Hey everybody, Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faith Ford Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona.
Today I'm going to talk about the most famous verse in the Hebrew Bible, Deuteronomy 6.4.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. That's what it says in the King James Bible.
But when the Jews quote this in English and other European languages, they'll say it as,
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And then now modern versions of the Christian
Bible, such as the New American Standard, the ESV, the NIV, are rendering this as the Jews
of today do saying the Lord is one instead of saying it as the King James, which is Hear,
O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Okay, so the Jews have tried to make this a statement
about the oneness of God because obviously they don't believe in the Trinity. They don't believe
in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. So they've made this a statement about God's oneness,
the Lord is one. Whereas the King James is saying the Lord our God is one Lord, meaning that there
is only one Lord, there's none other beside him. Just talking about the fact that there's only one
Jehovah, there's only one God, not multiple. Okay, so anyway, I'm going to break this down in the
original language to show you that the King James has got this right and the modern versions have
got it wrong. And then I'm going to show where the quotation from the New Testament in Mark chapter
12 proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the King James has got this right and the modern
versions are wrong. So let's start out with the Hebrew verse itself and break this down. It starts
out Shema Yisrael, which is where this takes its name. You'll sometimes hear this called the Shema
or the Shema Yisrael is what they'll just call this phrase as a whole. So it says Shema Yisrael
Adonai Elhenu Adonai Echad. Okay, now you'll notice I'm saying Adonai. Okay, I'm not saying
the tetragrammaton here as Jehovah or as these modern versions will do a Yahweh or whatever.
Basically, when you come across this divine name here, the four letter name of God,
Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, also known as the tetragrammaton, this will appear in our King James Bible as Lord
in all capital letters, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. Okay, so when you're reading
the Bible in Hebrew, sometimes there's what's called the kativ and the karay and what that
basically means is there's that which is written kativ and that which is read karay. Okay, and so
in this case what is written is the tetragrammaton but when you read it you don't pronounce the
tetragrammaton you actually instead pronounce the word Lord Adonai. Okay, so you would read this as
Shema Yisrael Adonai Elhenu Adonai Echad. That's why in the New Testament Jesus and all the apostles
when they quote Old Testament scriptures they always use the Greek word for Lord
because Adonai is being translated as kyrios. Okay, so anyway I don't want to go into a big
thing on that because that's not the purpose of this video, but what we see here Shema Yisrael
Adonai Elhenu Adonai Echad. Here's what this would literally break down to. Okay, Shema Yisrael is
here Israel the command to hear the command to listen hear O Israel this is Adonai the Lord
Eloheinu our God you might be familiar with the term Elohim right so this is Eloheinu
our God the einu ending is the hour so Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad the Lord our God and then
over here we have Lord one okay so echad is the number one okay so if you were counting you know
echad shnayim shalosh this is what you would use echad it's just a basic number one there's
nothing special about it doesn't have some special hidden meaning or anything like that I've heard
some people say weird things about that so it's just the number one basically now here's what you
have to understand though about the number one when you are talking about the number one as an
adjective modifying a noun like if I wanted to say you know for example I have one son
and one daughter okay if I were to say that in Hebrew I would say yeshli ben echad the bat
so notice I'm putting the number one after the noun so I have ben echad that's one son
literally son one so I would say yeshli ben echad the bat echad that's one daughter but it's
literally daughter one so the number one when you're using it as an adjective modifying a noun
it comes after the noun it modifies okay so in this case what we have here what the King James
is translating is arunai echad as in one lord okay just like we say bat echad ben echad yom
echad so it's basically one lord so the way the King James is translating this is the lord our god
is one lord okay now you say well where's the word is why is there no is here here's the thing
Hebrew does not typically use the word is in a statement like this okay like for example if I
were just saying Hebrew I'm here I would just say ani po I here if I want to say he is there there's
no is it's just who sham so you don't typically use the word is okay in Hebrew it's just understood
you don't need it okay so basically in English when you would translate this you're going to
have to insert the word is because you know we don't do sentences in English that don't have a
verb okay so basically if we're going to say arunai eloheinu arunai chad we have to put is somewhere
so where the King James is putting is is right here okay so this is where the is would go so
