The Book of Deuteronomy, Chapters 1–11

By Bill T. Arnold

“The book of Deuteronomy can rightly be called a compendium of the most important ideas of the Old Testament.” So begins this commentary on the book of Deuteronomy, which Bill Arnold treats as the heart of the Torah and the fulcrum of the Old Testament—crystallizing the themes of the first four books of the Bible and establishing the theological foundation of the books that follow.

After a thorough introduction that explores these and other matters, Arnold provides an original translation of the first eleven chapters of Deuteronomy along with verse-by-verse commentary (with the translation and commentary of the remaining chapters following in a second volume). As with the other entries in the New International Commentary on the Old Testament, Arnold remains rooted in the book’s historical context while focusing on its meaning and use as Christian Scripture today. Ideal for pastors, students, scholars, and interested laypersons, this commentary is an authoritative yet accessible companion to the book of Deuteronomy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Nov 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781467462938

Bill T. Arnold

Bill T. Arnold is the Paul S. Amos Professor of Old Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary. At Asbury since 1995, he has served as Vice President of Academic Affairs/Provost, Director of Postgraduate Studies, Chair of the Area of Biblical Studies, and Director of Hebrew Studies. One of the series editors of NICOT, Dr. Arnold is also the author of several other books, including Introduction to the Old Testament.

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Introduction

The book of Deuteronomy can rightly be called a compendium of the most important ideas of the Old Testament. It is the heart of the Torah—fashioned as a popular book, from which the people could learn the will of God.¹ Some have called it the Archimedean point of biblical research, which draws on the metaphor attributed to the mathematician Archimedes (third century BCE).² He allegedly stated that, if he had a solid fulcrum and a lever long enough, he could move the earth. Indeed, if the Archimedean point is a dependable reference from which a truer picture of something is possible, then Deuteronomy certainly provides that solid point of reference from which one can discern with greater clarity the message of all of Scripture. Safely avoiding any overstatement, we can say Deuteronomy crystallizes the themes and messages of the first four books of the Bible, while at the same time it establishes the theological foundation for the books of history and prophecy to follow.

Deuteronomy concludes the five books of Moses, the Pentateuch. It reconceptualizes and reformulates large portions of those earlier materials as this whole Torah (4:8; cf. 1:5 and 4:44). It gathers in one place the entire deposit of Israel’s faith traditions, re-sifting them and purifying them theologically, so that the end result is a book that stands as the middle point of the Old Testament.³ As such, Deuteronomy is the foundation upon which Israel’s primary history is recorded in Joshua, Judges, 1–2 Samuel, and 1–2 Kings.⁴ The role of the man Moses as a prophet, and indeed the nature of prophecy itself, is defined clearly and for the first time in Deuteronomy, fixing the ideal of Israelite prophecy for the rest of Israel’s history (see §VIII.C below). Deuteronomy is truly a solid fulcrum by means of which one gains a clearer insight into the message of the entire Old Testament.

The message of the book is beyond question. It focuses on exclusive worship and faithfulness to YHWH, Israel’s God. The book defines Israel’s relationship with YHWH as a renewed and always renewable covenant. In the process it also explains the unique and surpassing essence of YHWH as God, and calls for devout adherence to the covenant’s instructional specifics. It conceptualizes those specifics for the first time as Torah, which is given by YHWH to Israel as a life-sustaining blessing and which further reveals God’s beneficent character. Although this message is unequivocal, there are certain other questions about Deuteronomy that are often debated and remain beyond our ability to answer definitively, including such important questions as the book’s origin and its first social setting in ancient Israel. This introduction will provide discussion of these topics, with frequent reference to the details of the commentary discussion.

I. BACKGROUND: THE NARRATIVE HORIZONS

What then is Deuteronomy? The answer to this question is obvious on one level: Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Bible presented in three speeches of Moses. The first speech combines a historical review with a sermon (1:6–4:40), the second presents the Torah for Israel (5:1–29:1 [Heb. 5:1–28:69]), and the third speech ratifies a covenant ceremony on the plains of Moab (29:2–30:20 [Heb. 29:1–30:20]). These speeches are introduced, framed, and sometimes interrupted by brief narrative notations, and followed finally by narratives and poems related to the death of Moses (31:1–34:12).

Beyond this answer, however, the unique features of the book require a more nuanced response. Deuteronomy’s distinctive features include, first, the fact that the series of speeches is presented in the voice of Moses as a kind of testamentary or farewell address given to Israel prior to the account of his death. Second, these discourses are a blend of sermonic and legal materials with little formal connection to the principal narrative framework of the previous books of the Pentateuch. The whole is fitted together with this larger account through a recapitulation of the events occurring from Mount Horeb to the plains of Moab (chapters 1–3), and with narrative bits toward the end that conclude the account suspended at the end of the book of Numbers (31; 32:48–52; 34). Third, Deuteronomy has a particular theological vocabulary and phraseology that distinguishes it from the rest of the Pentateuch (see §II.B below). Fourth, in various ways, Deuteronomy shares much in common with ancient Near Eastern treaties (see §IV.B below).

These and other features of Deuteronomy raise questions about the book’s literary genre. Is it a law book, a sermon series, a covenant (treaty), a national constitution, or an early form of Israelite catechesis?⁵ Most discussions of this issue fall into two broad categories: polity/constitution or instruction/teaching.⁶ The notion that Deuteronomy is a program of catechesis for education in the faith from one generation to another seems to capture best the book’s self-identification as Torah (anglicized form of tôrâ, routinely if inadequately translated law; see 1:5). Deuteronomy is clearly no simple presentation of Israel’s legal material and can rightly be labeled sermonic exposition rather than legislation.⁷ At the same time, this didactic or expository quality of the speeches does not mean they are wholly disconnected from the narratives of the books of Exodus and Numbers. Indeed, the structure of the book identifies at least three narrative stages or horizons where the speeches are given and some action occurs.⁸

The first historical horizon, serving as the primary narrative stage, is the plains of Moab in the valley opposite Beth-peor (1:1–5; 3:29; 34:1–6; see map 1). Here, east of the Jordan River at the portal to the promised land, Moses addresses the assembly of all Israel, instructs them in the ways of God, and renews the covenant for a new generation.

Surprisingly, however, the book turns back almost immediately to a second narrative stage, to a moment four decades earlier when Israel was encamped at the foot of Mount Horeb (Deuteronomy’s name for Mount Sinai; see the commentary at 1:2). By recalling the moment at Horeb when YHWH spoke to Israel and commanded them to set out from there to begin the journey to the promised land (1:6–8), Deuteronomy turns back to another time and place to highlight the significance of those events. The base of Mount Horeb is a point of departure that stages subsequent events at Kadesh-barnea and the journey to the plains of Moab (Deut 1:19–3:29). Symbolically then, the foot of Mount Horeb is a narrative horizon that serves an important role in the book not only as the place of the covenant, but a point of departure for a life free of oppression.⁹

Similarly, a third narrative stage in the text marked in the speeches of Deuteronomy highlights the most important moment of all: the revelation of YHWH in theophanic splendor on top of Mount Horeb (5:1–21).¹⁰ This third narrative stage is once again set at Mount Horeb, and only a few months prior to YHWH’s call in 1:6–8 to set out for the promised land. In Deuteronomy, everything else is prelude or postlude to this moment; this is the ideological fountain from which all else flows, the living core of Israel’s faith revealed in sacred words written by the finger of YHWH on stone tablets. The rest of the book is inspired teaching from the mediator-prophet-teacher Moses for Israel’s present and future generations.

