The book of Deuteronomy

• The book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Bible.
• The final book of the Torah.

The Old Testament focuses on the relationship between God and Israel while the New Testament explores the teachings of Jesus and his followers now in addition to all this Deuteronomy is a pretty dense book.

Deuteronomy falls into four main sections and they all Center on Moses posing a choice to the people of Israel. He says you can choose between life in the land of Canaan which God has promised them and the blessings that come with following God or death and destruction and exile.

If they choose to be disloyal to God everything about Deuteronomy is centered on this choice and we're going to look at the four sections and how they all fit together so you'll have a better understanding of how this book flows so let's jump.

Deuteronomy begins with a recap or an introduction that looks at everything that we've already seen in the previous four books of the Bible that's Genesis when God calls Abraham who is the ancestor of Israel and we also meet the patriarchs of the 12 tribes of Israel and then in Exodus we start seeing some of the narrative of Israel as a nation so we get those 10 plagues that God sends on Egypt to rescue Israel from their their slave masters and the people of Israel witnessed these plagues these mighty miracles which culminate in God parting the very sea for them and then the people of Israel come to the foot of Mount Sinai.

It's a mountain in the wilderness and they see God's glory in the form of this fiery cloud at the top of the mountain and now normally when we think about the people of Israel getting the Ten Commandments the invention that we have in our mind is Moses walking down the mountain with these big stone tablets right but in the book of Exodus the Ten Commandments are originally given directly to the people from God.

They're gathered at the foot of this mountain and they hear the voice of God every single one of them hears God say these Ten Commandments and then eventually Moses goes up the mountain. He is a prophet that goes between the people in God he writes down God's laws and brings them down to the people but Moses reminds people not only did you see all these miracles but you also heard the voice of God and yet right after they hear God give these Ten Commandments which are the basic laws for for being in this new relationship of God being Israel's God and provider and protector and Israel worshipping God they immediately break the the first couple of Commandments by creating a different god in Idol to worship.

The book of numbers we see the people of Israel choosing to go back to Egypt they would rather go back to Egypt and be enslaved there then trust God to bring them into the Promised Land. God says I'm not going to let you go back to Egypt but I'm not going to let you enter the land either and so that generation dies off and now there's a new generation that is right on the borderline of the land that God promised to them so many generations ago.

That's where Moses says you're about to enter this promised land you need to make this choice are you going to obey God and keep his laws or are you going to do what the generation before you did and reject God and suffer the consequences Moses is really hoping that people choose the blessings that come with obeying God and so in light of everything that has happened in Israel's history up to this point Moses says in the next section when you get into and make sure you recommit yourself to the laws that God has given you and he says that once they get into the land then half the people should assemble on one mountain.

Mount Gerizim and say all the blessings that will come to the people of Israel if they follow God's laws and then the other half of the people should stand opposite on Mount a ball and say and if we don't follow God's laws then these are the curses that will come upon us so once again they're going to be hearing the the laws of God spoken from a mountaintop down to them.

Moses says you know he's going to be dead by the time this happens but once they get into the land they should do this ceremony to recommit themselves to the law but what is the law that they should read well that's what most of Deuteronomy that's what most of deuteronomy's content that is all about in fact the name Deuteronomy just means second law or repeated law because the laws that Moses lays out in the book of Deuteronomy are often found elsewhere in the Torah you see a lot of these laws in Exodus you see a lot of them in Leviticus you see many of them in numbers but some of them are unique to Deuteronomy.

If we were to boil all these laws down Moses says you need to love God and obey God and those are the two main rules that Moses repeats throughout the book of Deuteronomy loving God looks like a devotion to God and God alone so just recognizing that this is the one God that an Israelite should worship and that God should be worshiped in one place at at his designated temple.

Whether it's the tabernacle which is a portable temple that the people of Israel were using at the time of Moses or the established temple that we find later on in the Old Testament in the city of Jerusalem and then of course no idols you don't worship other gods obeying God looks like maintaining a sense of reverence for him a holiness like what we find described in the Book of Leviticus upholding social justice and looking out for the marginalised people like the widows and the orphans and the foreigners and there are even some laws that for their time were very generous and progressive towards slaves and and other people.

Those ancient nations and another aspect of obeying God was being generous you find a lot of tithing language that's people giving 1/10 of their resources to either the people that are serving God as priests or to the people that don't have the means of making making any money or growing any food themselves so really really important obeying God looks like not only maintaining a sense of holiness and reverence but also doing good and showing respect and dignity for for other humans and so Moses closes out this section by saying you you need to do this ceremony and choose to love and obey God because if you do then things will go well and if you don't then God will expel Israel from the land that he's giving them and if you read the rest of the Old Testament well you know that's what happens and Moses predicts that in the third section in the third section Moses looks toward the future he gathers the people of Israel together and he says I know that eventually you're going to be disloyal and when that happens you will be exiled God will remove you from the land you will end up being scattered to the nations but he believes that after that God will restore the people of Israel to their land and give them new hearts that will be able to truly love and obey God now Moses says that they should still choose life they should follow God but even though eventually they won't he believes that God will find a way to help them do it which is very encouraging and hopeful note to end that third section on in the fourth section we start seeing the Torah come to a close it's almost an appendix of of different elements that that need to be tied together so Moses is going to die he's not going to enter the Promised Land you can learn more about that in the book of numbers and so Joshua is named as Moses successor Joshua was going to be the one leading these people as they cross the the river into the land of Canaan also the law the Moses delivered to the people is written down very important so we have someone a human carrying on Moses leadership and some documents that preserve Moses teachings Moses gives Israel a song that warns Israel of those consequences of disobeying God and it's something that they can sing if they're if they find themselves in a position of Exile so that they remember why they're exiled but he follows that up with a blessing for each tribes future prosperity which is which is quite encouraging and then at the end of Deuteronomy and at the end of a Torah Moses dies he goes up a mountain to be with the Lord and he never comes back down and that's where the Torah ends it leaves a few things unresolved though after all we need to wonder what will the people do will they do this ceremony once they enter the land the Torah doesn't say we find that out in the Book of Joshua if they get exiled will God restore them we start seeing that story much much later on in the books of kings and chronicles and Ezra and Nehemiah and then there's the question of will there ever be another prophet like Moses because the tour ends with Moses dying and at the time the Deuteronomy was written they say that there has never been another prophet like him but that question becomes a lot more significant when we start looking at the New Testament when people start asking questions about a certain character there and that is the book of Deuteronomy as you can tell it's a very very rich book and a very very important book and I hope that this overview has been helpful in giving you an idea of its structure if you want to know more about the book of Deuteronomy and more about every single book of the Bible and how they fit together I would encourage you to check out my ebook the beginner's guide to the Bible there's a link to that in the description of this video and if you like this video and you want to see more please subscribe to my youtube channel if you do that then I'll be able to notify you of the next video just as soon as it goes live I'm Geoffrey with overview Bible thanks for watching