we're basically saying the lord our god is arunai chad one lord and the number one follows as is
the normal grammar okay what the modern versions are doing is they're putting the word is right
here okay so this is what the esv and the new american standard and the niv are doing they're
putting the is what the jews are doing they're putting the is over here so the way that they're
basically reading this is they're reading it as the lord our god the lord is one okay now here's
what doesn't make any sense about that is that that would make these two lords redundant here
okay because if you just wanted to say the lord our god is one you could say that right why would
you say the lord our god the lord is one this would be an awkward repetition or redundancy that
is totally unnecessary to say arunai eloheinu arunai echad you would just say arunai eloheinu
echad if you wanted to say that of course god didn't want to say that this is what god wanted
to say he wanted to say the lord our god is arunai echad one lord okay so who's right here you know
is the king james right or are the new versions and the christ rejecting jews right over here
okay well here's the thing theoretically both of them are grammatically possible although
like i said this is an awkward repetition here and it's redundant and doesn't seem to make sense
the way that they're interpreting it but you could theoretically get either or grammatically
you could put the is here or you could put the is there so then you know the next thing that
i wanted to look at was what's called the cantillation okay and cantillation this is from
the same root word as like spanish cantar which you know most people who've studied any basics
of spanish know the word cantar means to sing or you might have heard the word canticles sometimes
the song of solomon could be called canticles so the cantillation are accent marks in the Hebrew
bible telling you how this is to be sung or how this is to be recited okay so instead of like in
greek where you just have three different types of accent marks or in spanish where you have
one type of accent mark in hebrew you'll literally have like 20 some different accent marks that are
called the cantillation marks about how this is to be sung okay so if we look at the cancellation
marks just because i'm trying to leave no stone unturned in this video okay if we look at the
cantillation marks we'll see an extremely common pattern here which is called the sof pasuk pattern
which means end of verse pattern sof and pasuk verse now this right here at the end of every
hebrew verse this little set of two vertical dots that's called a sof pasuk because it's the end of
the verse okay but also this entire four word phrase right here when you have this exact series
of cancellation marks okay where you have basically this cancellation mark right here which
is the merkha and then you have it followed by tifa merkha saluk so when you have that exact
series of merkha tifa merkha saluk that four word phrase is called a sof pasuk okay here's the thing
about that okay that tells us nothing about the meaning here whether the is goes here or the is
goes there it isn't relevant this is not a cantillation that would tell us something about
the meaning okay this is not shedding any light on it in fact this is the exact same cantillation
that you find at the end of genesis 1 1 where it says in the beginning god created the heaven and
the earth better sheet bara elohim okay and then get to the last four words it's this exact same
cancellation so what what does that mean it's talking about how to recite it how it sounds
so basically the way that it's going to sound is exactly the way genesis 1 1 is going to sound
you're going to say it with that um musicality of
but it tells us nothing about the meaning in this case okay because you do have some accents in the
hebrew bible in the cancellation marks that are disjointed or conjunctive accents and stuff
but this is not a a disjunctive conjunctive situation that's going to tell us something
about the relationship with these words this particular phrase the sofasuk only has to do
with pronunciation okay now we also have a vertical line right here which also only has
to do with pronunciation this vertical line right here is basically telling us not to run these two
words together but to pronounce them distinctly to say i don't know because you know we're ending
with a vowel starting with a vowel and we want to make sure that we give both of these words
their proper clear pronunciation so the cancellation marks are not relevant for this
particular discussion so where does that leave us you know do we put the is here like the king
james or do we put it here like the jews well let's go to the new testament okay and you say
well the jews aren't going to accept the new testament right but the editors of the new
american standard niv and esv they believe the new testament supposedly so therefore you know
this should mean something to them when we go to mark chapter 12 now when we look at mark chapter
12 where this is quoted by jesus i've written the words on the board kyrios otheos imon kyrios
isisti okay this right here is saying lord our god lord one is or one lord is okay so again
it's actually worded exactly the same as the hebrew and just like the hebrew it could
technically go either way grammatically you know there's no way to look at this and just say hey
