What Does Deuteronomy 6:5 Mean?
And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your living soul, and with all your might.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.THE KEY
The word rendered “might” carries the sense of all your muchness: love reaches every capacity and resource you carry.
THE MEANING
Your love for the LORD gathers your inner center, your living self, and all your muchness into one whole response. “Heart, soul, and might” reach through thought and desire, life and capacity; no part of you is outside the word “all.”
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the idea that love for God is only a feeling or a private spiritual compartment; it names a love that reaches into your whole life.
THE ROOT
אָהַב
ʾāhav
GROWS FROM
אהב
Love, attachment, and affection.
The same root names love directed toward God, a neighbor, and a stranger. It holds these relationships within one word: love here is more than inward sentiment; it describes how the self turns toward another.
ALSO GROWS
ahavah: Love, affection
אַהֲבָה
The noun form shows that the same root names love as a bond, not only as a feeling in a single moment.
ahuv: Beloved, one who is loved
אָהוּב
This form reveals the relationship from the other side: love also names the one who receives it.
נֶפֶשׁ
nefesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
The living self: a person, life, or appetite.
“living soul” in this verse is nefesh. The word translated “soul” names the living person, not merely an inward part set apart from the body. Beside heart and might, it widens the verse’s reach to the whole living self.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh: Living soul, person, life
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the word in the verse: love includes the living person, with their needs and desires.
naphash: To rest or be refreshed
נָפַשׁ
This verb from the same root evokes a living self that can be restored, adding the rhythms of life to the word’s range.
מְאֹד
me'od
GROWS FROM
מאד
Much, exceedingly; the full measure of something.
Me’od often intensifies a word as “very” or “exceedingly”; here it is spoken of as “your me’od,” your muchness. “Might” therefore reaches beyond physical strength to the full extent of your capacity and resources.
ALSO GROWS
me'od: Very, exceedingly, greatly
מְאֹד
As an intensifier, the word carries a sense of abundance and degree that deepens the verse’s repeated “all.”
me'odekha: Your might, your muchness
מְאֹדֶךָ
The form in the verse gathers the full measure of what belongs to you into the love being described.
THE PATTERN
Love for God engages the whole person: the inner center, the living self, and every capacity.
And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you, but to stand in awe of the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your living soul,And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your living soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first command.Therefore I urge you, brothers, through the compassions of God, to set your bodies beside God as a living sacrifice, set apart, well-pleasing to him, which is your true service.THE THREAD
But the sojourner who sojourns with you shall be to you as one who springs up among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.“Love” here comes from the same Hebrew root as “love” in Deuteronomy 6:5. Its use for the stranger shows that this same word reaches beyond devotion to God and describes how the whole self turns toward another person.
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