What Is the book of Deuteronomy?

Moses Says Farewell

Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Torah, the first section of the Jewish Bible. The book consists of several addresses delivered by Moses, in the last month of his life, to the Israelites in the fortieth year after the Exodus, while they were encamped east of the Jordan River and poised to enter the Promised Land. Moses reviews the events of the past forty years and exhorts the people to remain loyal to the Lord and faithfully to observe his laws in the future. He recalls how their parents’ generation rebelled against God in the aftermath of the spies’ (or scouts’) report at Kadesh (Numbers 13–14) and were condemned to remain in the wilderness until their deaths, when their children, then grown, would replace them. Moses picks up the narrative at the point where he tells the children—the generation that he is addressing—that the time has come for them to march north through Transjordan to the promised land.

The core of the narrative in Deuteronomy is the story of how, immediately after the covenant at Mount Sinai (Horeb), consisting of the Ten Commandments, Moses received the rest of God’s laws—that is, the laws of Deuteronomy. Forty years later, just before his death, he communicates them to the people about to enter the Promised Land. They enter into a further covenant committing themselves and their descendants to observe those laws.