case closed because it basically is just giving us the exact same thing as the hebrew it's not
shedding any new light on it okay but here's what's interesting a few verses later
jesus's audience the the young man that asked him about this he responds to jesus and interprets
this and jesus puts his stamp of approval on this man's interpretation and if we look at the
interpretation it does shed light on it okay let me read it for you in english from the king james
and you'll see what i mean so it starts out in verse 28 of mark 12 and one of the scribes came
and having heard them reasoning together and perceiving that he had answered them well asked
him which is the first commandment of all so one of the scribes come and ask him and jesus answered
him the first of all the commandments is hear o israel the lord our god is one lord and thou
shalt love the lord thy god with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind with all
thy strength this is the first commandment and the second is like namely this thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself there is none other commandment greater than these and the scribe
said unto him so let's get the scribes answered this is what's going to shed light on the meaning
master thou has said the truth for there is one god and there is none other but he so what is the
scribes interpretation of this statement his interpretation is yeah there's one god and
there's none other but he now if you take the king james rendering the lord our god is one lord
not multiple gods not multiple jahovas not this jehovah and that jehovah this lord that lord this
god that look no that there's one lord and that there's none other beside him not about the
oneness of god as the jews would have us to believe and as you'll hear the oneness pentecostals
you know go to deuteronomy 6 4 in their false versions and try to make that point okay no what
we see here is that his interpretation is there's one god that's what deuteronomy 6 4 is teaching
that there's one god and there is none other but he and to love him with all the heart and with all
the understanding and with all the soul and all the strength and to love his neighbor as himself
is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices watch this and when jesus saw that
he answered discreetly he said unto him thou are not far from the kingdom of god and no man after
that durst ask him any questions so jesus saw that he answered him discreetly okay discretion
discreetly this is saying that he had answered wisely he had answered well the greek word that
is translated by the king james discreetly has that idea of being wise having understanding
answering discreetly this is a good answer so jesus christ sees this as a good answer the
author of the book of mark the holy ghost says this was a good answer jesus says thou are not
far from the kingdom of god why did he say that because he saw that he had answered discreetly
wisely he had answered well and if we look at the way he interpreted this he's interpreting it with
the exact idea that the king james is giving with the exact right understanding because folks
if this is all about the oneness of god well that's gonna contradict genesis 1 1 or i'm sorry
genesis chapter 1 when it says you know let us make man in our image god is the father the son
and the holy ghost we believe in the trinity the bible teaches the trinity so you know this whole
oneness thing is a false doctrine anyway okay now true you could read the niv esv or new american
standard and interpret it the way that uh the guy and mark interpreted it as well you know when it
says the lord is one it's just saying that there is only one okay i get that but the jews are
interpreting it as being about the oneness of god oneness pentecostals are using this to try to
say that the trinity is wrong the king james is giving a more accurate translation putting the
is here where it belongs the lord our god is one lord okay so we see here again in mark chapter 12
the quotation this is what the guy says this is the you know discrete answer wise answer
that he gives hey it's true that there's one god okay
uk estin alos plen of two means that there is not another besides him okay there is
no other god besides him that's what deuteronomy 6 4 is actually getting at here's the quotation
where jesus is quoting from the hebrew kirius okay lord our god this taken together means
our god okay kirios it's saying that he is one lord just like here it's kirios is here it is
and then this the greek actually has the word is but the word is is thrown at the very end
of the sentence so again it doesn't tell us whether to put it here or here okay so just
to summarize everything just a quick last minute summary here look either one is grammatically
possible but there are two reasons why the new versions are totally wrong and why the jews are
getting this wrong reason number one is because of the fact that it is an awkward and redundant
repetition to say the lord our god comma the lord is one that's a weird redundancy of the word
lord if they wanted to say that it could just be the lord our god is one you wouldn't say the lord
our god the lord is one redundant okay that's reason number one reason number two is that the
scribe in mark chapter 12 interprets this back to jesus and jesus approves of his interpretation
and his interpretation fits the way the king james has translated it that's the correct
interpretation anyway i hope this video is helpful god bless you have a great day