A Scripture Jesus quoted
Love the Lord Thy God
Asked which commandment is greatest, Jesus answered without hesitation from the heart of Israel's daily confession: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Above every rule and ritual, He named wholehearted love for God as the first and greatest, the command that orders all the rest.
“And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”Deuteronomy 6:5
“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”Matthew 22:37
The Scripture in its own place
These words open the Shema, the confession Israel was to recite morning and evening, teach their children, and bind on their hands and hearts. Just after declaring that the Lord is one, Moses calls the people to love God with everything they are, heart, soul, and might. It is the response owed to the God who redeemed them, not grudging obedience but wholehearted devotion of the entire person. This love was to saturate ordinary life, spoken at home and on the road, at rising and lying down. The command reveals that God desires not merely compliance but the affection and allegiance of the whole self, love returned to the One who first loved and delivered them.
How and when Jesus used it
A lawyer tested Jesus, asking which command in the law was greatest, perhaps hoping to trap Him among competing rabbinic rankings. Jesus went straight to the Shema, naming love for God with all one's heart, soul, and mind as the first and great commandment. He was not inventing a new teaching but drawing out the true center of the law Israel already confessed daily. By this He unified the whole law under love, showing that every statute flows from and serves this single devotion. He then joined love of neighbor to it, refusing to leave love for God as an abstraction untouched by how we treat others.
What it reveals about Jesus
Jesus reads the entire law as hanging on love, and He identifies its very core with an authority that assumes He knows the mind of the Lawgiver. He does not merely rank commandments; He unveils the heart of God's whole revelation. This shows a teacher who reads Scripture organically, tracing every command back to its source in love. More than that, He is the one man who kept this command perfectly, loving His Father with all His heart, soul, and mind unto death. In Him the Shema is not only recited but fulfilled, and He becomes the pattern and the power for the love God always sought.
Questions people ask
What did Jesus say is the greatest commandment?
Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 from Israel's daily confession, the Shema. He named this as the first and great commandment, then joined love of neighbor to it, teaching that the whole law and the prophets hang together on these two commands of love.
What is the Shema that Jesus quoted?
The Shema is Israel's foundational confession beginning that the Lord is one, followed by the command to love God with all your heart, soul, and might. Israel recited it daily and taught it to their children. Jesus drew on its heart when asked for the greatest commandment, showing love for God as the center of all Scripture.