PRAYER · SHEMA · 3 OF 6
These words on your heart
The Shema places “these words” upon our hearts. Follow that phrase back into Moshe's teaching and forward into what we will pass on, so that taking the words to heart becomes more than a vague intention.
In this lesson
Let the surrounding sentences help
The first paragraph of the Shema is Deuteronomy 6:4–9. We recite it as the first of three passages in the morning and evening. Deuteronomy belongs to the Torah, the five books of Moshe, Moses. Here Moshe is teaching Israel as our people prepare to enter the land.
We have read the declaration that Hashem is our God, Hashem is one, and the call to love him with all our heart, soul and might. Hashem means “the Name,” our reverent way of referring to God. Now the text returns to the heart, but it gives a new instruction.
והיו הדברים האלה אשר אנכי מצוך היום על לבבך
These words that I command you today shall be upon your heart.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Three questions will guide our reading: Which words? Who commands them? What place are they to have? The verse gives us important answers, and the beginning of the chapter makes those answers more precise.
Read what comes before “Hear, Israel”
Verses 1–3 introduce the teaching immediately before the Shema. Read them as connected sentences. Statutes and ordinances are terms for Hashem's laws and instructions; together with “commandment,” they keep our attention on teaching to be lived.
וזאת המצוה החקים והמשפטים אשר צוה יהוה אלהיכם ללמד אתכם לעשות בארץ אשר אתם עברים שמה לרשתה
1. This is the commandment, the statutes and the ordinances that Hashem your God commanded to teach you, to carry out in the land you are crossing into to possess.
למען תירא את יהוה אלהיך לשמר את כל חקתיו ומצותיו אשר אנכי מצוך אתה ובנך ובן בנך כל ימי חייך ולמען יארכן ימיך
2. So that you will revere Hashem your God, keeping all his statutes and commandments that I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and so that your days may be long.
ושמעת ישראל ושמרת לעשות אשר ייטב לך ואשר תרבון מאד כאשר דבר יהוה אלהי אבתיך לך ארץ זבת חלב ודבש
3. Hear, Israel, and take care to do, so that it may go well for you and you may increase greatly, as Hashem, the God of your ancestors, promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Notice the movement: Hashem commands; Moshe teaches; Israel hears, keeps and does. The setting includes a land the people are entering, generations who will live there and a lifetime of faithfulness. “These words” in verse 6 therefore belongs to a real body of commanded teaching, not to whichever sayings happen to appeal to us.
Also notice the purpose of teaching in verse 1: “to carry out.” The chapter values knowledge that shapes conduct. In verse 2, this learning reaches children and grandchildren. The words are to outlast a single encounter with their sound.
1. Who is the “I” speaking in verse 6, and where does his teaching receive its authority? Use verse 1 as evidence.
Moshe is speaking in this address to Israel. Verse 1 identifies the teaching as what Hashem commanded to teach the people. We can therefore say, “Moshe conveys Hashem's commands.” That keeps the speaker and the source of the command clear rather than treating the sentence as Moshe's private advice.
2. Which two details challenge the idea that this is only a lesson to remember for a few minutes?
Verse 1 connects teaching with carrying out the instruction. Verse 2 extends it through “all the days of your life” and includes a son and grandson. Verse 3 again joins hearing with doing. Any two of these details support a lasting, lived reception rather than a brief encounter with information.
Give each phrase its work
- הדברים האלה
These words. “These” points to the teaching being given, including the declaration and command to love we have just read. We identify the words by returning to the text, not by substituting a favorite thought of our own.
- אשר אנכי מצוך היום
That I command you today. This phrase describes the words. They have the force of commanded teaching, not merely advice for a mood. “Today” first belongs to Moshe's address to Israel; it makes the instruction present to the people hearing him.
- על לבבך
Upon your heart. The instruction asks for an inward place for the teaching. Read with the surrounding call to keep and do, it concerns words we attend to and live by, not words left outside us as something we have merely heard.
When we receive this verse in our own learning and prayer, we answer its continuing claim on us. We can ask, “What will help me attend to these words today?” That is our present response to the verse. It grows from the original address rather than replacing its historical setting.
3. A learner says, “The word ‘today’ proves Moshe was speaking about the date on my phone.” How would you preserve both the original setting and the learner's present response?
“Today” first refers to the day of Moshe's address to Israel. We receive his teaching now and can choose to attend to it today in our own lives. The first statement explains the verse in its setting; the second describes our response. Both matter, but they are different claims.
