Shema!

Introduction

Shema

Welcome back everyone as we continue our studies in certain Hebrew words and phrases. This is The Hebrew Key, number two. And this is about the word shema (שְׁמַע).

Now in the title slide you’ll notice I translate the word shema as “hear.” But this is also the Hebrew word for “obey.” There is no other Hebrew word used in the Bible for “obey” than the word shema. To hear — and after all, if you have little children, when you say “Now you listen to me,” you’re really telling them to do what you say. Because if you hear something but do not allow it to affect your behavior and your obedience, then what good were the words? Anything we listen to — we give our ear to — should be to the goal of changing our behavior, changing how we do something. So if we’re not changing what we do, we’re not really truly hearing.

We must remember that spiritual light comes in through the ears; physical light comes in through the eyes. And when we walk by our human reasoning, we walk by what we see. And we are not to walk by sight but by faith. But faith does not come through the eyes — faith comes through the ear. Spiritual light comes in through the ears.

The Six Words of the Shema

And so this word shema — as most of you know — is the first word of what we call the Shema:

Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad (שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד). — Deuteronomy 6:4

“Hear, O Israel, Adonai our God, Adonai is one.”

And it’s traditional that when we pray this in the liturgical service, we cover our eyes with our right hand — “Hear, O Israel” — in other words, a block from sight, anything that would distract. Because what our eyes see tells us one thing, but we close our eyes because what God says is what truth is. We cannot rely upon the eyes — we must rely upon the ears to hear what God is speaking to us. And then we’ll make our path straight; then we’ll walk in righteousness and truth. But if we walk according to our eyes and our human reasoning, we will trip up and fail every time. As it says in Proverbs: “Do not lean on your own understanding.”

So let’s just take a look at this phrase — the Shema. And of course, as you know, Hebrew reads from right to left. There’s the word shema — “to hear.” There’s the word Yisrael (יִשְׂרָאֵל) — “Israel.” Adonai (אֲדֹנָי) — Eloheinu (אֱלֹהֵינוּ) — “our God.” Adonai Echad (אֶחָד). And there are the six words of the Shema.

Now when these six words appear in a Torah (תּוֹרָה) scroll, you’ll notice that two of the letters in this line are written over-size. And this is the way these words appear in every Torah scroll in the world — and if they’re not written this way, it is not a kosher Torah scroll. The last letter of shema — ayin (עַ) — and the last letter of echad — dalet (ד) — the word “one” — are written over-size.

These two letters, ayin and dalet, spell the word ed (עֵד) — which is the word for “testimony.” Because the message of these six words is Israel’s testimony to the world. It’s their ed. When you read in the Torah and in the Psalms about God’s “testimonies,” it’s the word edut (עֵדוּת) — and that’s the plural of the word ed.

Now don’t be mistaken — this phrase, the Shema, is not just telling us that there is only one God. There were some other religions at the time that also were monotheistic — they believed in only one God. And true, there is only one God. But these six words are telling us something more than that. And according to our sages, these six words — “Hear, O Israel, Adonai our God, Adonai is one” — is not saying that there’s just one God. It’s saying more. It’s saying that he is the only one with whom we have to do with anything. Wherever we go, he is there. Everything we see — everything — is an expression somehow that comes from God, that he is in everything.

We do not believe in pantheism, where there are many gods. But the scriptures teach what is called panentheism, which means that God is in everything — and that is why it exists. He upholds the entire creation — everything from a grain of sand to an atom, a molecule, to a galaxy. He upholds it all by the breath and the speech of his voice. He is in everything, and everything in creation is an expression of him — it is his speech. And that is what these six words are expressing: that you cannot escape Adonai. You cannot escape him. And as the psalmist says, “Even if I make my bed in Sheol, Lord, you’re there.” So there’s no place you can go to escape God’s presence. He is everywhere. He is in everything.

Yeshua and the Shema

There’s much more to be said about this, and hopefully as we continue in coming sessions we will address this further. But let’s look at this phrase — the Shema — and how Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) referred to it.

It was a common thing in ancient times — and even happens today — when the disciples of a rabbi, or potential disciples, will ask a rabbi: “What is the Torah? What is the heart and soul of the Torah? In other words, what is the most important commandment?” And we see this question asked throughout Jewish history — you can read about it in the various writings, and it’ll talk about a rabbi who will say these three or four commandments are the most important. And one of the minor prophets is asked: “What is good? What is required of you?” — “A man: to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with your God.” Those are the three main things.

Well, Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) was asked this question. It’s in Mark chapter 12 beginning with verse 28:

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Yeshua answered, “The most important is Shema Yisrael — Hear, O Israel, Adonai our God, Adonai is one. And you shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.” — Mark 12:28–30

What we call the Shema begins with these six words in Hebrew, but it continues over the next several verses. I have put that passage in the notes — you can read it — it’s verses 4 through 9 of Deuteronomy 6:4–9.

