Bill T. Arnold, “Deuteronomy,” in The SBL Study Bible, edited by Steven L. McKenzie, Kristin De Troyer, and F. Scott Spencer (HarperOne, 2023), 280-281.
Deuteronomy combines nearly the entire deposit of Israel’s faith traditions and reconfigures them as a message of one God (Yahweh), memorably crystallized in the Shema’s creedal refrain, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD [Yahweh] is our God, the LORD [Yahweh] alone” (6.4). This expression cannot be reduced to a simple statement of monotheism or of monolatry (devotion to only one deity without denying the existence of others), or of mono-Yahwism (which denies the notion that Yahweh could be segmented and worshipped in different places at the same time). None of these ways of understanding the statement are adequate because the Shema addresses more than mathematics, that is, more than the number of deities in existence, the number of deities Israel can worship, or the number of Yahweh’s local manifestations. Rather, it says something profoundly positive about the character of God, which leads immediately to a compelling and authoritative command to love God wholeheartedly (6.5). It also summarizes the Ten Commandments and, indeed, all the laws of the book in one fundamental principle of Israel’s faith, essentially emerging as one torah.
