“Hearken
O Israel: YHWH our God, YHWH (is) One!” (Deuteronomy 6:4; Everett Fox, The
Five Books of Moses [New York: Schocken Books, 1995], p. 888). “Despite the
centrality of this phrase as a rallying cry in later Jewish history and
thought, its precise meaning is not clear. It most likely stipulates that the
Israelites are to worship YHWH alone” (Ibid.) Proximate passages are, I think,
not consistent with reading the line as an affirmation of monotheism, according
to which YHWH would be the one and only god not just for the people of Israel,
but period. “Now you are to love YHWH your God” (6:5). “You are not to walk
after other gods . . . for a jealous God is YHWH “(6:14-15). “Know that YHWH
your God, he is God, the trustworthy God, keeping the covenant of loyalty with
those who love him and with those who keep his commandments” (7:9)—YHWH, among
gods, is the trustworthy one who keeps the covenant made with His chosen who
have entered into a convent with Him. “[F]or YHWH your God, he is the God of
gods and the Lord of lords, the God great, powerful, and awe-inspiring”
(10:17), but, by implication, not, for all that, the only god. There comes in Leviticus
this report: “YHWH spoke to Moshe, saying: Speak to the entire community .
. . and say . . . Do not turn-your-faces
to no-gods, and molten gods you are not to make yourselves. I am YHWH,
your God!” (Leviticus 19:4; Fox 1995, p. 601). “No-gods: Heb. ellim,
a popular play on el/elohim (‘God, gods’) and al, ‘nothing.’ Greenstein
(personal communication) suggests ‘little-gods’ as another possibility”
(Ibid.). ‘Lesser gods’ would cohere with the message elsewhere that in any case
YHWH is the greatest god, the god of gods. (Jordan Howard Sobel, Logic and
Theism: Arguments For and Against Beliefs in God [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004], 540-41 n. 7)