And this is the passage that is written by a scribe on a small piece of parchment, rolled up and put in a little container that we call a mezuzah (מְזוּזָה) — which really means “doorpost.” And if you go into a home — a Jewish home or a synagogue — in fact, if you enter into the Old City through under the gates of Israel, if you’ll look up to your right when you go in, you’ll see a mezuzah, some kind of container, and people touching their hands and kissing their lips as they acknowledge God’s presence and protection over that city. And inside that mezuzah will be a scroll with those words: “Hear, O Israel, Adonai our God, Adonai is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your resources…” And it goes on — “These commandments which I teach you today shall be upon your hearts; you shall teach them diligently to your children.” And it ends with: “You shall write them upon the mezuzah, the doorpost of your houses, and upon your gates.” And that is why we put the little scroll in a little container on the right-hand side of the door as we enter a home.

The Second Commandment — Loving Your Neighbor

So anyways, Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) says this is the most important commandment of all. But it does not stand alone — there’s a second commandment. And this must have surprised the questioner when he asked Yeshua what is the most important commandment, because Yeshua went on and said:

“The second is this: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” — Mark 12:31

When Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) said that you must love your neighbor as yourself, he’s quoting Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18. And these two commandments — the commandment to love God and the commandment to love our neighbor — go together. You cannot truly do one without doing the other, whether you intend to or not.

What I mean by that is this: if you say that you love God but you despise your neighbor, criticize your neighbor, complain about your neighbor — you’re forgetting that your neighbor is made in God’s image, just as you and I are. And what are people to think if you say you love so-and-so and you have a picture of them on your wall, but every time you pass by their picture you spit on it? When you criticize, complain, and despise your neighbor, you’re spitting upon an image of God — because your neighbor is made in God’s image. So if we’re going to love God, it’s important we respect our neighbors as well. Because in some ways, as imperfect as they may be, they are reflecting God’s image. And we need to respect that image.

And you know, the people in our lives — whether we like them or not, whether they are our family members, our friends, or our persecutors and enemies — there’s something God wants to teach us through them. And so even if we meet someone we dislike greatly, we need to, in our minds, remind ourselves that even this person is my teacher. And I have found in my own life, oftentimes when there’s someone who just rubs me the wrong way — there’s something about that person that irritates me to no end — there’s a little voice that says, “That’s a mirror. And what irritates you about the person is the thing that irritates me about you.” Ouch. But it’s so true. And oftentimes what you’re most sensitive to in another is the very thing you need to deal with in your own life. So keep that in mind.

And if you say, “Well, I love my neighbor but I don’t love God” — may I suggest that whatever it is you love about your neighbor, it’s actually some spark — some bit of God — that you’re seeing in them. So as I said earlier, it’s really impossible to keep one of these commandments without keeping the other. You either keep them both or you keep neither.

The Letters of Shema (שְׁמַע)

Now let’s look at this word shema (שְׁמַע), because after all this series is called The Hebrew Key, and so I want us to understand this word and see some insights into it.

The word is spelled shin (שׁ) — that’s where we get the sh part of shema — mem (מ) — and that mem always has an um sound, like the letter M — and then ayin (עַ). The last letter is a silent letter but this letter happens to be assigned a vowel sound that gives it an ah sound. And I pronounce it with two syllables: she-ma. But you may hear some pronounce it as one syllable: shma — which is kind of hard to do as one syllable.

I want to look a little more deeply into this. The letter ayin (עַ) — this last letter — is interesting because its name means “eye” — like the “I” in your head. It’s the letter eye. It means “I.” And it is suggested that this letter has two parts at the top which represent the two eyes, and this below like the mouth and the jaw. So the eye is looking to the left.

The sages suggest by this that the word shema ends with a letter that means “eye” because: only after you hear — after you truly hear what God is saying — are you able to see. Seeing comes at the end. The eye comes at the end of the word shema. When we try to see first, before we hear, it just doesn’t work. People who want to understand something before they’ll really hear what God is saying and truly obey him will never obey him. We must hear first, step out in faith — and then our eyes will be opened.

There’s this wonderful legend — and it is merely a legend — that when the Israelites were told to cross the Red Sea, the sea had not yet parted. And there was one man — I believe his name was Nachman, but don’t hold me to that — but the legend says that Nachman began to go ahead and wade out into the water. He heard what God said through Moses — that we are to go forth, walk forth — and he walked out in the water till the water was up to his ankles, up to his knees, up to his chest. And when it got right up to his chin, then it parted. And the story here — and again, it’s a legend — the story is that we walk by faith. And if we’ll simply walk out, as impossible as it may seem to us, eventually our eyes will see what God will do. And that is what Moses said: “Don’t be afraid. Be quiet. Stand still — and behold the salvation of Adonai.” The beholding took place at the end of the obedience. So we obey first — and then we can see.

