Moses turns in chapter 6 to instructions on passing this covenant on to the next generation. “When your son asks you…you shall say…” is both a command to pass on memory and a promise of posterity.

Just as the LORD didn’t simply draw Israel out of Egypt for the sake of that generation, so He is giving this people Canaan not only for them, but for all who will come after. As Canaan is to be an everlasting possession, so the story of the LORD’s providing it is to be an everlasting memory. It is the LORD your God that you, and your children, shall fear.

This is put succinctly in Chapter 6:4-9. This text is called the “Shema” in Hebrew, for its first line: “Shema, Israel!...Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.” Even further, “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

Chapters 7 and 8 remind us that Israel’s obedience is an act of gratitude: rooted in both past and future history. Every book of their journey is represented here: the LORD’s power displayed in Exodus, the LORD setting apart Israel as “holy” in Leviticus, and the LORD’s provision through the 40 years of Numbers. Further, the LORD is bringing them into “a good land, a land of brooks and water, of fountains and springs… a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees… a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing.”

Our verses for this week are Matthew 22:37-38: “And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”

Deuteronomy 6 through 8. Now let’s read it!