Deut 6:4 "Hear Oh Israel Yahuweh is One (Echad)!"
This is an article that I posted on an orthodox website a number of months ago, so it directed to that group. I’ll edit it in the future when I have the time. But for now it makes clear that “Yahuweh is ONE” as Moses stated in Deuteronomy 6:4.
There’s much I could say about the fact that the Messiah “IS NOT” the ‘god/man, god the son, the 2nd person of the Triune godhead, or Almighty God. And if anyone is interested I’d be happy to discuss any and all passages that have been use over the years in trying to promote a Trinity, something the Scriptures never talk about. Passages such as Gen 1:26; Isa 9;6; Mic 5:2; John 1;1; 10;34 and the handful of others that people often times try to use. As a matter of fact I have articles typed up on just about all of these passage which I’ll be posting on the website soon.
You see I once believed in the Trinity and like most people I didn’t want to give it up. I went to great lengths in trying to hang on to it. The more I ‘honestly’ looked into it the more it became clear such a thing as a ‘trinity’ did not exist, not anywhere in the Scriptures anyway. Of course all the pagan religions have their ‘trinities’ and pantheon of gods, but for Israel, they have only One, the Father, Yahuweh. So if anyone is interested in a particular passage let me know and I’ll send it if I have one made up already, if not I’ll type one up and post it, as time permits.
For now I’d like to comment on the Hebrew word “echad” found in Deuteronomy 6:4, meaning “one“.
Deut 6:4 "Hear, O Israel! Yahuweh is our Elohim (God), Yahuweh is one.
Clearly Moses is telling the children of Israel that in contrast to all the pagan nations around them, with their Triune gods, Israel has One Elohim (God), Yahuweh. Which is what the scriptures clearly teach from Genesis to Revelation.
(John 17:3; 20;17; Act 2:22; 1 Cor 8:6; Eph 4:6; 1 Tim 2:5; Rev 3:12; 15:3-4)
In this article we’re going to focus on the word “echad” to show that Yahuweh is absolutely “One” and not a 3 in 1 Elohim (God) as so many today would like to believe.
The word ‘echad’
The word ’echad’ is used 878 times in the Tanak, and never, not one of those times is it ever used to describe two, three, four, or five, or anything else other than ‘one‘ - it always means “one.” I’m not guessing, I’m sure, I went through and checked each of those 878 times it’s used (I’ll comment on Gen 2:24 in a moment.). If anyone else takes the time to check them out, which I would hope you do, please tell me if I over looked one.
The word ‘echad’ could be used to describe
‘one flock’ of birds,
‘one pride’ of lions,
‘one herd’ of cattle,
‘one house’ full of people,
‘one crowd’ of people
‘one tribe’ of people,
‘one thousand‘ of anything,
‘one cluster’ of grapes,
‘one generation‘ of people
‘one portion’ of anything, and on and on.
I think you get the idea. But in each of those cases the word ‘echad’ mans ‘ONE’ as in 1 - flock, 1 - pride, 1 - herd, 1 - house, 1 - crowd, 1 - tribe, 1 - cluster, 1 - thousand, 1 - generation, 1 - portion and so on. Now the word attached to ‘echad’ like - flock, pride, herd, house, crowd, generation, cluster, are all talking about more than one, but echad is describing the flock, pride, herd, house, crowd, cluster, crowd. Generation, and it ALWAYS means “one“.
Years ago I was at a Passover gathering and one of the fellows there got up and while he was discussing something he implied how the Messiah was the Almighty. Well I think if I would have kept silent I would have been perceived as being in agreement with this fellow, and I didn’t want that to happen. So I politely disagreed, and explained to him how the Father, Yahuweh, alone is the Almighty, and there’s no such thing as a Trinity in the Bible. Nor is such a tern as the god/man, or god the son ever used in the entire Bible. The Almighty is One and that is the Father. Well needless to say, this man immediately brought up the word “echad.”