Sham (שָׁם) — “There”

These first two letters are interesting in that shin and mem together spell the word sham (שָׁם) — which means “there,” “over there.” So when we hear and obey, then we will be able to see “there” — where God is sending us. Too many times we do not want to commit our way to God until we know where we’re going. And he says, “Follow me.” And only if we do — only if we hear and obey — will we see where we’re going, where he’s taking us. He insists that we trust him first. We hear — and then we’ll see.

Ol Malkhut Shamayim (עֹל מַלְכוּת שָׁמַיִם) — The Yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven

The sages attach another significance to these three letters. The sages love acrostics — or anagrams, I forget which — I should have looked that up ahead of time — but where letters stand for words. And they say: take these three letters and spell them backwards, and you get the phrase ol malkhut shamayim (עֹל מַלְכוּת שָׁמַיִם) — “the yoke of the kingdom of heaven.” The word ol here — or oil — is the word for “yoke.” Yoke — malkhut — “which means kingdom” — shamayim (שָׁמַיִם).

You notice shamayim also begins with those same two letters — shin and mem — the same first two letters as shema. Those two letters mean “there.” And the heavens — shamayim — is where everything is that I want, everything I desire, is there. It’s a plural form of “there.” Whatever you want, whatever you think is worth living for or dying for — it finds its fulfillment there. That’s what heaven is. It’s the “there.”

So the kingdom — the yoke of the kingdom of heaven.

Bene Belial (בְּנֵי בְלִיַּעַל) — Sons Without a Yoke

I’m going to close this out with just a comment on this word ol — or oil — “yoke.” In the Bible you find the phrase bene Belial (בְּנֵי בְלִיַּעַל) — pronounced a couple different ways, or “Belial” as some say. Belial means beli (בְּלִי) — “without” — and ol (עֹל) — “yoke.” Sons of Belial are men who walk without a yoke — they’re not yoked to God. And in the scriptures we find this phrase many times in the Hebrew scriptures — we find it 22 times. Then we find it one time over in Corinthians, where Paul uses it. And some translations translate bene Belial, “sons of Belial,” as “worthless men.” And you know what — a person who is not yoked to God certainly doesn’t measure up to what his full worth could be.

Some of the examples — and you’ll find them all in your notes — are Deuteronomy 13:13: certain sons of Belial (and again, your translation may say “worthless men”) have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city. You find this phrase in Psalms, you find it in Proverbs, and then finally you’ll find it over in Corinthians.

And we want to be sure that we are not those who are unyoked. We want to be those who take Messiah’s yoke upon us — are yoked to him, walk shoulder to shoulder with him. And though we may not know where he is going, if we’re yoked with him, if we have our heads in the yoke, we will trust our elder brother, our Savior, our Redeemer, our Messiah, our Master.

So I hope you will be challenged today to not trust in your eyes — in your human reasoning — that will always lead you astray, and it is the greatest enemy of the walk of faith. Because God will often ask us to do something that does not make common sense. But it will make uncommon sense — because his ways are higher than our ways; his thoughts are loftier than our thoughts could ever be. So let’s learn to trust the Head. Let’s learn to trust the Master — the one who sees all, the one who knows all, the one who loves us to the point of death — and trust him that he’s going to lead us right.

So let’s close our eyes — and let’s shema (שְׁמַע).

So God bless you, and I’ll see you next time on the Hebrew Key. Shalom (שָׁלוֹם).

Teaching Material

Hebrew Word Studies

Shema (שְׁמַע) — “Hear, listen, obey”; the only Hebrew word used in the Bible for “obey.” There is no separate Hebrew word for obedience — to truly hear is to obey. Spelled shin-mem-ayin (שְׁמַע). The first word of Deuteronomy 6:4 and the name of Israel’s central declaration of faith. Faith comes through the ear, not the eye — spiritual light enters through hearing. — Strong’s H8085 · Sefaria: Deuteronomy 6:4

Echad (אֶחָד) — “One”; the final word of the six-word Shema. More than numerical oneness — it declares that God is the only one with whom we have to do with anything; that he is in everything and upholds all of creation. The scriptures do NOT teach Pantheism, but it does teach panentheism — God is in everything, and everything exists because of him. — Strong’s H259

Ayin (עַ) — The 16th letter of the Hebrew alphabet; its name means “eye.” Silent in modern Hebrew but assigned a vowel sound. The final letter of shema (שְׁמַע). The sages teach that the ayin — the eye — comes at the end of shema because only after we truly hear and obey does our spiritual sight open. We do not see first and then obey — we obey first, and then we see. — Hebrew4Christians: The Letter Ayin

