Aligned sentence by sentence
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Part One · Chapter Thirty-Nine — Lev: Heart, Intellect, and the Will of God
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Lev is an equivocal term. It is the name for the heart — I mean the organ in which the principle of life of every creature with a heart resides: 'and it lodged in the heart of Absalom' (2 Sam 18:14).
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And because this organ is in the center of the body, it was extended by metaphor to the center of any thing: 'as far as the heart of the heavens' (Deut 4:11); 'a flame of fire' (Ex 3:2).
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And it is the name for thought as well: 'my heart did not go' (Job 31:7) — meaning: I was present in my thought when such-and-such occurred. And from this sense: 'and you shall not go astray after your heart' (Num 15:39) — meaning: following your thoughts; 'whose heart turns away today' (Deut 29:17) — his thought has departed.
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And it is the name for opinion: 'all the remnant of Israel, of one heart, to make David king' (1 Chr 12:39) — meaning: of one opinion. Likewise His saying, 'and fools shall die for lack of heart' (Prov 10:21) — meaning: for deficiency of opinion. Likewise His saying, 'my heart shall not deviate from me ever' (Job 27:6) — meaning: my opinion has not deviated nor departed from this matter, for the beginning of the speech was, 'I have held fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart shall not deviate from me ever.' And from the sense of yaḥaref, in my view, is the saying 'a bondwoman who is designated for a man' (Lev 19:20) — parallel to the Arabic meaning: deflected, i.e., removed from the ownership of slavery to the ownership of marriage.
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And it is the name for will: 'and I will give you shepherds after My own heart' (Jer 3:15); 'is your heart right, as my heart is with your heart?' (2 Kgs 10:15) — meaning: is your will in rectitude as my will is. And it is used metaphorically of God according to this sense: 'as it is in My heart and in My soul He shall do' (1 Sam 2:35) — meaning: He shall act according to My will; 'and My eyes and My heart shall be there always' (1 Kgs 9:3) — meaning: My care and My will.
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And it is the name for intellect: 'and a hollow man will gain intellect' (Job 11:12); likewise, 'a wise man's heart is at his right hand' (Eccl 10:2) — meaning: his intellect in matters of perfection — and this is frequent. According to this sense it is used metaphorically of God in every passage — I mean as indicating intellect — except the exceptional case, where it indicates will according to context. Likewise: 'and you shall take it to heart' (Deut 4:39); 'and he did not take it to heart' (Ex 7:23) — all such are the reckoning of intellect, as He said: 'the Lord has not given you a heart to know' (Deut 29:3), parallel to 'you were shown to know' (Deut 4:35).
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As for His saying, 'and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart' (Deut 6:5), its interpretation in my view is: with all the powers of your heart — I mean all the powers of your body, for the origin of all of them is from the heart; and the intent is that you make the goal of all your actions the apprehension of Him, as I have explained in my Commentary on the Mishnah and in the Mishneh Torah.