At the time, this was probably 20 some years ago, the Strong‘s Concordance defined the word ‘echad‘ as a ‘unity‘ even though the word is never, ever, defined that way. But who was I to disagree with the Strong’s Concordance? Since that time James Strong, or rather his publishers, since he’s passed away, have come out with a new edition of the Strong’s Concordance, it’s called the “Strongest Strong’s.” And in this new edition of the Strong’s they included a list of, if I remember right, over 100 mistakes which they had corrected from the previous editions. And guess which one of those ’mistakes’ that they corrected was? Right, they corrected the definition of ’echad.’ Instead of defining it as a ‘unity’ they defined it as “one.“ Why did they change it, because as I mentioned never is the word echad used to mean more than ’one.’ I would like to challenge you, as I did, to go through the 878 times it’s used in the Tanak and find even one (echad) example where ‘echad’ means more than ‘one.’ It may sound like a time consuming thing to do, to check out each time the word is used that is, but what we’re talking about here is a matter of Eternity, that is where you and I will be spending it. To know who the Almighty is, is not a pick and chose thing, if you die believing in a Trinity, when the fact is the Father alone is the Almighty, as the Messiah tells us he is (John 17:3) you will die lose (2 Thes 1:8). If the Father alone is the Almighty to worship anything, or anyone, other then the Father as the Almighty is called ‘idolatry.’ Sorry, but that’s a fact, and not to mention that would not be loving on my part. So look into before it’s to late. Put Yahuweh and the Messiah first in your life, and don‘t let what others are going to say or think of you if you embrace the Truth.
As I mentioned above, echad is often times used to describe ’another’ word which might be describing a unity, such as a flock, crowd, herd, cluster and so forth, but the word ‘echad’ itself always means ‘one.‘
As for the word ‘yachid’ which for a reason that I don’t quite understand, some people like to say that is the word that “should have” been used in Deut 6:4 to describe the Almighty “if” the Almighty was actually “ONE” rather then the 3 in 1 that Christianity seems to think He is. I find that such an incredible thing to say, that “IF” the Almighty was actually ONE He should have / would have, used the word ‘yachid’ instead of ‘echad’ to let people know He was only One.
Does anyone find it amazing that even though the word ‘echad’ rather than ‘yachid‘, was used to describe the Almighty, no one, not Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, any of the prophets, or anyone else of the multitude of people described in the Tanak, or in the so-called New Testament I might add, never figured out, as Christianity seems to have done today, that the Almighty was a 2 in 1 or a 3 in 1, rather than ‘One‘ that being the Father alone. You would have thought that someone, at least one time in the entire bible would have suggested that the Almighty was someone ‘other’ than the Father, Yahuweh. But no one ever did. Instead everyone, including the Messiah and his disciples, kept right on saying that the Father alone is God.
(see passages below)
The Messiah in quoting Deut 6:4 continues to use the word echad to mean just One, his Father and our, his Elohim and our.
Mar 12:29 Yahoshua answered, "The foremost commandment is, 'Hear, o Israel, Yahuweh (the LORD) our Elohim, Yahuweh (the LORD) is One.”
You’ll notice the Messiah did not include himself, nor the Holy Spirit, in that ‘One’ - why? Because never does the word ‘echad’ mean more then ‘one’ - never, not one time.
The apostle James tells us
Jas 2:19 You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.
Allow me to paraphrase what I believe James just said here, “so you think because unlike the rest of the world, you believe in ’One’ God, the devils also believe in ‘One’ God, and they shudder.”
Didn’t the demons realize ‘echad’ meant a 3 in 1 either?
Of course in apostolic times no one thought the Almighty to be a 3 in 1 god. That’s something that was made the ‘official’ teaching of the apostate church in Rome, by Emperor Constantine, around 325 A.D.
Like I mentioned I use to believe in a Trinity, and Yahuweh knows, I did not want to give it up. I knew it would cost me a lot of personal grief to say I no longer believed in the Trinity. All my ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ that I came to grow so close to would no longer fellowship with me, the ministry I had would come to an end, with me denying the Messiah as the god/man, or should I say with me ‘believing’ the Messiah when he said his Father is the Only True God. John 17:3.
I mentioned Gen 2:24 earlier, I believe this is the only passage, that I’ve ever heard anyone use in trying to say ‘echad’ actually means ’two‘ instead of ’one.’ So let’s take a look at it.