Ed (עֵד) / Edut (עֵדוּת) — “Testimony, witness”; spelled ayin-dalet (עֵד). The two oversized letters in every Torah scroll’s Shema — the ayin of shema and the dalet of echad — spell ed: testimony. The six words of the Shema are Israel’s testimony (edut) to the world: that God is one, God is everywhere, and God is in everything. — Strong’s H5707

Sham (שָׁם) — “There, over there”; spelled by the first two letters of shema — shin and mem. When we hear and obey, we are able to see “there” — where God is sending us. We cannot know the destination before we take the first step of obedience. — Strong’s H8033

Shamayim (שָׁמַיִם) — “Heavens, sky”; also begins with shin-mem — the same first two letters as shema and sham. A plural form of “there” (sham). Heaven is the ultimate “there” — where everything we truly desire finds its fulfillment. — Strong’s H8064

Ol Malkhut Shamayim (עֹל מַלְכוּת שָׁמַיִם) — “The yoke of the kingdom of heaven”; the phrase formed by reading the letters of shema (שְׁמַע) backwards as an acrostic. To take the Shema upon oneself is to take on the yoke of the kingdom of heaven — to submit to God’s reign. 

Ol (עֹל) — “Yoke”; embedded in Belial (beli ol — without a yoke). To be yoked to God — walking shoulder to shoulder with Messiah — is the calling of every disciple. Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) himself invites: “Take my yoke upon you” (Matthew 11:29). — Strong’s H5923

Bene Belial (בְּנֵי בְלִיַּעַל) — “Sons of Belial / worthless men”; from beli (without) + ol (yoke) = those who walk without a yoke, unyoked from God. Found 22 times in the Hebrew scriptures and once in 2 Corinthians 6:15. Often translated “worthless men” — because a person unyoked from God cannot live up to his full worth and potential. — Strong’s H1100

Mezuzah (מְזוּזָה) — “Doorpost”; the container affixed to the right side of a doorway, holding a small scroll inscribed with Deuteronomy 6:4–9 and 11:13–21. Commanded in the Shema passage itself: “You shall write them on the doorposts of your houses.” A visible sign that those inside have taken the yoke of the kingdom of heaven. — Strong’s H4201 · Chabad: Mezuzah

Shalom (שָׁלוֹם) — “Peace, wholeness, completeness, well-being.” — Strong’s H7965

Scripture References

Open All Scripture in Bible Gateway

• Deuteronomy 6:4–9 — The full Shema passage: six words of Israel’s testimony, the call to love God with all, the command to teach diligently, and the mezuzah instruction
• Mark 12:28–31 — Yeshua quotes the Shema as the greatest commandment and pairs it with Leviticus 19:18 — loving God and loving neighbor are inseparable
• Leviticus 19:18 — “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” — the second great commandment quoted by Yeshua; your neighbor is made in God’s image
• Psalm 139:8 — “Even if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there” — Adonai Echad: God is everywhere, inescapable, present in all things
• Proverbs 3:5–6 — “Do not lean on your own understanding” — the call to hear rather than to rely on what our eyes tell us
• Deuteronomy 13:13 — “Certain sons of Belial (bene Belial) have gone out among you” — those without the yoke of God, leading others astray
• 2 Corinthians 6:15 — Paul uses the term Belial — the only New Testament occurrence; those unyoked from God
• Matthew 11:29 — “Take my yoke upon you” — Yeshua’s invitation to take the ol (yoke) upon us, walking shoulder to shoulder with him
• Isaiah 55:8–9 — “My ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts than your thoughts” — the call to trust God rather than our own human reasoning
• Romans 10:17 — “Faith comes by hearing” — the spiritual principle embedded in the word shema itself; light enters through the ears

External References & Further Study

• The Shema — Sefaria — Hebrew and English text of Deuteronomy 6:4–9; the full Shema passage as it appears in the Torah
• The Shema — My Jewish Learning — History, meaning, and practice of the Shema in Jewish life and liturgy
• Mezuzah — Chabad — What is a mezuzah, what it contains, and why it is placed on the doorpost
• The Letter Ayin — Hebrew4Christians — The Hebrew letter ayin: “eye,” its form, silence, and spiritual significance in hearing before seeing
• Oversize Letters in the Shema  —  Enlarged in Torah scrolls
• Belial — Blue Letter Bible Strong’s H1100 — Lexicon entry for Belial (beli ol): without a yoke; the 22 Hebrew occurrences and their context
• Nachshon and the Red Sea — Chabad — The legend of Nachshon wading into the sea before it parted — the picture of hearing and obeying before seeing
• Torah Today Ministries — Home of The Hebrew Key and other Torah-centered teachings