“That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.”
My Notes
What Does Deuteronomy 6:2 Mean?
Moses outlines a multigenerational vision: the fear of God and obedience to his commands should extend from you to your son to your son's son — "all the days of thy life." The promise attached is longevity: "that thy days may be prolonged." Faith is presented as a family legacy, not merely an individual decision.
The three-generation structure (you, your son, your son's son) is deliberate. It takes approximately three generations for a value system to either establish itself or dissolve. The first generation experiences it directly. The second generation receives it as teaching. The third generation either inherits it as identity or discards it as irrelevant. Moses is addressing the critical transmission challenge.
The word "fear" (yare) here doesn't mean terror but reverent awe — the appropriate posture of a creature before its Creator. It's the foundation upon which obedience rests. Without reverence, commands become mere rules. With it, they become a way of life that naturally passes to the next generation.
Reflection Questions
- 1.Where are you in the three-generation chain — first, second, or third?
- 2.What spiritual legacy are you intentionally building for the next generation?
- 3.How do you transmit faith to people who haven't had your direct experiences with God?
- 4.What values are you living out now that you want to see in your grandchildren?
Devotional
Three generations. You, your children, and their children. Moses isn't thinking about your personal spiritual life in isolation — he's thinking about the legacy chain. What you establish now will either strengthen or weaken faith two generations from now.
This is both a privilege and a pressure. The privilege: your faithfulness today creates a spiritual inheritance for people who don't exist yet. The pressure: your complacency today creates a spiritual deficit for those same people. You are planting trees whose shade will fall on grandchildren you may never meet.
The three-generation pattern is remarkably consistent. The first generation experiences God directly — they cross their own Red Sea, they hear their own fire. The second generation inherits the stories but doesn't have the experiences. The third generation is the tipping point — do they take the inherited faith and make it their own, or does it dissolve into cultural background noise?
Your role in this chain depends on where you stand in it. Are you the first generation, establishing something new? Are you the second, bridging between experience and inheritance? Are you the third, deciding whether to keep what was handed down? Wherever you are, the command is the same: fear the LORD, keep his commandments, and pass it on.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God,.... Being taught to know the greatness of his being, and the nature of his…
Observe here, 1. That Moses taught the people all that, and that only, which God commanded him to teach them, Deu 6:1.…
Transition to the Sg. with a somewhat loose accumulation of common deuteronomic formulas; on these grounds regarded by…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture