On your heart, then on theirs

The most detailed instruction in Scripture about passing on the Word is given to parents, not priests, and it starts in the wrong place from a teacher’s point of view.

These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts.

Your hearts. Before a word about children, before any mention of teaching, the command lands on the adult holding it.

Then the next verse moves outward, and it names four times of day.

When you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Four settings, and not one of them is a classroom. Sitting, walking, lying down, getting up — which between them cover the entire day and exclude nothing.

The verb rendered impress or teach diligently is related to sharpening — whetting a blade by repetition. It means to repeat something until it takes an edge.

A man cannot talk about the Word while sitting, walking, lying down and getting up unless it is already on his heart. Scheduled instruction can be prepared. Conversation cannot. What comes out in the ordinary course of a Tuesday is whatever is actually in there.

Which is why the command begins with the parent and not the child. Lois and Eunice on Day One of this week were not running a program. They had it, and the boy was in the house.

So this is where ten weeks come to rest, and it is domestic.

Halfway through this volume the Book has been called fire, hammer, honey, lamp, sword, seed, milk, mirror, goad, nail, gold and washing. It has been traced from Genesis to Revelation ten times over, along the seed, the lamb, the blood, the tree, the bread, the water, the Name, the dwelling, the Shepherd and the city. The writers have said in their own words what they thought they were doing, and one apostle has called another apostle Scripture.

And the instruction at the halfway point is: get it on your own heart, and then talk about it at supper.

One more thing in the ordering deserves attention. Verse 5 commands love before verse 6 commands the words on the heart, and verse 7 puts them in the mouth. Love, then internalize, then speak. Reverse any two of those and you get something recognizable and wrong — a household where the words are constant and the affection is missing, or one where the affection is real and the words are never said.

Not a program. A household where the thing is present, said out loud, in the four ordinary postures of a day — because somebody in that house is listening, and will be a long time after you are not there.

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 is the Shema, from the first word, hear. It has been recited twice daily in Jewish practice for millennia, and Jesus quotes verses 4–5 as the greatest commandment. The instruction about children sits immediately after the command to love God with heart, soul and strength — the teaching flows out of the loving.

The verb in verse 7, shanan, is used elsewhere of sharpening arrows and swords. The teaching image is repetition that produces an edge, and it is aimed at the child rather than at the material.

Verses 8–9 add binding them on the hand and forehead and writing them on doorframes and gates, which later Jewish practice took literally in the tefillin and the mezuzah. Whether the original intent was figurative or literal is discussed at length; both readings agree the words were meant to be physically unavoidable.

Psalm 78:1–8 gives the theological reason at length: we will tell the next generation, so that they would put their trust in God and not forget His deeds — and so that they would not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation. The stated aim of household teaching is breaking a pattern.

Jewish tradition surrounds the Shema with the practice of teaching it to a child as soon as he can speak. Whatever else can be said about that custom, it takes verse 7 at face value: the teaching starts before the understanding does, which is exactly what Paul describes in Timothy’s case.

Look it upH8085 שָׁמַע shama, to hear, listen, obey · H8150 שָׁנַן shanan, to sharpen, repeat · H3820 לֵב leb, heart, inner person · H1121 בֵּן ben, son, child

Where this touchesDeuteronomy 6:4–9; 11:18–21 · Psalm 78:1–8 · 2 Timothy 1:5; 3:14–15 (Day One of this week) · Ephesians 6:4 · Matthew 22:37–38. The earlier turns were James 1, Ezra 7:10, the two builders, the Bereans, Colossians 3:16, Psalm 119:11, Acts 20:32, 1 Thessalonians 2:13 and 2 Timothy 2:15.