The heart receives what love attends to
Compare the two consecutive verses. Verse 5 says to love Hashem with all your heart. Verse 6 says the commanded words shall be upon your heart. In the first, the heart belongs to our wholehearted love; in the second, the heart receives the words that guide us.
This connection gives love content and direction. We learn what the One we love commands. Taking words to heart includes remembering them, but the surrounding chapter also calls us to understand what we hear well enough to keep and do it. A familiar sentence can become a guide for choices rather than only a line we recognize.
4. What would be missing from a summary that said only, “The heart appears twice, so the verses repeat the same instruction”?
It would miss the different actions and objects. Verse 5 commands love for Hashem with all the heart; verse 6 gives the commanded words a place upon the heart. The repetition connects wholehearted love with inward reception of teaching. It does not make the two verses interchangeable.
Follow the words into the next sentence
The next verse opens:
ושננתם לבניך ודברת בם
Teach them diligently to your children and speak of them.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Read verse 6 immediately before this opening. Do not fill in “them” from a topic you happen to have in mind. Let the preceding sentence supply what the pronoun points to.
5. What are “them,” and how does the answer connect inward attention with teaching?
“Them” points back to the words commanded in verse 6. The same words that belong upon the heart are to be taught and spoken. The movement is from receiving teaching ourselves to passing it on, not from inward feeling to an unrelated conversation. The next lesson follows the full range of teaching and speaking in verse 7.
Improve a claim by widening the evidence
Daniel writes: “To put the words on my heart, I only need to memorize them.” He has noticed something valuable: remembering matters. Now help him make the claim fit the whole passage.
- Keep the useful observation. Words we forget cannot easily guide our attention. Remembering supports taking the teaching to heart.
- Test “only.” Verse 1 says teaching is for carrying out the instructions, and verse 3 joins hearing with doing. Verse 7 asks us to teach and speak the words.
- Write a stronger conclusion. “I will learn the words so I can remember their meaning, let them guide my conduct and explain them to someone else.”
The revised sentence is Daniel's learning plan, not a new translation of verse 6. Its strength is that several details in the passage support it. We can value memorization without making it the whole work of receiving Torah.
Compare another call to keep something on the heart
Earlier in Deuteronomy, Moshe recalls the people's encounter with Hashem at Horeb, Sinai. Verse 4:10 identifies the day when the people gathered to hear Hashem's words. Read the preceding verse without looking ahead to the answer:
רק השמר לך ושמר נפשך מאד פן תשכח את הדברים אשר ראו עיניך ופן יסורו מלבבך כל ימי חייך והודעתם לבניך ולבני בניך
Only take care and guard yourself diligently, lest you forget the things your eyes saw and lest they leave your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Write a comparison with three parts: one shared concern, one important difference in what is to be held close, and one connection between inward memory and passing something on. Use a detail from 4:9 and a detail from chapter 6. Then test the claim, “If it is on the heart, it stays private.”
6. Compare your answer from the new passage
Both passages call for something to remain inwardly present across time. Deuteronomy 4:9 warns against forgetting the things the people saw or letting them leave the heart; 6:6 places the words Moshe commands upon the heart. The shared image does not erase that difference between witnessed events and commanded words.
Chapter 4:9 asks that the things be made known to children and grandchildren. Chapter 6:2 also includes succeeding generations, and 6:7 calls for teaching and speaking the words. In both, inward reception supports transmission. “It stays private” therefore fails to account for what follows the heart language.
Return without the source cards
Later, explain verse 6 using the three questions from the beginning: which words, who commands them, and what place they are to have. Add one detail from verses 1–3 and one from verse 7. Finally, name a similarity and a difference in the passage from chapter 4.
8. Check your recall
These are the commanded words Moshe teaches Israel on Hashem's authority. They are to be upon the heart. Verses 1–3 connect teaching with lifelong keeping and doing across generations; verse 7 carries the same words into teaching and speech.
Chapter 4 also joins the heart, lasting remembrance and passing something on to children. Its immediate object is the things the people witnessed, while 6:6 speaks of commanded words. The comparison helps us understand the connection between inward attention and shared life without flattening the two passages into one.
Return to the sources
- Deuteronomy 6:1–7: the purpose and transmission of the teaching, love, words upon the heart, and the opening of teaching and speaking.
- Deuteronomy 4:9–10: keeping the witnessed encounter in memory and making it known to succeeding generations.
- Deuteronomy 1:1–5: the setting of Moshe's address to Israel.