Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Deut. 6:4-5

Do the above verses sound familiar? They should, in the New Testament when Jesus is asked, ‘what is the greatest commandment’, he responds with these words. Jesus also said that all the Law and the Prophets hang on this and one other commandment (Matt. 22:40). Suffice to say, this is extremely important.

It would be a good idea then, for us to know what this command means so that we can obey it. We are told to love God with three unique attributes, namely with all our Heart, soul and Strength. In Hebrew these three words each have very distinct meanings.

Let’s look at each of these words in turn so that we might fully understand what God is asking of us.

Let’s start with the ‘heart’.

Now in English we use the word heart to mean the physical organ. We also use it metaphorically to refer to emotions; We might say something like ‘matters of the heart’, or ‘from the bottom of our heart’. The Hebrew word for heart: ‘lev’ or ‘levav’, is used in much the same way. In 1 Samuel 25:37 we are told that Nabal’s heart became like a stone and the verse could be describing a heart attack. Nabal’s heart literally stopped, and he died. Hebrew, like English, refers to emotions as from the ‘heart’. The Psalmist says his ‘heart’ leaps for joy (Ps. 28:7) and the King recognises Nehemiah’s ‘heartbreak’ calling it ‘sadness of the heart’ (Neh. 2:2).

In this way, we see a parallel from Hebrew to English and we can easily recognise the need to love God with all our emotions. In Western culture, we primarily consider ‘love’ to be an emotion, love is something that we ‘feel’.

However, these Hebrew words mean much more. Did you know that from an ancient Hebraic understanding your will and volition also came from your ‘heart’. For example, the Proverbs say that ‘many plans are in a man’s ‘heart’ (Pro. 19:21). Not only so, but Daniel gained understanding with his ‘heart’ (Dan. 10:12). Furthermore, ‘desire’ also comes from the heart as in Psalm 37:4: ‘delight in the lord and he will give you the desires of your heart’. Now, we might consider these attributes as coming from the heart but more likely we would think of them as coming from our soul or even our mind.

We would likely label planning, gaining understanding and desire as things we ‘think’. Biblically, the ‘heart’ is often described as being the place of ‘thought’. The story of Noah tells us that the ‘thoughts’ of the human heart had become only evil all the time (Genesis. 6:5). In the Bible the heart can also become ‘wise’ (Pro. 23:15). Even false prophecy can come from the ‘heart’ (Eze. 13:2).

Having considered all this it should be easy to see that the Hebrew word for heart means much more than just the source of our emotions. The Hebrew word for heart more properly refers to the ‘inner you’, the non-physical person. It’s your thoughts, dreams, desires, your plans, understanding, your emotions and more! The Hebrew ‘heart’ is the very centre of your being both literally and metaphorically.

As such, we see that when God told his people to love them with ‘all’ their heart, it meant with everything that we are. We are to love God with all that is within us, with all the invisible inner person.

Loving God in this way extends through everything we are, all our thoughts and desires should be subject to Him. We should think, feel, desire, dream and know love towards God. Loving God in this way is not merely something we might ‘feel’ but something that we choose to think about, out of love we subject our hopes, dreams and thoughts to God. With all our inner being, with everything that makes us who we are, we should say ‘I love God’.

- Joseph Jones