The book of Deuteronomy

At a glance

Chapters

34

Author

Traditionally Moses; scholars associate its core with the seventh century BC

Written

Core likely seventh century BC, presented as Moses' final speeches

Written for

A generation about to enter a land none of them have seen

Themes

covenant renewal, memory, teaching children, choosing

What it is about

Deuteronomy means second law, and that is roughly what it is: the covenant restated for a generation that did not stand at Sinai. Structurally it is Moses' last words, delivered on the far bank of the Jordan, to a people about to go somewhere he cannot follow.

That situation gives the book its tone, which is urgent, repetitive and often moving in a way the earlier legal material is not. The instruction that faith be taught while sitting at home, walking on the road, lying down and getting up is here — it locates the whole enterprise in ordinary conversation rather than in ceremony.

It is also the book Jesus quotes from most often, including all three answers in the wilderness temptation, which makes it far more present in the New Testament than its position in a reading plan suggests.

Where to start

Chapter 6, which contains the Shema and the household instruction. It is the densest short passage in the Old Testament and everything else in the book orbits it.

The chapters worth knowing

• Deuteronomy 6 — The Shema, and the instruction to talk about this while sitting, walking, lying down and getting up.
• Deuteronomy 8 — The warning about what prosperity does to memory, which is the book's most modern paragraph.
• Deuteronomy 30 — Life and death set before them, with the instruction to choose life.

What people get wrong about it

That it is a repeat of Exodus and Leviticus and can therefore be skipped. It is a restatement with a different purpose — preaching rather than legislation — and it is the Old Testament book the New Testament leans on hardest.

Questions