These three horizons—the plains of Moab, the base of Horeb, and the top of Horeb—are the chief narrative stages upon which the action of Deuteronomy occurs.¹¹ And yet, in the book’s rhetorical sequencing, a fourth horizon is suggested by the frequent mention of the need to preserve this authoritative teaching for one’s children and grandchildren (all future readers of the book; see 4:9, 25; 6:2, 20–25), and by Israel’s responsibility for Torah faithfulness in the future (e.g., 7:12–26; 31:10–13). On six occasions, Deuteronomy uses the temporal prepositional phrase as it is to this day (or, until this day; ʿad hayyôm hazzeh) to transcend these narrative stages and refer not to the plains of Moab or to the book’s today but to the day of the narrator’s experience, connecting his day with the narrative stages of the book.¹²

II. UNITY OF COMPOSITION

While the rhetorical staging of Deuteronomy is clear on at least three historical or narrative horizons, the book nevertheless presents itself as words spoken to Israel as divine instruction (1:1) rather than as a narrative of past events. Yet the words of these speeches are presented in different ways throughout the book, sometimes as Torah (1:5), at other times as a single commandment (6:1), or as a collection of rituals and judgments (4:1).¹³ This rhetorical texture has a certain currency, an up-to-dateness that transcends the narrative horizons, constantly creating anew a unified people from Israel’s diverse tribes and defining their life with YHWH in covenant blessing. The unity of Deuteronomy as a composition is thus evident by (1) its self-identification as speeches, which (2) have a distinctive phraseology and repertoire of expressions and which (3) paradoxically point not to themselves but to another book, the Torah, now residing (in its narrative world) in the ark of the covenant.

A. THE SPEECHES OF DEUTERONOMY

Early in the history of scholarship on the book, interpreters of Deuteronomy observed that its recurring self-references create a system of four superscriptions, dividing the book into speech, law, covenant, and blessing.¹⁴

1:1, "these are the words (dəbārîm) that Moses spoke …" [speech]

4:44, "this is the law (tôrâ) that Moses placed before the children of Israel …" [law]

29:1 [Heb. 28:69], "these are the words of the covenant (dibrê habbərît) that Yhwh commanded Moses to make …" [covenant]

33:1, "this is the blessing (bərākâ) with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel …" [blessing]

All four headings are verbless clauses identifying and focusing the reader’s attention on the content to follow, and the same clauses are repeated in alternating sequence as follows.

These [are] … (1:1)

This [is] … (4:44)

These [are] … (29:1 [Heb. 28:69])

This [is] … (33:1)

The rhetorical effect is a somewhat symmetrical use of the verbless clauses that serve as guideposts for reading and provide a broad structure for the book. In this way, the material of Deuteronomy is arranged into three main speeches of Moses of unequal length.¹⁵ Yet, it is not entirely clear whether Deut 29:1 [Heb. 28:69] is a superscription for chapter 29 or a subscription to chapter 28. And there are other questions, such as where the unit introduced by the book’s opening paragraph (1:1–5) concludes, which in turn leaves a considerable number of uncertainties about Deut 27–34.¹⁶ At any rate, the grammar of the superscriptions clearly seems to introduce the major sections of the book, while similar expressions are used to introduce new paragraphs as subheadings (as in 6:1 and 12:1).¹⁷ This all gives Deuteronomy a certain rhetorical distinctiveness and compositional unity, even if it leaves us with numerous questions about the details.

B. DISTINCTIVE PHRASEOLOGY

Deuteronomy has a particular theological vocabulary and phraseology that distinguishes it from other books of the Bible, creating a tone that trends towards exhortation in its overall presentation.¹⁸ In particular, the following expressions or formulas recur frequently in the speeches of Moses, giving Deuteronomy a distinctive voice in the message of the Pentateuch.¹⁹

you shall know thatYHWHis God (there is no other)

YHWHyour God

(YHWH) brought you out from (the land of) Egypt, out from the house of servitude

(with) a strong hand and an outstretched arm

just asYHWHpromised/commanded you

remember/do not forget (YHWH/the acts ofYHWH)

be on your guard, lest you forget (YHWH/the covenant/the things you have seen)

keep and do (observe carefully) the commandments (ofYHWH)

hear (obey) the commandments (ofYHWH)

(the) whole commandment, (the) rituals and (the) judgments

(the commandments) that I am commanding you (today)

fear/love/serve/worship/cling to (YHWH)

walk inYHWH’s ways

with allyourheart, and with allyoursoul (and with all your strength)

do not follow after/walk afterother gods (whom you have not known)

the land thatYHWHswore (to give) to your ancestors

the land thatYHWHyour God is about to give to you (as a possession)

the land that you are about to enter/cross over to possess

the place thatYHWHchooses (to put his name there)

in order that you may live

in order that it may go well with you

the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow

In some limited way, the message of the entire book is communicated by these recurring phrases, and one gets a sense of its essential unity as it captures and preaches the message of the whole Pentateuch. Such individualistic phraseology does not prove unity of composition per se, but its rhetorical style is so entirely unlike earlier books of the Pentateuch as to suggest a certain literary unity in itself.

In addition to illustrating Deuteronomy’s unity vis-à-vis the other books of the Pentateuch, this distinctive phraseology can be traced into other books of the Old Testament. Deuteronomy’s voice—as though speaking with a distinct accent—can be detected in the historical books and prophets, especially 1 and 2 Kings and Jeremiah. These characteristic expressions, as well as a discernible literary style and even theological nuance, may be thought of as Deuteronomic, and when found elsewhere with some slight but important variation, these phrases may be characterized as Deuteronomistic.²⁰ So, for example, the expression the place that YHWH your God chooses from all your tribes to put his name there (12:5) becomes Jerusalem, the city that YHWH had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to put his name there (1 Kgs 14:21).²¹ This distinctive articulation of the message of the first half of the Old Testament (approximately) makes Deuteronomy a singular contribution to the whole Bible.

