Daily Help Plus

Bible Reading Plans

• Plan One: New Testament Only
• Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
• Plan Three: New Testament + History
• Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3

Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.

Extras

Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute

Overflow

***

• Daily Help is the static page that hosts the Bible reading plans and related content.
• Daily Help Plus is the daily email subscription which includes that same information plus other content, including new books that are serialized into installments.

I made this distinction once I realized that some newcomers to this site have not yet fully formed a daily Bible reading habit and might be distracted from doing so by my daily output of new content. If you don’t have time to read the Bible and my stuff, read the Bible!

***

(Today’s Reading)

YHWH in the Old Testament

(Essay Installment 7)

What Uniqueness Is Not

For Israel and the Gentile nations in Moses’ day to agree that YHWH was an outlier among gods, was not to say, as we today would say, that there were no other gods. We today obviously believe there is only one God. That’s why we capitalize the word’s first letter when it’s in its singular form (God), but make it lower case when in its plural form (gods). We do this routinely, without even thinking about. And when I say “we” I mean pretty much everybody – even atheists. Ancient writers like Moses didn’t even have a concept of upper and lower case letters. All letters were the same case, the same size.

If we’re going to understand the Bible, we have to understand it on its own terms. That means we need to read its words according to the meaning that the authors assigned to them – as best we can. We certainly shouldn’t read its words according to modern definitions. We live in a monotheistic world; the Old Testament was written in polytheistic times. This is why I could say that Israel and the other nations agreed that YHWH was unique. But they could not agree that there were no other gods…because they all agreed there were. The other nations had their gods and the Israelites saw those other gods as false – not non-existent.

With this in mind, let’s carefully reread the Shema.

Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!

Notice that Moses is not saying there is only one God. He’s saying “YHWH IS OUR GOD.” He follows that statement with “YHWH IS ONE.” By his first statement, Moses was saying “WE ARE MARRIED TO YHWH AND CAN’T BE MESSING AROUND WITH ANY OTHER GODS.” In other words, given the covenant between YHWH and Israel, idolatry was, in effect, adultery. By his second statement, Moses was saying, “THERE IS ONLY ONE YHWH, AND WE CAN’T BE DIVIDING OURSELVES WITH DIFFERENT VIEWS OF HIM.” In other words, YHWH wasn’t going to allow regional factions or other decompositions of the body politic. He wanted Israel united in their view of Him.

This distinction I’m addressing – that is, the distinction between “YHWH is unique among gods” and “YHWH is the only God there is” – may not seem important to you now. But it is essential keeping modern understandings distinguished from ancient ones. God reveals truth to humanity gradually. (By the way, this doesn’t mean that modern people are always going to be smarter than ancient people; we forget things gradually, too.)

The best example I can give you of this is how we understand Jesus. If you’re going to understand that He is God, you have to first understand that He was a man…and then that He was unique among men. If you can accept those two facts, then you’re in a good position to see Him as more than a man…and eventually as God in the flesh. That’s why God wakes us up with a dawn, and does not blind us with a high noon sun right off the bat. That is, He reveals things to us gradually…over time.

Let us, therefore, keep in mind that Old Testament revelations were given in a polytheistic context. And all that was being revealed by YHWH through Moses was that YHWH was unique among gods – not that those other gods were figments of human imagination.