Summary: Bible - Book of Deuteronomy

The GIST

Deuteronomy is the fifth and last book of the Torah, and nearly all of it is one man talking. Moses, a hundred and twenty years old, stands before the people of Israel on the plains of Moab, across the Jordan from the land they have spent forty years trying to reach. He knows he will not cross with them. So he gives them what he has left: his memory of the journey, the law restated for the life ahead, and a plea to stay faithful to the God who brought them out of Egypt. Then he climbs a mountain, looks at the land, and dies.

The name comes from Greek and means second law; in Hebrew the book is called Devarim, the words, after its opening line, "These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel." It is among the most influential books in the Bible. It contains the Shema, the central declaration of Jewish faith, and the command to love God that Jesus called the greatest. Its vision of a people bound to one God by a covenant, and judged by their loyalty to it, shaped how much of the Old Testament tells Israel's history.

What It Says

The book is usually read as three speeches followed by a short epilogue.

The first speech: remembering (chapters 1 to 4). The setting is given precisely: the fortieth year, the eleventh month, the first day, east of the Jordan. Moses begins by looking back. He recalls the journey from Horeb, which is Sinai, to Kadesh and on to Moab. The text notes in passing that it is only eleven days' journey from Horeb to Kadesh, which makes the forty years that followed their own comment on what went wrong. He retells the appointing of chiefs, the sending of scouts, the long wandering, and the recent defeats of the kings Sihon and Og, whose land has already been given to two and a half of the tribes. The retelling is a long record of Israel's disobedience and of God's care in spite of it, and it ends in an appeal to keep the law. Moses asks what other nation has "statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law."

The second speech: the heart of the law (chapters 5 to 11). After a second introduction, Moses returns to what happened at Horeb and restates the Ten Commandments. They serve as the blueprint for everything after them. Then comes the passage that became the creed of Judaism: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD," and the command that follows from it, "And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." These words are to be taught to children, spoken of at home and on the road, and kept before the eyes. Heads of families are made responsible for passing the teaching on.

The chapters that follow press the point from every side. Israel is God's chosen possession. The people are warned again and again against serving other gods. The land they are about to enter is praised for its goodness. Moses reminds them of the hunger of the wilderness and the manna that met it, a lesson that "man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD." He recalls the golden calf and the death of Aaron, and he sets out the duties of the Levites. The section builds toward a choice between blessing and curse.

The Deuteronomic Code (chapters 12 to 26). This is the core of the book, a body of commands for life in the land, which scholars regard as its oldest part and often describe as an expansion of the Ten Commandments. It can be followed in four movements.

First come laws of worship (chapters 12 to 16). The shrines of the nations, on the high mountains and hills and under every green tree, are to be destroyed, and Israel is to bring its offerings only to the one place God will choose "to put his name there." This centralizing of worship is among the book's most distinctive demands. With it come rules about food, tithes and the pilgrim festivals, and the law of release: "At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release," when debts between Israelites are cancelled.

Second come laws about leaders (chapters 16 to 18), the community and religious authorities of the nation, among them the king, the priests and Levites, and the prophets. The Levites are to have no territory, since "the LORD is their inheritance." Divination, witchcraft and consulting the dead are forbidden as practices of the nations. Even the king is placed under the law. Deuteronomy makes the teaching itself the highest authority in Israel.

Third come laws for society (chapters 19 to 25): cities of refuge, the conduct of war, and a wide range of rules on civil and domestic life. A marked concern for the poor and the vulnerable runs through them.

Fourth, in chapter 26, comes a confession of identity and loyalty, spoken when the first fruits of the land are offered.

Blessings and curses (chapters 27 and 28). The covenant has consequences, and they are spelled out. Obedience brings blessing in every part of life: "Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field." Disobedience brings the reverse, at length and in detail.

The third speech: the covenant in Moab (chapters 29 and 30). Moses gathers the people to enter the covenant for themselves. He looks ahead to a day when they will have broken it and been scattered among the nations, and he promises that even then the way back stays open. If they return with all their heart, God "will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee," gather them from wherever they have been driven, and change their hearts so that they can love him. The speech ends with the choice set before them once more, life or death, blessing or curse.

The epilogue (chapters 31 to 34). Moses tells the people plainly that he is going no further and hands the leadership to Joshua with the words "Be strong and of a good courage." He writes down the law, entrusts it to the Levites and orders that it be read aloud to the people. Two poems follow. The Song of Moses calls heaven and earth to witness and praises God as faithful where Israel is not: "He is the Rock, his work is perfect." The Blessing of Moses speaks a farewell word over the tribes. Then Moses goes up Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, and God shows him the whole land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He dies there in Moab and is buried in a valley, in a grave no one knows. He was a hundred and twenty, and "his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Israel mourns him for thirty days, and Joshua takes up the task. The book's last judgment on him is this: "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face."

Why It Matters

Deuteronomy's themes can be arranged around three poles: Israel, its God, and the covenant that binds them. God gives; one count finds that in 131 of the 167 places where the verb give appears, God is the giver. Israel answers with loyalty. Obedience in this book is not meant as a burden laid by a master on a servant. It is the way a relationship that already exists, begun with Abraham and proved in the exodus, is lived out. The gravest sin, accordingly, is not breaking a rule but abandoning the relationship for other gods.

In Judaism the book stands at the center of daily practice. The Shema is recited twice a day, and its command to love God with heart, soul and might became a guiding principle of Jewish life. In the synagogue cycle of readings the book is divided into eleven weekly portions. Ancient Jewish tradition holds that Moses received the whole Torah from God, a belief Maimonides counted among the thirteen principles of the faith.

In Christianity its influence is just as direct. Jesus cites its command to love God as the Great Commandment. Early Christians saw in Jesus the prophet like Moses whom the book promises, and read its hope of restoration as fulfilled in him, while Paul drew on chapter 30 in setting out his teaching about faith.

Modern scholars, for their part, mostly date the book well after Moses, between the seventh and fifth centuries BCE. Many connect its legal core with the book of the law said in 2 Kings to have been found in the temple in the reign of King Josiah, who based a reform of worship on it, and hold that the opening and closing chapters were added during and after the Babylonian exile, when a story about a people about to enter the land became a story about a people hoping to return to it. Some have compared its form to ancient Near Eastern treaties. On this view Deuteronomy also supplied the outlook of the histories from Joshua to Kings, which judge every generation by its faithfulness. These accounts of the book's origin differ sharply from the traditional one, and readers will weigh them according to their own convictions.

Who Should Read It

Read Deuteronomy if you want to understand what the Bible means by covenant, or why love and law are spoken of together in Jewish and Christian teaching. It suits readers who value great speeches, since it is a dying leader's last appeal to the people he has carried, and readers interested in how a community hands its identity to the next generation. The legal chapters ask for patience, but the opening and closing sections are some of the most moving in Scripture.