C. DEUTERONOMY AND THE TORAH SCROLL

The compositional integrity of Deuteronomy is also evident in its last chapters leading to the narration of the death of Moses, especially in chapters 27–34 culminating in 34:1–12. The death of Moses not only serves as the logical closure to the Pentateuch but also presents him as the originary voice of prophetic authority for future Israel: never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses (34:10). In the last two verses of Deuteronomy, Moses’s acts of deliverance and leadership for Israel (his strong hand and great displays of power) are linked intimately to the signs and wonders of YHWH (34:11–12). Remarkably, the uniqueness of Moses as lawgiver and prophet can only be compared to the uniqueness of YHWH as savior and redeemer.²²

The entire book leads to and prepares for this final scene—the death of Moses (1:37–38; 3:23–28; 4:22; 31:14, 16, 27, 29; 32:48–52).²³ At the same time, Deuteronomy presents itself as a book about the writing of another book.²⁴ It points beyond itself to the book, the Torah scroll. The narrative portions of the book, especially those of Deut 27–34, gradually emphasize more and more the centrality of written communication (27:1–3; 31:9–13; 31:24–26; and cf. 31:19, 22). Even here Moses is unique in the same way that YHWH is unique. God wrote the Ten Words (i.e., the Ten Commandments or Decalogue) on two stone tablets (4:13; 10:4), and Moses wrote the Torah in a book (31:24). With YHWH’s stone tablets, Moses’s Torah is given to the priests to be kept beside the ark of the covenant (31:26). And of course, this means that the Torah scroll is not accessible to the average Israelite to read and study. This new larger composition however, the book of Deuteronomy, is available, which transforms Moses’s speeches into a book that (pre-)determines its own audience and reception among Israel’s people and king. This composition, the Torah of Moses, points the reader always beyond itself to the Torah scroll.

This version of the Torah is to be read every seven years (31:10–11), and a copy is to be provided for Israel’s future kings for constant study and instruction (17:18–19). Thus the speeches of Moses written in the book of Deuteronomy have become a surrogate for another book, disclosing the content of the [Torah scroll] while not assuming its formal identity.²⁵ The Torah scroll itself is tucked away in the ark of the covenant, but Deuteronomy provides its basic content as preached law and calls for obedience to its life-giving precepts. Furthermore, by closing with the death of Moses, Deuteronomy becomes a replacement both for the inaccessible Torah scroll in the ark and for Moses himself, who is also about to become inaccessible. Joshua replaces Moses in order to lead Israel into the promised land; Deuteronomy replaces Moses to lead them into beatific life in that land. Moses the man, the lawgiver, the prophet, and the savior from Egypt (by YHWH’s grace), is replaced by Moses the book.

III. AUTHORSHIP AND DATE

Deuteronomy is thus structured as three speeches of Moses, followed by closing narratives and poems leading to and preparing for the death of Moses. It is possible the book contains the actual speeches of Moses, that is, his own words (the ipsissima verba) uttered prior to his death during the encampment of the Israelites near Beth-peor.²⁶ This assumption would leave us with a great deal of uncertainty and many unanswered (and unanswerable) questions, such as how the speeches were preserved through so many centuries, what degree of updating or changing might have shaped them, and why the speeches have so many differences in detail with earlier legal portions of the Pentateuch not to mention occasional differences in their outlook or even the theological concepts they articulate. Moreover, the book itself identifies numerous steps in its formation, hints of which are contained within its speeches, in which at least one narrator other than Moses clearly uses the narrative stages we noted above to address the book to later Israelites rather than the Israelites encamped in the plains of Moab.²⁷

Perhaps a necessary preliminary question to ask prior to addressing the book’s composition would be how ancient texts such as Deuteronomy were composed generally (a question raised naturally in a section on Authorship and Date).²⁸ And this is related to a further question on the problem of categories such as Mosaic authorship when applied to Deuteronomy, which is not the same as Mosaic origin.²⁹ Our fundamental interest must be in Mosaic authorization rather than authorship per se. A more nuanced and refined model is needed for the earliest stages of text composition when considering literary works from the ancient Near East. Indeed, greater clarity has emerged in recent decades as a result of research on scribal methods and techniques in Babylonia, Egypt, and the southern Levant. Such comparative work has yielded newer models of text composition in antiquity that move away from models of text production that are based on the implicit assumptions of a print culture.³⁰ This refined model pictures master scribes who produced new written compositions using highly venerated oral traditions from the (sometimes distant) past, at times relying on memorized quotations from older works, yet all the time doing so with the freedom to create something entirely new.³¹ Most literary works from the ancient world were produced in a process of either transcription or invention.³² The former was the process by which a scribe wrote a text that originated with an oral source, and the latter relates to a scribe who composes a new text of his own contrivance.³³ The result in either case was the production of an original composition, which then became the basis for later conflations, compilations or expansions by other scribes.³⁴

Moshe Weinfeld observed many years ago that the very concept of the composition of a book is likely meaningless when applied to Deuteronomy because the author of ancient times was generally a collector and compiler of traditions rather than a creator of literature, and was certainly not an author in the modern sense of the term.³⁵ Notions such as authorship and author appear to have been of no concern in ancient Near Eastern compositions until the middle of the first millennium BCE, and initially only in wisdom literature.³⁶ Instead, a newer model of the master scribe has brought clarity to the processes in which collecting and compiling occurred, and is therefore an important corrective to the way scholarship has often approached Deuteronomy. It has become increasingly clear that compositions like the book of Deuteronomy were produced by many hands over a period of many years in a process that involved more than one of these compositional and editorial techniques.

A. THE HISTORY OF THE QUESTION

Without this abovementioned model of scribal culture, older scholarship on Deuteronomy yielded inconclusive results regarding the composition of the book. Two realities combined in the nineteenth-century scholarship to complicate matters. First, the way in which the speeches of Moses are layered by the superscriptions of Deuteronomy is deceptively complicated (see §II.A above). The original legal core of the book has likely been revised and expanded more than once (§IV.A below), leaving a more layered and complex structure than at first appears, despite its presentation as a unified book. Second, unlike the newer scribal model just described, biblical scholars in the nineteenth century tended to imagine an ancient composition as the result of a single great individual who wrote in a relatively narrow timeframe. Much of the effort of nineteenth-century scholars was therefore devoted to identifying the singular authors of the sources behind biblical books, and pinpointing as narrowly as possible the historical moment(s) when they produced the books.

