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Deuteronomy

About this book
Chapter 6

1 Now these are the commandments, statutes, and ordinances that the Lord your God instructed me to teach you so that you may carry them out in the land where you are headed 2 and that you may so revere the Lord your God that you will keep all his statutes and commandments that I am giving you—you, your children, and your grandchildren—all your lives, to prolong your days. 3 Pay attention, Israel, and be careful to do this so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in number—as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, said to you, you will have a land flowing with milk and honey.⁠ 4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!⁠ 5 You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all your strength.⁠ 6 These words I am commanding you today must be kept in mind, 7 and you must teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, as you lie down, and as you get up.⁠ 8 You should tie them as a reminder on your forearm and fasten them as symbols on your forehead.⁠ 9 Inscribe them on the doorframes of your houses and gates.⁠ 10 Then when the Lord your God brings you to the land he promised your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you—a land with large, fine cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with choice things you did not accumulate, hewn-out cisterns you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—and you eat your fill, 12 be careful not to forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, that place of slavery. 13 You must revere the Lord your God, serve him, and take oaths using only his name. 14 You must not go after other gods, those of the surrounding peoples, 15 for the Lord your God, who is present among you, is a jealous God—his anger will erupt against you and remove you from the land. 16 You must not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah.⁠ 17 Keep his commandments very carefully, as well as the stipulations and statutes he commanded you to observe. 18 Do whatever is proper and good before the Lord so that it may go well with you and that you may enter and occupy the good land that he promised your ancestors, 19 and that you may drive out all your enemies just as the Lord said. 20 When your children ask you later on,⁠ “What are the stipulations, statutes, and ordinances that the Lord our God commanded you?”⁠ 21 you must say to them, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt in a powerful way. 22 And he brought signs and great, devastating wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on his whole family before our very eyes. 23 He delivered us from there so that he could give us the land he had promised our ancestors. 24 The Lord commanded us to obey all these statutes and to revere him so that it may always go well for us and he may preserve us, as he has to this day. 25 We will be innocent if we carefully keep all these commandments before the Lord our God, just as he demands.”

Texts in conversation

Compare Deuteronomy 6:9 and Letter of Aristeas 158

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

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Summary

In Deuteronomy 6, Moses tells Israel to tie God's commands on their arms and write them on doorframes and gates. The Letter of Aristeas is one of the first Jewish texts to describe this being practiced.

Passages

Deuteronomy 6:9

Hebrew Bible
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! 5 You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all your strength. 6 These words I am commanding you today must be kept in mind, 7 and you must teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, as you lie down, and as you get up. 8 You should tie them as a reminder on your forearm and fasten them as symbols on your forehead. 9 Inscribe them on the doorframes of your houses and gates.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

Letter of Aristeas 158

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions · Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates
time and place so that we may continually remember the God who rules and preserves (us). For in the matter of food and drink he tells us to first of all offer part as a sacrifice and then at once enjoy our meal. Moreover, on our garments he has given us a symbol of remembrance, and in the same way he has ordered us to put the divine oracles on our gates and doors as a remembrance of God. And on our hands, too, he expressly orders the symbol to be fastened, clearly showing that we ought to perform every act in righteousness, remembering (our own creation), and above all the
200–150 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Letter of Aristeas

References

“... A practice related to the wearing of phylacteries is the affixing of mezuzot to the door posts and gates of a house (Deut 6:9 and 11:20). The word, mezuzah (plural: mezzuzot), means ‘door post’ and in the biblical text Israelites are enjoined to inscribe the divine instructions on it. As the tradition developed, the mezuzah itself (but not the ‘gate’) came to refer to the parchment of biblical excerpts to be attached to door posts. In rabbinic tradition these mezuzot are excerpted texts that include the first paragraph of the shema in its parallel passages of Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21. In the Second Temple Period, the practice was attested by Pseudo-Aristeas (Aristeas to Philocrates 158) and Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 4.213). The discoveries in the Judaean Desert have brought to light nine mezuzot: 7 from Cave 4 (4Q149-155), 1 from Cave 8 (8Q4); and 1 from Wadi Murabba’at (Mur 5). As with the phylacteries, these mezuzot contain additional passages from the Decalogue (Exod 20) and Deuteronomy 6:6-18 and its text is likely to have been cited from memory. ...”
Timothy H. Lim, “Deuteronomy in the Judaism of the Second Temple Period,” in Deuteronomy in the New Testament, ed. Maarten J. J. Menken and Steve Moyise (London: T&T Clark International, 2007), 18.
“... Later, the wearing of phylacteries and the posting of the commands on one’s property (Deut 6:8-9) would serve as devices for keeping the commandments in mind. [...] Rabbinic discussions of the laws governing the wearing phylacteries (e.g. Sanh. 88b; Men. 34b; Zeb. 37b; Sanh. 4b) and posting mezuzot on doorposts and gates (e.g. Men. 43b; Pes. 113b) are preceded by the evidence of Aristeas (158-59), Josephus (A.J. 4:213), and Matthew 23:5; ...”
Lori Ann Robinson Baron, The Shema in John’s Gospel Against its Backgrounds in Second Temple Judaism (Duke University, 2015), 45.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Deuteronomy 6:9 and Letter of Aristeas 158

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