One God
The Shema
The opening verses of Genesis 1 it is stated, “And God said,” “God saw,” “God made,” “God created.” The plural “God,” ELOHIM is used with singular verbs. Each time the compound name, JEHOVAH ELOHIM, is used Jehovah is singular yet is linked with the plural, ELOHIM, indicating a divine unity.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and thou shalt love the LORD with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy might.” Deuteronomy 6: 4, 5
This among Jews is called the “Shema,” meaning to hear.
A literal translation of verse 4 would read:
“Hear, O Israel: Jehovah [singular] our Gods [plural] is Jehovah ECHAD (echad = a unity).
The Hebrew actually says “our Gods” (plural). The Hebrew plural for “our Gods” is ELOHENU, from ELOHIM which is the plural of ELOAH.
The Hebrew word, ECHAD is used: “Jehovah our Gods is Jehovah ECHAD.” Admittedly it is right to translate it as “Jehovah our Gods is ONE Jehovah,” so long as we understand that ECHAD means “one” collectively or unitedly, not one as an absolute digit. That adjective, ECHAD, derives from ACHAD which means to unify or to collect together. In the Old Testament, I find that it occurs well over SIX HUNDRED TIMES, so we easily can ascertain its common use and meaning.
The Hebrew language has an alternative word for “one,” i.e., YACHID which does not often occur in our Old Testament, but is the word used whenever an only one is meant. When a compound “one” is meant to be emphasized, ECHAD is the word used as in the Shema.
What the Shema actually says is literally, “HEAR, O ISRAEL, JEHOVAH OUR GODS IS JEHOVAH A UNITY.”
In the “Thirteen Principles of the Jewish Faith,” which is meant to be the standard guide for all Jews, Jewish scholars who framed it changed ECHAD in Deuteronomy 6 to YACHID which means one and only one. Thus completely changing the meaning of the Scripture.
In the “Authorized Daily Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire,” sanctioned by the late Chief Rabbi, Dr. N.M. Adler, YACHID is used of the eternal one, whereas the Tenakh (the Old Testament) never uses that word of Jehovah.
In the prophetic passage of Zechariah 14:9, twice in one verse the collective unit, ECHAD, is used of Jehovah as being a compound or collective “one.” “And Jehovah shall be King over all the earth. In that day there shall be ONE Jehovah, and His Name ONE.”
Most Jews think Christians are tri-theists, worshiping a trinity of deities of whom two are not truly God. Not so, we are as monotheistic as the most orthodox Jew, we worship the same eternal Jehovah and that our Trinitarian worship of Jehovah we own originally to their own Jewish Scriptures.