So, for example, the celebrated Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis of pentateuchal composition left unanswered several questions about the book of Deuteronomy itself, although it was generally accepted in subsequent scholarship as the D source.³⁷ Wellhausen himself posited two separate editions of the book, both of which were thought to have expanded an original legal core of Deut 12–26. One edition expanded the core with beginning and ending frameworks, Deut 1:1–4:44 and 27, and a second independent edition had separate frameworks as well, 4:45–11:32 and 28–30. These independent editions were subsequently combined into the present canonical Deuteronomy.³⁸ While Wellhausen’s theory of pentateuchal composition became the consensus, his rather straightforward source-critical explanation of the origins of Deuteronomy failed to gain wide acceptance. From a similar individualist model of text composition but with different results, Franz Delitzsch assumed that Israel inherited a tradition of farewell addresses from Moses before his death. Building upon that tradition, a later Deuteronomist (German: Deuteronomiker), working in spiritual unity with Moses, expanded and developed the speeches intentionally from Moses’s vantage point and disposition.³⁹ Delitzsch asserted that the work of the Deuteronomist was not limited to the historical notations but mingled various sources together, and that the speeches were freely reproduced by the same individual who gave the book its current unity.⁴⁰

Toward the conclusion of the nineteenth century, two independent investigations of Deuteronomy’s variation of number (German: Numeruswechsel) set the course for research on the book for decades.⁴¹ This basic feature of the book is the switching back-and-forth between second-person singular and second-person plural forms of address, a phenomenon unnoticed in English translations because you is both singular and plural. In Hebrew, by contrast, the mixing of the forms is hard to miss, and in fact is quite startling and even disruptive in places. The first and most influential scholars to investigate Deuteronomy’s number switching in detail, Willy Staerk and Carl Steuernagel, were likewise committed to an individualist model of composition typical for their generation.⁴² Staerk and Steuernagel independently of each other took number switching in Deuteronomy, which prior to that time had been noted only sporadically, as a criterion for source-critical distinctions to assume separate sources for plural and singular strata in the book.⁴³ While this approach appeared at first to have explanatory power, it failed to explain similar number switching in other portions of the Old Testament, and at times even elsewhere in ancient Near Eastern texts.⁴⁴ Once Martin Noth’s influential theory of a Deuteronomistic History became prevalent in the twentieth century (see below), it was inevitable that some would propose the historian as the source of a second-person plural layer expanding upon an earlier second-person singular version of Deuteronomy.⁴⁵

Eventually, however, it was shown that number switching in Deuteronomy is essentially a stylistic or rhetorical device for homiletical effect, the second-person singular being used to address collective Israel as a community and the second-person plural for a more individualizing personal tone.⁴⁶ For example, this feature occurs twice in Deut 6:10–19 (see commentary below). Verses 10–13 stress to collective Israel (second-person singular) that they will enter the promised land, occupy houses they did not build, and enjoy the fruits of the land they did not cultivate. In that moment of prosperity and ease, they will be in danger of forgetting YHWH, who has made these gracious provisions. Then at 6:14, the switch to the second-person plural sounds the warning in the book’s distinctive phraseology against going after other gods (ʾĕlōhîm ʾăḥērîm). In this rhetorical interpretation of number switching, this verse dramatically emphasizes that the individual Israelite must bear responsibility to be vigilant against apostasy, as part of the larger picture of the community’s inheritance in the promised land, and thus it serves as suitable substantiation for vv. 10–13. Similarly, after reverting back to the second-person singular in v. 15, the switch to the plural occurs yet again in vv. 16–17a, and again, the plurals are (paradoxically) focused on the individual Israelite’s responsibility to avoid testing YHWH and to observe the stipulations prescribed in the book’s legal portions. The interchanging of the second-person singular and plural for rhetorical effect may occur within a single verse, as illustrated in Deut 7:4, where the focus leads to the responsibility of the individual Israelite to purge Canaanite religious practices from one’s society (7:5).⁴⁷ The default or neutral mode of direct address in Deut 5–11 appears to be the second-person singular you, addressing the collective community Israel, whereas the second-person plural individualizes the discourse and makes it more personal.⁴⁸

This commentary will point out the switching wherever it seems to make a difference of interpretation, but in most cases the interchanging between the second-person singular and plural is stylistic. On the other hand, it remains possible that the use of the second-person singular in Deuteronomy’s legal core in chapters 12–26 reflects evidence of individual strata at their earliest stages of composition, and that once the feature of switching freely between the singular and plural in the second person was deemed acceptable in these traditions, later scribes felt equally free to use them interchangeably, or as a rhetorical feature of an emerging Deuteronomic style.⁴⁹ The proposal that the prevalence of the second-person singular laws in the book’s legal core may suggest evidence of the history of an original Deuteronomy will be more relevant in the second volume of the commentary.⁵⁰

The assumption that biblical books were composed by a single great individual who wrote in a relatively brief timeframe—which may be called an individualist model—continued into the twentieth century. The next development to note for its implications on the origins of Deuteronomy is Martin Noth’s theory of a Deuteronomistic History, composed of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1–2 Samuel, and 1–2 Kings.⁵¹ His hypothesis had many secondary implications, and became widely influential in the discipline.⁵² Noth’s predecessors had defined Deuteronomic themes and literary style, and theorized about Deuteronomic redactions of the historical books. But his theory went further by proposing a coherent and unified redaction of these books by a single redactor, the Deuteronomist.⁵³ While the last paragraph of 2 Kings was clearly the end of the history, Noth’s proposal that Deuteronomy itself was the beginning of the history—rather than the conclusion to the Pentateuch—had significant implications for one’s larger understanding of pentateuchal composition. And in his reconstruction, Deut 1–3 became the historian’s introduction not to the book of Deuteronomy, but rather to the larger Deuteronomistic History. Noth’s contribution to the field for many decades was the notion of a Deuteronomistic historian with a distinctive literary style and central unifying theology.

Subsequent scholarship addressed certain problems in Noth’s proposal of the Deuteronomistic History as a unity, and expanded his solitary exilic author by theorizing about a sequence of later redactions.⁵⁴ Some interpreters assumed a layered model resulting in different redactions in the exilic and postexilic period, in which a basic history was revised by several redactors from the perspective of prophecy, and a later group of redactors focused on law. Others assumed a block model resulting in a theory of a first edition in the preexilic period, and a second edition during the exile.⁵⁵ Currently, the book of Deuteronomy itself is often analyzed as originating in redactional layers, such as a preexilic document from the seventh century BCE revising the Book of the Covenant (Exod 20:22–23:33), followed by subsequent redactions in the exilic period (sometimes labeled deuteronomistic redactions), and post-exilic period (so-called post-deuteronomistic).⁵⁶ In addition, many scholars fixate on the Persian period as the primary time when biblical texts were written, which is not sustainable: The scarcer and more problematic the sources, the greater the conjecture and speculation.⁵⁷

A persistent problem with Noth’s theory of the Deuteronomistic History is that it isolates the book of Deuteronomy from its context in the Pentateuch. Just as problematic is his assertion that Deut 1–3 was not the beginning of the book but an introduction to the larger history extending to the conclusion of 2 Kings, which was critical to the explanatory power of Noth’s proposal. In contrast to Noth, the approach taken in this commentary is that Deut 1–3 is a deliberate preparation for the Torah presentation introduced in 4:44–49 (see §IV.A below). Thus Deut 1–4 is a careful relecture or rewriting of the earlier narrative portions of the Pentateuch, essentially embedding a new narrative within the larger pentateuchal narrative and itself becoming part of that larger narration as a way of introducing Deuteronomy as an independent book.⁵⁸ This does not diminish the importance of Deuteronomy as theological foundation for the historical books, albeit one that developed in a way quite different from that imagined in Noth’s hypothesis. Instead, earlier versions of Samuel and Kings constituted the first edition of a historical account of the monarchy, to which Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Judges were added later in a process that included the creation of the Pentateuch, and eventually the Enneateuch.⁵⁹

