’Hear O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is One’ (Deuteronomy 6.4).
In the NIV Bible our verse has some variations listed: the Lord our God is one Lord, or the Lord is our God, the Lord is one, or the Lord is our God the Lord alone.
The problem people have in translating this verse is that it doesn’t have a verb in it. It says, literally, ‘Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord one’. What you can say is that the word ‘one’ comes right at the end so obviously that is a very important word, the word that Moses emphasised. Is he saying that there is only one God, or is he saying that God is a unity? Both of those things are true, both of those things are very important, and for practical purposes they both amount to the same thing.
