[1] The code outlines a special relationship between the Israelites and Yahweh[2] and provides instructions covering "a variety of topics including religious ceremonies and ritual purity, civil and criminal law, and the conduct of war".
[1] They are similar to other collections of laws found in the Torah (the first five books of the Tanakh) such as the Covenant Code at Exodus 20–23,[1][3] except for the portion discussing the Ethical Decalogue, which is usually treated separately.
It would have formed a great protest against the prevalent tendencies of the age, a century, as Jeremiah readily testifies, in which religious viewpoints, other than that of centralised worship of Yahweh, were making serious encroachments in the Kingdom of Judah, associated with its decline.
In the treatment of the laws, they are not merely collected, or a series of legal enactments repeated, but developed with reference to the moral and religious purposes which they can subserve, and to the motives from which it is perceived that the Israelite is ought to obey them.
[5] The law code seems methodically to provide legal compensation for those who are victimised by the inequities and brutalities that may otherwise inhere in the social system.
Nevertheless, despite this general philanthropic nature, breaches of the moral code are punished severely: death is the penalty not only for murder, but also for unchastity, and even for disrespectful behaviour by a son.
Some of the institutions and observances codified in the Priestly Code are indeed mentioned, mainly burnt-offerings, peace offerings, heave-offerings, the distinction between "clean" and "unclean", and rules about leprosy.
Thus it can not be said that the legislation of Deuteronomy is in any sense an expansion or development of the Holiness Code itself, although the underlying laws appear to have a greater affinity.
As far as critical scholarship is concerned, the Covenant Code, and the Ritual Decalogue which partially repeats it, can be seen to form the foundation of the Deuteronomic legislation.
Repeatedly and pointedly the older laws of the Covenant Code are restated in Deuteronomy in terms which inescapably suggest the influence of Amos, Hosea and Isaiah.
The difference between the two codes may be summarised as further tempering law on behalf of the offender, and providing a still more merciful view with respect to the weak, and powerless.