B. DEUTERONOMY AS THE VOICE OF MOSES

A word of caution is therefore in order when considering the question of Deuteronomy’s origins. We cannot come to dogmatic conclusions about its history of composition, as this brief survey of scholarship on the book shows. Previous scholars were too narrowly focused on identifying singular individuals behind the text, while the text itself appears to have gone through a longer stage of transmission history than is often admitted. Scholars have gradually come to see that biblical books which are the result of textual growth do not consistently preserve enough traces of that growth in their final form for scholars to reconstruct each and every stage of that growth.⁶⁰ This requires, therefore, a great deal more methodological modesty than is usually involved in our reconstructions of the origins of a book like Deuteronomy.⁶¹

Perhaps we should return to the simple observation that Deuteronomy’s self-presentation as speeches of Moses is not a claim to authorship in any modern sense of that term. As we have said, most of the book’s content is intoned in the voice of Moses, which is not the same as an assertion of composition. Put another way, when considering the Mosaic origin of the book one might think of the speeches of Deuteronomy as that which later writers have reframed or thought Moses would have wanted to say in their situation.⁶² And in fact, scholarship has illuminated the process by which Mosaic scribes became the voice of Moses.⁶³ That process is informed by early Jewish exegesis in which the content of tradition (traditum) was not uniform or static, but rather was the result of a long and varied process of transmission (traditio).⁶⁴ And we have every reason to believe a similar process of transmission was involved in the composition of earlier biblical books as well, in which the stages of transmission adapted and reinterpreted the traditions for new situations. This model of text composition recognizes a continuum between authorial-compositional functions and scribal-redactional practices, in which the distinction between authors and scribes cannot always be maintained. Scribal processes of transmission (traditio) shared in the composition of the authorial traditum, making its content more accessible and comprehensive for a new audience.⁶⁵ This understanding of ancient traditions as marked by textual fluidity corrects earlier scholarship’s fixation on identifying a single great author and takes into account the role in which ancient Israelite scribes participated in the composition of biblical books. It also avoids the mistaken view that the authority of a biblical text is located in a single individual author, which also implies diverse levels of authority between an original author’s voice and later scribes or copyists who merely preserved and updated the text with lesser authority. On the contrary, later scribes were no mere preservers of the tradition but were allied with its message, driven by its content, and served to reinforce and perpetuate its authority.

This distinction between the content of ancient traditions and their transmission history is the foundation of what has come to be called inner-biblical exegesis, in which authoritative teachings were preserved and revised for new situations by a process that recognized the voice of those doing the revising and updating. The Old Testament at different times distinguishes prophetic and narrative voices. But specific to Deuteronomy is a distinctive Mosaic voice, which serves a primary role in the development of Israel’s ancient legal materials.⁶⁶ The book’s speeches reflect two types of ancient Israelite traditions, legal and narratival, both of which have been transformed in a homiletical style in the voice of Moses. The older legal materials, especially the Book of the Covenant (Exod 20:22–23:33; cf. 24:3–4), have been updated and recast in Deut 12–26. Portions of Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers have been recast in the book’s narrative and paraenetic frameworks. And throughout, the voice of Moses is clear in the work of the scribes through their updating, revising, preaching, and teaching.⁶⁷ These scribal authors did not present their work as some sort of disingenuous attempt to deceive their readers, as though they can be accused of fraudulent or misanthropic motives.⁶⁸ Deuteronomy is itself an exegetical enterprise. In the work of the ancient Israelite scribes, the message of the traditum drove a process of reformulation and updating in a method of composition that we can sometimes trace by exegesis of our own. In a sense, today’s readers of Deuteronomy have much in common with the Mosaic scribes who gave us the book as we explore the riches of Israel’s ancient traditions and seek to understand their significance for our day.⁶⁹

IV. OCCASION

The day Moses died was an occasion that loomed large in Israel’s national memory (Deut 32:48; 34:1–7; Josh 1:1–2). It was a day that came at the conclusion of an indefinite period of time in which Moses delivered farewell speeches to all Israel while they were encamped in the plains of Moab. He began to expound the Torah on the first day of the eleventh month in the fortieth year after the exodus (1:3), presumably repeating and summarizing other discourses delivered piecemeal in other locations in the Transjordan (1:1).⁷⁰ His death marks the transition in leadership from Moses to Joshua, from the tribes in the desert to national Israel in the promised land, and from the Pentateuch to the historical books. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, performative utterances delivered by leading characters when death is imminent have especially vital importance, whether testamentary blessings, prayers, vows, or prophecies (e.g., Gen 27:1–4; 48:1–9; 49:1–2; Josh 23:1–16; 1 Kgs 1:28–37; 2:1–10). The final words of the great lawgiver are hereby given paramount importance.

A. MOSAIC SCRIBES THROUGH TIME

It is impossible to know how Israel’s oldest legal traditions might have been preserved and transmitted over the years. As we have seen, the book of Deuteronomy itself bears evidence of a long process of transmission. Methodological modesty requires caution when attempting to reconstruct the occasions or processes behind its transmission. One likely possibility is that an original Deuteronomy (German: Urdeuteronomium) existed as an independent scroll for a considerable length of time as a revision and updated form of an older version of the Book of the Covenant (Exod 20:22–23:33).⁷¹ This first version of Deuteronomy, besides expanding the older Book of the Covenant, originated as brief legal pieces, which were then combined in this early process into a continuous document with Deut 6:4–5 (or 6:4–9) serving as an introduction, and perhaps with 26:16–19 as a suitable conclusion. At this early stage, the influence of the eighth-century prophets might have been keenly felt, especially perhaps Hosea’s condemnation of idolatry and the multiplicity of altars in the Northern Kingdom (Hos 8:4–5; 10:1; 13:2; 14:8).⁷² Indeed, there is much to commend the theory that northern refugees after the fall of Samaria in 722 BCE came to Judah carrying with them the beginnings of this original Deuteronomy. Evidence suggests that more than one and a half million people were deported by the Assyrians between 745 and 620 BCE, and large numbers of Israelites from the Northern Kingdom were likely among that number (see commentary at 4:25–31). The sudden and massive growth of Jerusalem and its surrounding areas after the 720s has been interpreted as a dramatic influx of northern refugees, and it appears that Hezekiah (716–687/686 BCE) attempted to integrate northern refugees into his kingdom.⁷³ A second wave of newcomers and expansion likely occurred after Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah in 701.⁷⁴ While this theory of northern refugees in Judah has been called into question in recent scholarship,⁷⁵ the archaeological and linguistic evidence supports the idea.⁷⁶ Recent discoveries of personal names on bullae recovered from Jerusalem and dated from between the late eighth and late seventh centuries BCE even suggest direct connections with the Northern Kingdom, perhaps even identifying, as an example, a family that arrived from the north and eventually worked with the Jerusalemite administration.⁷⁷ We possess abundant epigraphic evidence to suggest a strong central administrative organization in Jerusalem during Hezekiah’s reign, making it entirely possible that these earliest pieces of the book’s legal materials were collected with other legislative pieces around the theme of cult centralization at that time. The Mosaic scholars and tradents who preserved and developed these earlier legal traditions may well have settled in the new western section of Jerusalem, the Second Quarter (mišneh; cf. 2 Kgs 22:14; DCH 5:549, §5), integrating quickly into their new surroundings.⁷⁸

