Deuteronomy 6:5

6:5 You must love ¹  the Lord your God with your whole mind, ²  your whole being, ³  and all your strength. ⁴ 

Deuteronomy 10:12

An Exhortation to Love Both God and People

10:12 Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you except to revere him, ⁵  to obey all his commandments, ⁶  to love him, to serve him ⁷  with all your mind and being, ⁸ 

Deuteronomy 30:16-20

30:16 What ⁹  I am commanding you today is to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are about to possess. ¹⁰  30:17 However, if you ¹¹  turn aside and do not obey, but are lured away to worship and serve other gods, 30:18 I declare to you this very day that you will certainly ¹²  perish! You will not extend your time in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. ¹³  30:19 Today I invoke heaven and earth as a witness against you that I have set life and death, blessing and curse, before you. Therefore choose life so that you and your descendants may live! 30:20 I also call on you ¹⁴  to love the Lord your God, to obey him and be loyal to him, for he gives you life and enables you to live continually ¹⁵  in the land the Lord promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

Psalms 116:1

Psalm 116 ¹⁶ 

116:1 I love the Lord

because he heard my plea for mercy, ¹⁷ 

¹ tn The verb אָהַב (’ahav, “to love”) in this setting communicates not so much an emotional idea as one of covenant commitment. To love the Lord is to be absolutely loyal and obedient to him in every respect, a truth Jesus himself taught (cf. John 14:15). See also the note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37.

² tn Heb “heart.” In OT physiology the heart (לֵב, לֵבָב; levav, lev) was considered the seat of the mind or intellect, so that one could think with one’s heart. See A. Luc, NIDOTTE 2:749-54.

³ tn Heb “soul”; “being.” Contrary to Hellenistic ideas of a soul that is discrete and separate from the body and spirit, OT anthropology equated the “soul” (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh) with the person himself. It is therefore best in most cases to translate נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) as “being” or the like. See H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 10-25; D. Fredericks, NIDOTTE 3:133-34.

⁴ sn For NT variations on the Shema see Matt 22:37-39; Mark 12:29-30; Luke 10:27.

⁵ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 10:4.

⁶ tn Heb “to walk in all his ways” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NAB “follow his ways exactly”; NLT “to live according to his will.”

⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 10:4.

⁸ tn Heb “heart and soul” or “heart and being”; NCV “with your whole being.” See note on the word “being” in Deut 6:5.

⁹ tc A number of LXX mss insert before this verse, “if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God,” thus translating אֲשֶׁר (’asher) as “which” and the rest as “I am commanding you today, to love,” etc., “then you will live,” etc.

¹⁰ tn Heb “which you are going there to possess it.” This has been simplified in the translation for stylistic reasons.

¹¹ tn Heb “your heart,” as a metonymy for the person.

¹² tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “certainly.”

¹³ tn Heb “to go there to possess it.”

¹⁴ tn The words “I also call on you” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text vv. 19-20 are one long sentence, which the translation divides into two.

¹⁵ tn Heb “he is your life and the length of your days to live.”

¹⁶ sn Psalm 116. The psalmist thanks the Lord for delivering him from a life threatening crisis and promises to tell the entire covenant community what God has done for him.

¹⁷ tn Heb “I love because the Lord heard my voice, my pleas.” It is possible that “the Lord” originally appeared directly after “I love” and was later accidentally misplaced. The translation assumes the prefixed verbal form is a preterite. The psalmist recalls that God heard his cry for help (note the perfect in v. 2a and the narrative in vv. 3-4).