Ambiguity of Deuteronomy 6:4 "the Lord is one"

[cloudyday2]

Here is a quote from website addressing Deuteronomy 6:4

The opening of the Shema (or the “Saying”), a central teaching in Judaism, says that the Lord is one: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4).

Most English Bibles include a footnote to express alternative translations, as this is a difficult passage among Hebrew scholars. Options include “The LORD our God is one Lord,” “The LORD is our God, the LORD is one,” and “The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.”

What does it mean that the LORD is one (Deuteronomy 6:4)? | GotQuestions.org

It seems to me that saying "the Lord is one" is meaningless. "Zeus is one", "Snoopy is one", ... so what? Of course we can imagine it means that the Lord is the only god, but that isn't obvious to me. It seems more like a poor translation.

However "the Lord is our God, the Lord alone" make more sense, and this is consistent with the view that "Yahwism" was monolatristic (believing in many gods but worshiping only one) rather than monotheistic. ( Yahwism - Wikipedia )

Just curious what others think.

 

[JohnClay]

enduringword.com/bible-commentary/deuteronomy-6/

b. The LORD our God, the LORD is one: This is the essential truth about God. He is a person and not a vague pantheistic force. Being one, He cannot be represented by contradictory images. Since the LORD our God is one, He is not Baal, or Ashtoreth – He is the LORD God, and they are not.

i. In the mind of many Jewish people, this verse alone disqualified the New Testament teaching that Jesus is God, and the New Testament teaching of the Trinity – that there is one God, existing in three Persons. At some times and places, as Jewish synagogues said the Shema together, and when the word one (echad) was said, they loudly and strongly repeated that one word for several minutes, as if it were a rebuke to Christians who believed in the Trinity.

ii. Christians must come to a renewed understanding of the unity of God. They must appreciate the fact that the LORD is one, not three, as 1 Corinthians 8:6 says: yet for us there is one God. We worship one God, existing in three persons, not three separate gods.

iii. Yet, the statement the LORD is one certainly does not contradict the truth of the Trinity. In fact, it establishes that truth. The Hebrew word for one is echad, which speaks most literally of a compound unity, instead of using the Hebrew word yacheed, which speaks of an absolute unity or singularity (Genesis 22:2 and Psalm 25:16).

iv. The very first use of echad in the Bible is in Genesis 1:5: So the evening and the morning were the first day. Even here, we see a unity (one day) with the idea of plurality (made up of evening and morning).

· Genesis 2:24 uses echad in saying the two shall become one flesh. Again, the idea of a unity (one flesh), making a plurality (the two).

· In Exodus 26:6 and 11, the fifty gold clasps are used to hold the curtains together, so the tent would be one (echad) – a unity (one) made up of a plurality (the many parts of the tabernacle).

· In Ezekiel 37:17 the LORD tells Ezekiel to join together two sticks (prophetically representing Ephraim and Judah) into one (echad), speaking again of a unity (one stick) made up of a plurality (the two sticks).

v. There is no way that echad has the exclusive idea of an absolute singularity; the idea of One God in Three Persons fits just fine with the term echad.

 

[cloudyday2]

enduringword.com/bible-commentary/deuteronomy-6/

b. The LORD our God, the LORD is one: This is the essential truth about God. He is a person and not a vague pantheistic force. Being one, He cannot be represented by contradictory images. Since the LORD our God is one, He is not Baal, or Ashtoreth – He is the LORD God, and they are not.

i. In the mind of many Jewish people, this verse alone disqualified the New Testament teaching that Jesus is God, and the New Testament teaching of the Trinity – that there is one God, existing in three Persons. At some times and places, as Jewish synagogues said the Shema together, and when the word one (echad) was said, they loudly and strongly repeated that one word for several minutes, as if it were a rebuke to Christians who believed in the Trinity.

ii. Christians must come to a renewed understanding of the unity of God. They must appreciate the fact that the LORD is one, not three, as 1 Corinthians 8:6 says: yet for us there is one God. We worship one God, existing in three persons, not three separate gods.

iii. Yet, the statement the LORD is one certainly does not contradict the truth of the Trinity. In fact, it establishes that truth. The Hebrew word for one is echad, which speaks most literally of a compound unity, instead of using the Hebrew word yacheed, which speaks of an absolute unity or singularity (Genesis 22:2 and Psalm 25:16).

iv. The very first use of echad in the Bible is in Genesis 1:5: So the evening and the morning were the first day. Even here, we see a unity (one day) with the idea of plurality (made up of evening and morning).

