Like Leviticus and Numbers, Deuteronomy can be confusing since it seems like nothing is happening in Israel’s journey. It often seems like just a lot of talking. That’s because that’s what it is. Deuteronomy presents its content as a lengthy speech or sermon by Moses just before the Israelites try for the second time to enter the promised land. Deuteronomy therefore begins with the end of the forty-year wandering in the desert—a punishment imposed by God for their failure to enter the land in faith for fear of the giant Anakim in Numbers 13.
It’s because of this unfortunate history that the sermon of Moses starts out by rehearsing Israel’s history, warts and all, from its miraculous beginning with Abraham and Sarah to its miserable failure at Kadesh-barnea (Deut. 1). Once Israel gets that painful reminder, Deuteronomy repeats the laws given at Sinai, but with some changes that reflect life in the land (Deut. 5–26). This is why this book is referred to in English Bibles as “Deuteronomy”—a title made up of two words that mean “second law” (deuteros + nomos). The effect of all this is that the words of Moses are taking the people spiritually and emotionally back to Sinai so they can start over again.
But Deuteronomy is far more than a repetition of a long list of laws. Part of Moses’s sermon is designed to elicit a public response from the people that this time—and for good—they will obey God in faith. Accordingly, chapters 27–30 are framed as a public covenant commitment ceremony to solidify that decision. It’s serious content too, since two whole chapters (28–30) comprise a long list of curses that will happen to the people if they forsake the Lord as their God. Specifically, the promise of the land itself is tied to obedience to God:
But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. . . . The LORD will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me. The LORD will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. . . . The LORD will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away. (Deut. 28:15–21, 36–37)
Sadly, these last statements reflect what eventually came to pass when Israel was exiled from the land. Deuteronomy is a powerful book. We need to heed it more carefully than Israel did.