As proposed many years ago by S. R. Driver, the dark days of Manasseh (687/686–643 BCE), when the voice of the eighth-century prophets had been silenced, seems entirely likely to have provided a rallying cry for the Mosaic scribes of Deuteronomy’s legal core to compile the treasures left behind by the Hezekian reforms.⁷⁹ While the historicity of such reforms occurring as early as Hezekiah’s day has been challenged by many, the evidence for them in the aftermath of the fall of the Northern Kingdom cannot be easily dismissed.⁸⁰ Indeed, the long reign of Manasseh is most plausible as the time when the older judgments of the Book of the Covenant (Exod 21:1) were revised and updated as the rituals and the judgments of Deut 12:1. Whatever form this early version of Deuteronomy took, it was only natural that the zeal of the eighth-century prophets to purify the Israelite cult from pagan elements would find root in the impulse to centralize the cult as a means of discontinuing syncretistic practices at the high places.⁸¹ If this can be said to be the original Deuteronomy in some form, then it was inspired by the Book of the Covenant (Exod 20:22–23:33), as well as by the preaching of the eighth-century prophets, and by social, political, and religious developments in Hezekiah’s reign. It was motivated by a desire to preserve a loyal opposition to Manasseh’s policies. Speaking in the voice of Moses, these scribes may be thought of as a coalition of theologians, sometimes called outsider Levites, many (perhaps most) coming from the Northern Kingdom of Israel with others coming from the Judean countryside.⁸² These philosophers, poets, and theologians—identified simply as Levites—may well have been counted among the authors of the psalms of Asaph (Pss 50; 73–83; cf. 1 Chr 6:39–43; 9:14–15; 2 Chr 29:30, 34), disciples or scribes of Hosea’s prophecies, and perhaps those of Jeremiah as well, and were closely aligned with the prophetess Huldah.⁸³

We may not be far from the truth if we assume this original Deuteronomy (Urdeuteronomium) existed as an independent scroll for a considerable length of time before needing to be revised and updated itself.⁸⁴ By most estimates, such a document, presumably preserved on a papyrus scroll in the preexilic period, would have grown threadbare after approximately forty years and would have needed to be replaced.⁸⁵ Our models for text composition and transmission must allow for significant scribal modifications of an older text, which undoubtedly involved revision and rewriting, with significant additions to and expansions of the older text.⁸⁶ The older model of a single great individual author followed by scribes who only transmitted the received text must be abandoned for the concept of scribes who were free to compose and develop the old venerated text for a new era.⁸⁷ While we often cannot trace the details of textual changes from one version to the next, it seems entirely likely that a new edition of Deuteronomy was produced when the copies were worn and needed replacing. This may have been the occasion for expansions, perhaps yielding Deut 4:45–29:29* as a new edition of the book.⁸⁸ If it is correct to assume a new version was produced after approximately forty years in order to replace a threadbare scroll, then the reign of Josiah (641–609 BCE) comes into view. This corroborates the longstanding scholarly conclusion that an early version of Deuteronomy was the book of the law found in the temple during Josiah’s day (2 Kgs 22:8).⁸⁹ This reconstruction of a Josianic version of Deuteronomy also coincides with the notion that the final form of the book reflects successive editions in its borders; that is, new beginnings of the book roughly corresponding to the superscriptions already mentioned (see §II.A), and matched by closures or postscripts, perhaps at 26:16–19; 29:28; and 34:10–12.⁹⁰ Again, methodological modesty prevents definitive conclusions about the parameters of this Josianic edition, but its beginning is likely marked by the introduction with a double announcement at Deut 4:44–45 and its conclusion perhaps at 29:29 [Heb. 29:28].⁹¹ The vision and theological intent of these Mosaic scribes was to (re)promulgate the old Mosaic way articulated in their texts—which had already been esteemed, copied, and proclaimed for a century or more.⁹²

Ancient scribes, whose task it was to preserve the sacred texts from the past, were faced with certain technical limitations. At times, they appear to have revised existing copies of scrolls without recourse to extensive recopying by simply adding content to the beginnings and ends of scrolls to clarify, nuance, or update the content at the center.⁹³ Extensive evidence from Mesopotamia confirms what appears to have been the case in ancient Israel as well; that is, the material upon which texts were written (whether clay tablets, papyrus, or leather scrolls) imposed technical limitations on how their work was done. In many cases, they circumvented these limitations by inscribing new sheets attached to the ends of a scroll (using so-called handle sheets).⁹⁴ The book of Deuteronomy appears to illustrate better than most biblical books the process by which older and venerated texts were supplemented in a process of revision through introduction.⁹⁵ At some point impossible to determine, a Josianic version of Deuteronomy was revised in such a way with the addition of Deut 1–3, repurposing the older materials in the formation of a new introduction to Israel’s Torah. This is the technique often used by ancient scribes to renew a text without overriding the older text’s authority, retooling it for a new era. And scribes often changed genres in the process, so it is not surprising that the historical narrative in Deut 1–3 introduces Deuteronomy’s sermonic discourses.⁹⁶ Moreover, evidence suggests the common technique of revision by means of a new introduction was often supplemented by new appendices, which in this case may have been portions of Deut 30, 31, and 32–34.⁹⁷ This approach leads to two further conclusions. First, Deut 1–3(4) served as an introduction to the book of Deuteronomy itself, and not to a larger composition often referred to as the Deuteronomistic History, which combined Deuteronomy with Joshua, Judges, 1–2 Samuel, and 1–2 Kings (see §III.A above).⁹⁸ Second, the narration of events in Deut 1–3 is reliant upon older versions of those accounts contained in Exodus and Numbers (see introduction to the Historical Discourse at 1:6–8 below).

