord, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and shalt serve him only, and thou shalt swear by his name. 14. You shall not go after the strange gods of all the nations that are round about you: 15. For the Lord thy God is a jealous God in the midst of thee; lest at any time the wrath of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and take thee away from the face of the earth. 16. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, as thou temptedst him in the place of temptation. 17. Keep the precepts of the Lord thy God, and the testimonies and ceremonies which he hath commanded thee: 18. And do that which is pleasing and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with thee: and going in thou mayest possess the excellent land, concerning which the Lord swore to thy fathers, 19. That he would destroy all thy enemies before thee, as he hath spoken. 20. And when thy son shall ask thee tomorrow, saying: What mean these testimonies, and ceremonies, and judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded us? 21. Thou shalt say to him: We were bondmen of Pharao in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand: 22. And he wrought signs and wonders, great and very grievous, in Egypt, against Pharao and all his house, in our sight, 23. And he brought us out from thence, that, bringing us in, he might give us the land, concerning which he swore to our fathers. 24. And the Lord commanded us that we should do all these legal ordinances, and should fear the Lord our God, that it may be well with us all the days of our life, as it is this day. 25. And he will be merciful to us, if we keep and do all his precepts before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us.
4. HEAR, O ISRAEL: THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD.—Hence the name of God is echad, that is, one, Isaias lxvi, 17, in Hebrew, “they that are purified in the gardens after one,” that is, one, namely God; and Job xxxi, 15. From echad God was called by the Syrians Ahad, and thence by the Assyrians Adad; for, as Macrobius teaches, Saturnalia book I, chapter xxiii, Adad was the supreme god of the Assyrians; to whom they also assigned the goddess Atargatis as wife: by Adad understanding the sun (which, because it is alone and one in the world, and is the cause and as it were father of all living things, they thought to be a god), by Atargatis the earth, because from these two all things are produced.
The reason why God is one is, first, because God is the most simple being, as also the most absolute and most perfect: therefore one. For if there were two gods, one would have something of perfection which the other has not, and consequently something of perfection would be lacking to each: therefore neither would be absolutely most perfect: therefore neither would be God. For God contains and embraces in himself the perfections of all things. Hence St. Thomas, I part, Question XI, article 4, teaches that God alone is plainly and fully one, because in God alone is full and supreme unity, namely simplicity, which is wholly and altogether free from composition, whereas, on the contrary, angels are composed of act and potency, and of essence and existence; man of body and soul, the rest of matter and form, and of subject and accident: none of which is in God. God is therefore supremely one, because uncompounded and most simple.
Secondly, if there were two gods, they would have two and diverse wills; therefore they might will contrary things: from which war between them and great disturbance in the government of the world would follow.
Thirdly, if there were two gods, one would limit and restrain the power and empire of the other: as in a republic when there are two consuls, one depends on the other, one limits the power of the other, nay the government is shared and divided. But God is infinite, and of unlimited power, having an entire, undivided empire; therefore he is one, not two. So St. Cyprian, in the book On the Vanity of Idols: “One,” he says, “is the Lord of all; for that sublimity cannot have a partner, since it alone holds the power of all.”
Fourthly, God is the monarch of the world: for monarchy is the best government; hence Homer will not have many rule, but heis koiranos esto, let there be one king. So St. Cyprian in the place cited, and he proves it by examples: “The Romans,” he says, “twins (Romulus and Remus), one kingdom did not contain, whom one womb’s lodging had held. Pompey and Cæsar were related, yet did not keep the bond of kinship in rivalry of power. Nor wonder thou at man, since in this all nature agrees. The bees have one king, the flocks one leader, the herds one ruler; much more is there one ruler of the world, who commands all things that are by a word, disposes them by reason, and consummates them by power. He cannot be seen: he is brighter than sight; nor comprehended: he is purer than touch; nor estimated: he is greater than sense; and therefore we then estimate him worthily when we call him inestimable.”
Fifthly, as from unity arise all numbers, and from the centre all lines that are drawn to the circumference, so from God arise all created things; they ought therefore to meet, to be united and to end in one principle, namely God, as in their centre.
Sixthly, there must be one ruler of the world, who orders and associates all things so various, fitly agreeing among themselves; for otherwise all things would not come together into one order, unless they be ordered by one. It is necessary therefore that the first mover and governor, who reduces all things to one order, be only one; and this is God.
“One God, therefore, one faith, one baptism”: which axiom belongs not only to the faithful, but to unbelieving Philosophers, Orators, Poets, Heretics and Mahometans, whose creed is: “There is no God but one, and Mahomet is his apostle.” So St. Thomas and the Scholastics, I part, Question XI, article 3.
Note: In the Hebrew the mystery of the Trinity and Incarnation is hinted. For it reads thus: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” The same is hinted by Isaias, chapter vi, verse 3, where the Seraphim cry: “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts”; which the ancient Rabbis, such as Rabbi Simeon son of Jochai, expound thus: “Holy,” he says, “is this the Father, holy is this the Son, holy is this the Holy Ghost,” as Galatinus testifies, book II, chapter i. And he adds that they ordained that at least twice a day, namely at sunrise and sunset, both those words of Isaias, or rather of the Seraphim, and these of Moses, be recited daily by every Jew, which he says continued among them to his own times, evidently that so they might profess the Trinity of persons with the unity of the divine essence. For the name “God” repeated thrice, like “holy” in Isaias, signifies three persons; but the “our” added in the second place signifies that the Word took our flesh, and was given to us, and Emmanuel was born for us. For this reason David also said in Psalm lxvi: “May God, our God, bless us, may God bless us.” Genebrard also cites, at the end of book I of his Chronology, an ancient Rabbi, Rabbi Ibba, who says that these three Uniques, that is, Holy, are elsewhere called three mirrors, three lights, three supreme fathers, without beginning or end; elsewhere they are called crown, wisdom and understanding; elsewhere three yods signifying three Jehovahs, that is, three divine persons.