The First Two Positive Divine Commandments

Abstract

This chapter takes the 613 commandments believed to have been given to Moses at Sinai as a starting point. It introduces four writers who have engaged with the commandments prior to Maimonides: Samuel ben Hofni, Hefets ben Yatsliah, Bahya ibn Pakuda, and Abraham Ibn Ezra. The chapter goes on to analyse Maimonides' accounts of the 613 commandments. Indeed, of all the attempts that have been made to identify the 613 commandments of the Law, his is by far the most widely studied and copied. Commentaries on it and adaptations of it are still being written. More to the point for this chapter, lists of the commandments subsequent to Maimonides, and there are well over a hundred, consistently list affirmation of the existence and the unity of God as positive commandments and identify ‘I am the Lord thy God’ and ‘Hear O Israel’ as the verses in which they are embodied. Although Maimonides was not the first to take the position, it was he who propagated it.