Book of Deuteronomy

'second law'; Latin: Liber Deuteronomii)[1] is the fifth book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called Devarim (Biblical Hebrew: דְּבָרִים‎, romanized: Dəḇārīm, lit.

Chapters 1–30 of the book consist of three sermons or speeches delivered to the Israelites by Moses on the Plains of Moab, shortly before they enter the Promised Land.

The first sermon recounts the forty years of wilderness wanderings which had led to that moment and ended with an exhortation to observe the law.

Traditionally, it was believed that God dictated the Torah to Moses, but most modern scholars date Deuteronomy to the 7th-5th centuries BCE.

[14] The historical background to the book's composition is currently viewed in the following general terms:[15] Chapters 12–26, containing the Deuteronomic Code, are the earliest section.

In contrast, Isaiah's contemporary Hosea, active in the northern kingdom of Israel, makes frequent references to the Exodus, the wilderness wanderings, a covenant, the danger of foreign gods and the need to worship Yahweh alone.

[22] Whether the Deuteronomic Code was written in Josiah's time (late 7th century BC) or earlier is subject to debate, but many of the individual laws are older than the collection itself.

Deuteronomy was originally just the law code and covenant, written to cement the religious reforms of Josiah, and later expanded to stand as the introduction to the full history.

This idea still has supporters, but the mainstream understanding is that Deuteronomy, after becoming the introduction to the history, was later detached from it and included with Genesis–Exodus–Leviticus–Numbers because it already had Moses as its central character.

[24] Deuteronomy stresses the uniqueness of God, the need for drastic centralisation of worship, and a concern for the position of the poor and disadvantaged.

"[26] Yahweh has elected Israel as his special property (Deuteronomy 7:6 and elsewhere),[27] and Moses stresses to the Israelites the need for obedience to God and covenant, and the consequences of unfaithfulness and disobedience.

This arrangement of material highlights God's sovereign relationship with Israel prior to the giving of establishment of the Law.

Dillard and Longman note that "In 131 of the 167 times the verb "give" occurs in the book, the subject of the action is Yahweh.