Gen 2:24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
With all that’s been said already I believe this passage should be fairly self explanatory. The word one, or echad, is describing the ‘flesh,’ that is 1 - flesh. How is it that a man and his wife become one flesh?
Let’s take a look at another passage that I believe will help answer that question.
1Co 6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Messiah? Shall I then take away the members of Messiah and make them members of a harlot? May it never be!
1Co 6:16 What? Don’t you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one flesh with her? For He says, "The two shall become one flesh.“
How is it that the harlot becomes ‘1 - flesh’ with someone? How is it that a husband and wife become “1 - flesh”? I’d rather not go into detail, I think it’s very obvious as to how a man and his wife become “1 - flesh.” The same way a harlot and a man become “1- flesh.” The word ‘one’ here, or echad, does not mean ‘two’ its’ describing the 1 - “flesh” being joined together. Like I mentioned out of the 878 times ‘echad’ is used it always means “one” including Gen 2:24.
One final comment, it was suggested that I might have been ‘disingenuous’ in not quoting all of John 17:3 in one of my earlier post, let me quote it here and explain why I didn‘t think it relevant at the time to quote the whole passage.
Joh 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know you, Father, the only true God, and Yahoshua Messiah, whom you sent.
The point I was tying to make in quoting this verse was the fact that the Father is the “Only True God.” That’s something that just about all of Christianity refuses to believe.
The Messiah being “sent by the God” is something that I would hope we all believe. So I was simply trying to accent the part of the passage that is not believed on by so many today. I might add, did you notice that to believe the Father is the “Only True God” is a matter of “Eternal Life.“ It’s time that everyone starts believing it. We are in the Last Days.
Thank you for allowing me to be part of this post.
Shalom Reuven.
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An Addendum concerning the Hebrew word “yachid“.
(When ever you see the words “the LORD” or “GOD” in all capitals that should be the Almighty’s Name. I reinserted it back into these passages)
If the word ‘yachid’ rather then ‘echad’ should have been used in Deut 6:4 to show that the Almighty, Yahuweh, was actually ONE, as so many in Christianity like to say, then why is that none of these writers of the Scriptures ever figured that out? Why is it that even though the word ‘echad‘ was used in Deut 6:4 ‘everyone’ in the Bible continued to think and believe that “Yahuweh was ONE” rather than the 3 in 1 of Christianity today? Again, because the word “echad” always implies ONE.
Deut 6:4 “…Yahuweh alone is ONE”
2Ki 19:15 You, Yahuweh, are the God, You alone
2Ki 19:19 the earth may know that You alone, O Yahuweh, are God."
Psa 71:16 I will come with the mighty deeds of Yahuweh; I will make mention of Your righteousness, Yours alone.
Psa 86:10 For You are great and do wondrous deeds; You alone are God.
Isa 26:13 O Yahuweh our God, ….You alone we confess Your name.
Isa 37:16 "O Yahuweh of hosts, the God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone…
Isa 37:20 "Now, O Yahuweh our God, … You alone, Yahuweh, are God."
Mal 2:10 "Do we not all have one father? Has not one God created us? (through His Son Heb 1:2)
Mat 27:46 About the ninth hour Yahoshua cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?" that is, "MY GOD, MY GOD, Why have you forsaken me?"
Mar 10:18 And Yahoshua said …no one is good except God alone.
Joh 5:44 "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?
Joh 20:17 Yahoshua *said to her, "Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.'"
2Co 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Yahoshua Messiah, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
1Co 8:6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Master (Act 2:36), Yahoshua, through whom (Heb 1:2) are all things, and we exist through Him.
2Co 11:31 The God and Father of the Master Yahoshua, He who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.
1Co 15:24 then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power.
Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Master Yahoshua Messiah, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Messiah,
Eph 4:6 one God and Father of allwho is over all and through all and in all.
1Th 3:11 Now may our God and Father Himself “and” Yahoshua our Master direct our way to you;
1Ti 1:17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
1Ti 2:5 For there is one God, andone mediator also between that one God and men, the man Messiah Yahoshua,
1Pe 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Master Yahoshua, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Yahoshua Messiah from the dead,
Rev 3:2 'Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God.
Rev 3:12 'He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name.
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