Rather, it consists of 25 complete, independent homilies (and two fragmentary ones) on 27 sections of Deuteronomy, most of which are recognizable as sedarim (the Sabbatical lessons for public worship according to the Palestinian three-year cycle).
Then follow other halakhic explanations (compare 5:8; 7:1; 7:8; 9:1; 11:1) and aggadic interpretations, the last of which are deduced from the Scriptural section of the Sabbath lesson.
Thus, a connection between the halakhic question and the text or the first verse of the lesson is found, and the speaker can proceed to the further discussion of the homily, the exordiums closing generally with the formula מנין ממה שקרינו בענין, followed by the first words of the Scriptural section.
The stylistic manner of opening the discourse with a halakhic question is so closely connected with the original Midrash Tanḥuma, however, that in consequence of the introductory formula ילמדנו רבינו ("May our teacher instruct us?
Even in early times some scholars concluded from the halakhic exordiums in Devarim Rabbah that this Midrash was derived in large part from the Yelamdenu; as did Abraham ben Solomon Akra.
Some halakhic questions found also in Tanḥuma in homilies on Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus are quite differently applied and developed in the exordiums of Devarim Rabbah.
The Midrash was not known either to Nathan ben Jehiel, the author of the Arukh, or to Rashi (the passage in a citation quoted by the latter is not found in Devarim Rabbah).
A large number of extracts are found in Yalkut Shimoni, generally with the designation of the Midrash אלה הדברים רבה, as it is commonly cited by the older authors.
The second and third pericopes have also halakhic exordiums closing with the words, מנין ממה שקרינו בענין..., in which, however, the question is put without any formula.
For Vayelech (also on Deuteronomy 31:14) it has a different text; and in the last two pericopes (Haazinu and Vezot Habracha) it agrees with Midrash Tanhuma in present editions.
Among the numerous Midrashim to Deuteronomy there are known to be a number of fragments of a Devarim Zuta, the preservation of which is due to the author of Yalkut Shimoni.