for thousands of years every morning and
evening Jewish people have prayed these
well-known words as a way of expressing
their devotion to God they're called the
Shema hear o Israel the Lord is our God
the Lord is one and that's for you you
shall love the Lord your God with all of
your heart with all of your soul and
with all of your strength we're going to
look at the last word strength the
Hebrew word is mode and it occurs some
300 times in the scriptures and it
doesn't actually mean strength there is
a perfectly good word for strength in
Hebrew and my ode is not it in fact the
Shema is one of the only places in the
whole Bible where my ode is translated
as strength so what's up with that the
most common meaning of my ode is very or
much its what grammar nerds call an
adverb a word that comes alongside other
words to augment their meaning for
example in Genesis chapter 1 God looks
at the world that he's made and six
times he calls it good but then the
climactic seventh time he says it is
mode good that is very good later in
Genesis in the story of Noah the
floodwaters keep rising and they become
mode powerful or extremely powerful over
the land in the story of Cain and Abel
Cain wasn't just angry at his brother he
was
where when Saul became the king of
Israel he was mode happy so you can see
why my ode occurs hundreds of times in
the Bible it's a really common Hebrew
word that intensifies the meaning of
other words very this or really that
however biblical authors could use my
ode in ways that are unique like when
they want to increase a words force to
total capacity they'll say my ode twice
so Jacob became my ode my ode wealthy
with flocks and camels and donkeys and
servants or the Israelite spies went to
investigate the promised land and they
say the land we passed through is my ode
my ode good so it's pretty clear mo
doesn't mean strength in terms of muscle
power but rather very or much so let's
come back to the Shema where people are
called to love God with all of their
heart that is their will and affection
and with all of their soul that is their
whole life and physical being and with
all of their mode that is with all of
their muchness and well that sounds kind
of funny you also kind of get it if my
ode can intensify any words meaning to
total capacity then this final thing
that you use to love God isn't a thing
at all it's actually everything loving
God with your mode means devoting every
possibility opportunity and capacity
that you have to honoring God and loving
your neighbor as yourself it's the most
wide and expansive word in the Shema my
ode can refer to almost anything which
raises one last and really fascinating
point because this word was capable of
many nuances of meaning ancient Jewish
communities interpreted my ode in the
Shema in different ways so the ancient
Jewish scholars who translated the
Hebrew Bible into Greek when they came
to my ode in the Shema they translated
it with the Greek word Dunamis that is
power or strength this is the
interpretation adopted by most modern
translations but if you look at the
ancient Aramaic translations of the
Hebrew Bible you'll discover that these
scholars interpreted my ode to mean
wealth money is a concrete thing that
opens up all kinds of opportunities to
love God by giving away resources and
when Jesus was asked about the most
important command
scripture he quoted the Shema and he
used two words to unpack the meaning of
my ode he said love God with all of your
mind and with all of your power both our
human capacities that can be used to
love God in an infinite number of ways
so which of these interpretations of my
ode is right does it mean strength for
wealth or mine that's the wrong question
the word motto doesn't limit the number
of ways you can show love for God just
the opposite
the point is that everything in a
person's life every moment and every
opportunity every ability and capacity
offers a chance to love and honor the
one who made you it's a call to love God
with all of your muchness and that's the
meaning of strength in the Shema
[Music]
guys thanks for watching this Bible
project word study video on strength
this is the last of a six-part series
exploring all the keywords of the shema
Prayer in Deuteronomy that's awesome it
was such a great series we had a lot of
fun making it we hope the videos were
helpful for you
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