B. THE EIGHTH- AND SEVENTH-CENTURY CONTEXT

This portrait of the way Mosaic scribes preserved and expanded Israel’s ancient legal traditions raises at least two further issues. First, this commentary accepts the historical reality of Josiah’s religious reforms as described in 2 Kgs 22–23. In fact, a characteristic of kingship in ancient Judah was the recurring need to reform the religious and social institutions of the society. Jehoshaphat in the ninth century was already focused on judicial reforms in a process that may well have had the judgments of the Book of the Covenant in view (2 Chr 19:4–11; cf. Exod 21:1). Hezekiah initiated efforts to centralize the worship of YHWH in a single location rather than in various cult centers around the country (2 Kgs 18:4–6; 2 Chr 31:1; acknowledged even by the Assyrian Rabshakeh in 2 Kgs 18:22). The elders of the land took note of the influence of Micah’s ministry as inspiration for Hezekiah’s reforms (Jer 26:18–19; Mic 3:12). As we have seen, these religious and social reforms may well have been an inspiration for the Mosaic scribes at work on the legal traditions that found their way into Deuteronomy. While many today challenge the historicity of these reports, we have a growing body of archaeological evidence supporting the Old Testament’s portrait of Hezekiah’s reforms, including especially material attestations for the reforms at Arad, Lachish, and Beersheba.⁹⁹ Hezekiah was especially interested in the northern reaches of ancient Israel as well as Judah (Ephraim and Manasseh; 2 Chr 31:1), and part of the reason for centralization in the first place was precisely the desire to undo the work of Jeroboam I and to reunite the people around Jerusalem as the religious centre for the nation as a whole.¹⁰⁰ Similar efforts by Josiah reported in 2 Kgs 22–23 would have been an effort to pick up the reforms abandoned or opposed by Manasseh. As with Hezekiah’s reforms, many have questioned the historicity of Josiah’s reforms based on a lack of archaeological evidence and the alleged unreliable nature of the account in 2 Kgs 22–23.¹⁰¹ However, we have as much archaeological evidence as we might expect from such reforms, and the description of the events in 2 Kgs 22–23 is quite similar to royal reforms of other ancient Near Eastern kings, such as Akhenaten, Muwatalli II of Hatti, Tudhaliya IV of Hatti, Nebuchadnezzar I, Sennacherib, and Nabonidus.¹⁰²

Second, this reconstruction raises a question repeatedly investigated since the mid-twentieth century; that is, the relationship of certain key Old Testament texts to potential parallels in ancient Near Eastern treaties. Beginning with a proposal by George Mendenhall in 1954, many readers have considered the hypothesis that ancient Near Eastern international treaties provide the background for covenant forms in ancient Israel.¹⁰³ Drawing on the original publications of second-millennium BCE Hittite treaties, Mendenhall identified six components of the ancient treaties: (1) preamble, (2) historical prologue, (3) stipulations, (4) provision for deposit in the temple and periodic public reading, (5) list of gods as witnesses, and (6) curses and blessings formula.¹⁰⁴ He admitted this was not to be taken as a rigid structure of the Hittite treaties, but rather that considerable variation occurred in their sequence, as well as in specific wording, or even that one of these elements may be lacking in some examples.¹⁰⁵ Mendenhall compared these elements in roughly the same sequence to Exod 19–24, and proposed that Israel therefore took the role of a clan or nation swearing allegiance to its suzerain overlord, YHWH, with the Decalogue (Exod 20:2–17) as the stipulations of a new covenant relationship between Israel and YHWH.

Mendenhall’s proposal immediately had enormous explanatory power, and has been taken up and developed further by many scholars.¹⁰⁶ Initially, some believed the Hittite parallels also suggested a second-millennium BCE context for large portions of Deuteronomy, whereas more recently it has been shown that the first-millennium Neo-Hittite states were more likely the cultural bridges across which such literary conventions may have been transmitted.¹⁰⁷ Although a brief period of peaceful interchange of ideas between Anatolia and the Levant was likely following the Hittite-Egyptian treaty of 1259 BCE, it is just as likely that the later first-millennium Neo-Hittite kingdoms preserved the ancient Anatolian cultural influences that entered early Israel.¹⁰⁸ A strong case can still be made that the extended historical prologue in Deut 1–3, as well as some of the phraseological specifics of other chapters, have close parallels to the old Hittite treaty traditions, regardless of when such literary influence may have been transmitted.¹⁰⁹ Additionally, a closer examination of other Hittite traditions besides the treaties, especially the instructions for subservient royal classes to ensure their loyalty by means of an oath, may well suggest that Israel’s covenant with YHWH is more than a theological idea dressed in political terminology, but is much at home in the legal practices of the ancient world of the Hittites.¹¹⁰

On the other hand, the number of treaties we have from the ancient Near East continues to grow; the total is approximately sixty, depending on how one counts them.¹¹¹ The geographic extent and variety of such international agreements has several implications for the occasion of Deuteronomy’s composition. Interestingly, within a year of Mendenhall’s important proposal, archaeologists uncovered from Nimrud, one of the Assyrian capitals (ancient Kalḫu, biblical Kelaḫ; Gen 10:11–12), a text dated to early May 672 BCE when Esarhaddon of Assyria (r. 680–669 BCE) enforced an oath of loyalty upon vassal princes in his kingdom.¹¹² This initiated scholarly investigation of a second corpus of comparative material—the Neo-Assyrian treaty oaths of the first millennium BCE. Like the Hittite kings hundreds of years earlier, the Assyrian kings attempted to consolidate and maintain power by means of imposing oaths of loyalty on their subjects, which was an important cornerstone in Assyria’s strategy of territorial expansion and control.¹¹³

The Assyrian institution in question is routinely translated treaty or loyalty oath (adê), but perhaps it should be thought of more broadly as duty or destiny.¹¹⁴ The particular example of the Assyrian adê found at Nimrud in 1955 has generated much speculation about the occasion of Deuteronomy’s composition: the so-called Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty (EST). Remarkably, in addition to the (likely) nine exemplars found at Nimrud, another copy of the EST was discovered at the Assyrian provincial capital of Tell Tayinat in 2009.¹¹⁵ The first copies of the text record oaths imposed upon vassal princes from Assyria’s provinces in Media, each copy altered in the treaty preamble where a different ruler and city-state are named. For this reason, the text is often referred to as the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon.¹¹⁶ However, since the same oath was imposed on individuals within the state itself, the broader understanding of the text as a loyalty oath (hence duty, destiny) is more likely.

