Deuteronomy 6:20

Deuteronomy 6:20, in plain English

In the future, when your kids ask you what all these laws and rules actually mean, that's your chance to teach them the story behind the commands.

Why it's here

Moses knows the next generation will ask questions. And that's good—it means they're thinking. This verse is setting up the framework for spiritual education: parents should be ready to explain not just the rules, but the 'why' behind them, the story of who God is and what He's done.

Who's speaking

Moses

Where it sits in the story

The Passover meal itself became a teaching tool in Jewish tradition, with these exact kinds of questions asked by children. Faith is meant to be questioned, explored, and understood, not just inherited blindly.

The scholarly reading

In the future, when your son questions what the meaning and purpose of God's decrees, statutes, and ordinances are, you will explain the covenant's significance.

Language and setting

This verse opens the final section (20-25) that articulates an educational method: the child's question becomes the occasion for parental instruction. In Jewish tradition, this verse becomes the basis for the Passover Haggadah's framework of 'the four sons'—different types of questions requiring different pedagogical approaches. The cumulative effect of verses 6-9 and now verses 20-25 establishes a pedagogy of curiosity: children ask, and parents explain, transmitting not merely commandments but their theological rationale. The repetition of 'decrees...statutes...ordinances' echoes verse 1 and 17, binding the chapter into an integrated whole.

Voice

Moses

Significance

This verse shifts perspective from Moses' direct address to the future moment when the law will be transmitted generationally. It acknowledges that genuine covenant fidelity requires intellectual comprehension, not mere mechanical compliance. The trajectory from verse 4 (monotheistic affirmation) through verse 5 (total love) to verse 20 (intellectual understanding) maps the entire project of Deuteronomy: cognitively grounded, affectively motivated, practically embodied covenant faith.

18Do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, so that it may be well with you and that you may enter and possess the good land that the LORD your God swore to give your fathers,

19driving out all your enemies before you, as the LORD has said.

20In the future, when your son asks, “What is the meaning of the decrees and statutes and ordinances that the LORD our God has commanded you?”

21then you are to tell him, “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

22Before our eyes the LORD inflicted great and devastating signs and wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his household.

Read all of Deuteronomy 6 — Hear, O Israel. Love the Lord with everything. Teach your children. Bind it on your hands. Write it on your doorposts. Let it become your life.