Information Related to "`The LORD Our God Is One'"
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"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!" This simple declaration by Moses in Deuteronomy 6:4 has caused considerable consternation to many who try to understand who and what God is.
Reading here that God is one, most Jews for centuries have ruled out the possibility that Jesus of Nazareth could be the Son of God, on the same divine plane as God the Father.
Early Catholic theologians, reading the same verse, struggled to formulate in the doctrine of the Trinity a God consisting of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who were all distinct persons yet at the same time a single triune God.
How, then, should we understand this verse?
One of the primary principles for understanding the Bible is that we must consider all the scriptures on a subject. Only then will we come to a complete and accurate understanding of the matter.
Other biblical passages clearly tell us that two distinct individuals, the Father and Jesus Christ the Son, are both God (Hebrews 1:8; John 1:1,14). Therefore we should consider whether this verse is commenting on the numerical oneness of God, or something else entirely.
The Hebrew word translated "one" in Deuteronomy 6:4 is echad. Its meanings include the number one, but also such associated meanings as "one and the same," "as one man, together [unified]," "each, every," "one after another" and "first [in sequence or importance]" (Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, 1951, p. 25). It can also be rendered "alone," as the NRSV translates it here (William Holladay, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, 1972, p. 9). The exact meaning is best determined by context.
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