Esarhaddon had struggled to ascend to the throne after his father, Sennacherib (r. 704–681 BCE), was murdered, apparently by Esarhaddon’s older brother.¹¹⁷ In part due to his own ill health and advancing years, he wished to avoid the same succession problems for his son, the crown-prince Assurbanipal, who like Esarhaddon himself did not have an unqualified claim to the throne. Thus in 672 BCE, Esarhaddon imposed this adê-oath upon client states and his own people in order to bind them in loyalty to Assurbanipal upon his death. Central to the oath is the pledge of devotion and loyalty to the king, who will exercise the kingship and lordship of Assyria over the one taking the oath.¹¹⁸ In light of the copy of the EST from Tell Tayinat from the western stretches of Assyrian power, and another inscription of Esarhaddon counting Manasseh, king of the city of Judah among the twenty-two kings of the west required to supply materials for a palace in Nineveh, it seems altogether likely that Manasseh himself took such an oath of loyalty to be faithful to the Assyrian overlord.¹¹⁹ Indeed, we now have reason to believe that a copy of the EST was drawn up for every province and client kingdom, imposing the oath on the entire populace of each territory in an elaborate ceremony that went on for several days. In all likelihood, Esarhaddon’s scribes produced between 100 and 200 copies of the text for distribution across the empire.¹²⁰ Regardless of whether Manasseh actually participated in this ceremony, swearing allegiance to Assyria in such a formal way and receiving a copy of the text for display in Jerusalem, Judah clearly resumed vassal status to Assyria during his long reign. There were undoubtedly occasions for regular interaction between the Judahite court and Assyrian officials.¹²¹ Indeed, Assyrian kings were heavily invested in controlling Judah, as can be seen by their series of outposts in the southern desert—a kind of Maginot line—intended to protect trade along the coastline and provide defense against Egypt.¹²² After the Assyrian conquest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, archaeological and textual evidence suggests the Assyrians established imperial administrative centers at provincial capitals throughout the region as well as secondary administrative centers along major roadways, including in the south.¹²³ For example, the ancient site of Ramat Raḥel, situated along the main road to Hebron halfway between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, appears to have been one such administrative center. Such an imperial presence so near Jerusalem may have been intended to control the activities of the Judahite vassal kings,¹²⁴ and is critical to understanding how knowledge of Assyrian imperial ideology would have reached the inhabitants of Jerusalem.¹²⁵ Whether or not court officials from Judah had the technical training to read the EST in the original Akkadian, its contents would have been communicated to them clearly enough, either in oral transmission or through Aramaic.¹²⁶

After the initial publication of the EST in 1958,¹²⁷ numerous scholars investigated Deuteronomy in light of the Hittite treaties, the Assyrian treaty-oaths, and the Aramaic Sefire treaty texts (KAI 222–224).¹²⁸ As Mendenhall had done by drawing attention to the similarities between the Hittite treaties and the structural outline of the Bible’s covenant passages, so Rintje Frankena and Moshe Weinfeld have drawn attention to certain striking similarities between the EST and particular portions of Deuteronomy, especially to paragraphs in chapters 13 and 28.¹²⁹ How close the literary connections may be, and how intentionally Israelite and Judahite scribes used such Assyrian phraseology, has continued to be a much debated topic.¹³⁰ Recently, doubts have been raised about whether the lexical and formulaic specifics of Deuteronomy can be drawn so closely to EST, or for that matter, whether Akkadian was well enough known in Neo-Assyrian period Judah to warrant a theory of textual dependence.¹³¹ Perhaps the specifics of Deuteronomy formerly thought to have been textually connected to the EST were instead mediated through a Northwest Semitic futility curse tradition, for which a more general Assyro-Aramean culture provides the context.¹³² Indeed, it is possible an Aramaic curse tradition was broadly diffused throughout Syria-Palestine in the early first millennium BCE, and perhaps especially in the mid-eighth and early seventh centuries BCE.¹³³ Regardless of the specifics, the loyalty oath or vassal treaty as an institution was by no means limited to Hittite or Assyrian practice as a means of ensuring royal power and had been part and parcel of all Mesopotamian imperial systems since the earliest times starting with Ebla and the Old Akkadian empire in the third millennium.¹³⁴ Indeed, when one takes the Hittite vassal treaties, the Assyrian treaty-oaths, and the Aramaic Sefire texts together, one cannot help but conclude that the ancient Near Eastern treaty genre was influential from the start of Deuteronomy, and likely throughout its composition history. The book thus reflects a longstanding literary pattern widely used and well known in the ancient world. In sum then, while crucial to our understanding of the book’s theological message, the potential literary influence of these ancient Near Eastern treaty texts cannot be used to locate precisely the composition of Deuteronomy within any particular historical moment.

Whether Hittite or Assyrian royal power is in view, Deuteronomy flips the script theologically. Many interpreters have assumed that Deuteronomy revised and reconfigured the covenant between YHWH and Israel as originally conceived in the Book of the Covenant (Exod 20:22–23:33), intentionally framing the covenant so that YHWH takes the place of the human ruler.¹³⁵ Deuteronomy thus turns the tables on human power structures, especially royal claims to invincible sovereignty. It deliberately exalts YHWH as the only legitimate power worthy of Israel’s allegiance vis-à-vis any human imposters; it asserts the imperialism of YHWH instead of Assyrian imperialism. Most have assumed that Deuteronomy fits best in the scenario of the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, in which case it turns the unconditional loyalty to the Assyrian emperor into a programmatic love of YHWH (Deut 6:4–9).¹³⁶ The degree to which the book is deliberately subversive as a reinterpretation of Assyrian imperial ideology remains a matter of debate.¹³⁷ Yet reservations about whether Deuteronomy is deliberately subversive are often tied to questions of direct literary dependence between the book and one of the ancient treaty texts. Irrespective of such literary dependence, Deuteronomy is more generally reflecting the pervasive Assyro-Aramean curse tradition of Syria-Palestine, and in this light its theological message is absolutely subversive. Regardless of when its Mosaic traditions first emerged, Deuteronomy’s message of YHWH’s supremacy and its call for singular devotion to him alone would have been a bold and prophetic voice in the seventh century BCE, coming at the height of Assyrian imperialism, in perhaps the book’s penultimate edition.

V. CANONICITY

Deuteronomy has always been there, it seems; at least from the beginning of the canonical process. Unfortunately, we know little about the actual process by which Old Testament books were collected into an authoritative list of writings thought to be divinely inspired and binding upon all generations. Derived from the Hebrew qāneh and Greek kanōn, which denote a reed staff or measuring rod, the word canon is used figuratively to refer to a criterion or rule. For example, the Apostle Paul asserts "as for those who follow this rule (tō kanoni toutō)—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God" (Gal 6:16).¹³⁸ By whatever manner the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament came to be collected in the familiar threefold division of the Jewish canon—the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings—we have reason to assume the five books of Moses were fixed and enjoyed canonical status as early as around 180 BCE.¹³⁹ The prologue to the Apocryphal book Wisdom of Jesus Sirach (also known as Ecclesiasticus) refers to the Law and the Prophets and the others that followed them (Sir Prologue 1; and cf. 5; 2 Macc 15:9; 4 Macc 18:10), indicating that the three categories of Scripture familiar in New Testament usage were already set (e.g., Luke 24:44; and cf. Matt 5:17; Rom 3:21). Moreover, the first part of the Old Testament—the Law of Moses (Torah)—had been translated into Greek as early as the third century BCE, suggesting that it was recognized as authoritative and canonical prior to that date, perhaps significantly prior to that date.¹⁴⁰ Evidence from the Judean Desert (the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls) may also attest to this canonization process, such as one document referring to the book of Moses and the books of the Prophets and (the writings) of David.¹⁴¹ Similarly, the Samaritan Pentateuch confirms the widespread acceptance of a five-book collection in the second century BCE.¹⁴²

A. DEUTERONOMY IN