· Genesis 2:24 uses echad in saying the two shall become one flesh. Again, the idea of a unity (one flesh), making a plurality (the two).

· In Exodus 26:6 and 11, the fifty gold clasps are used to hold the curtains together, so the tent would be one (echad) – a unity (one) made up of a plurality (the many parts of the tabernacle).

· In Ezekiel 37:17 the LORD tells Ezekiel to join together two sticks (prophetically representing Ephraim and Judah) into one (echad), speaking again of a unity (one stick) made up of a plurality (the two sticks).

v. There is no way that echad has the exclusive idea of an absolute singularity; the idea of One God in Three Persons fits just fine with the term echad.

It seems to me that if "echad" ("one") means a unity of multiple things then there must be some perspective that reveals this.
- Maybe the perspective is history: "before the unity there were independent things".
- Maybe the perspective is dissection: "slicing the unity open we can see there are various things inside".
- Maybe the perspective is subjectivity: "I see the left side and you see the right side, but it is the same unity".

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Here is a quote from website addressing Deuteronomy 6:4

What does it mean that the LORD is one (Deuteronomy 6:4)? | GotQuestions.org

It seems to me that saying "the Lord is one" is meaningless. "Zeus is one", "Snoopy is one", ... so what? Of course we can imagine it means that the Lord is the only god, but that isn't obvious to me. It seems more like a poor translation.

However "the Lord is our God, the Lord alone" make more sense, and this is consistent with the view that "Yahwism" was monolatristic (believing in many gods but worshiping only one) rather than monotheistic. ( Yahwism - Wikipedia )

Just curious what others think.

His house cannot be divided, The Kingdom of God. Being monolatristic is an oxymoron and more importantly an unrealized fact that humans "change their minds". One moment you believe in god #95 the next you believe that god #9 has more to offer. Huh? Does not work. So that being said, the "Lord is one" means there is no other. He is the "unknown God".

 

[JIMINZ]

Deu. 6:4
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

HEBREW:
ONE
H259
אֶחָד
'echâd
ekh-awd'
A numeral from H258; properly united, that is, one; or (as an ordinal) first: - a, alike, alone, altogether, and, any (-thing), apiece, a certain [dai-] ly, each (one), + eleven, every, few, first, + highway, a man, once, one, only, other, some, together.

H258
אָחַד
'âchad
aw-khad'
Perhaps a primitive root; to unify, that is, (figuratively) collect (one’s thoughts): - go one way or other.



Echad is the Hebrew word for one, but more precisely it means a single entity but made up of more than one part. There is another Hebrew word from the same root – Yachid which means single. The meaning of Echad (more than one part) is a confirmation of the Hebrew word Elohim which is translated as God.

There isn't any ambiguity in the understanding of the word, it's only that the Jewish people are blinded to the fact, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, comprise the word ECHAD.

 

[cloudyday2]

His house cannot be divided, The Kingdom of God. Being monolatristic is an oxymoron and more importantly an unrealized fact that humans "change their minds". One moment you believe in god #95 the next you believe that god #9 has more to offer. Huh? Does not work. So that being said, the "Lord is one" means there is no other. He is the "unknown God".

Monolatristic is somewhat like marriage. The man and woman take a vow of devotion to each other, but they realize there are other men and women in the world. The Hebrews agreed to worship Yahweh exclusively, but they knew that other people had other gods, and they did not deny the reality of those gods.

Many scholars think that monotheism and the Torah developed when the Jews returned from exile in Babylon.