Book of Deuteronomy

The Book of Deuteronomy (from Greek Δευτερονόμιον, Deuteronómion, 'second law'; Hebrew: דְּבָרִים, Devārīm, '[the] words [of Moses]') is the fifth book of the Bible, and is considered canonical scripture by both Christians and Jews.

Quotes

Chapter 1

• The Lord your God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.
  • 10 (KJV)

Chapter 4

• I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day.
  • 26 (KJV)

Chapter 5

• Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm.
  • 15 (KJV)

Chapter 6

• Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:
  And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
  • 4–5 (KJV)

• Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you;
  (For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you).
  • 14–15 (KJV)

Chapter 8

• And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with Manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might thee know what man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.
  • 3 (KJV)

Chapter 13

• If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,
  And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;
  Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
  • 1–3 (KJV)

• If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
  Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
  Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
  But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
  • 6–9 (KJV)

Chapter 25

• Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.
  • 4 (KJV)

Chapter 27

• Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark.
  • 17 (KJV)

Chapter 28

• In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning!
  • 67 (KJV)

Chapter 29

• The secret things belong unto the Lord our God.
  • 29 (KJV)

Chapter 30

• I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live.
  • 19 (KJV)

Chapter 32

• He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
  • 10 (KJV)

• For they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.
  • 20 (KJV)

• I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.
  • 23 (KJV)

Chapter 33

• The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.
  • 27 (KJV)

Chapter 34

• So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.
  And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.
  • 5–6 (KJV)

Quotes about Deuteronomy

• Deuteronomy prohibits cult prostitution because the Hebrews were adopting the practice from their neighbors.
  • David F. Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality (University of Chicago Press, 1990) p. 95

• Josiah “broke down the houses of the qdeshim, that were in the house of Yahweh, where the women were weaving coverings for the Asherah.” It was during his reign that a book of the Law, thought by most scholars to have been Deuteronomy, was conveniently discovered in the Temple. Although some of the manuscript may have been written earlier, many scholars think it was forged during Josiah’s reign in order to legitimate his reforms. It is in Deuteronomy that the prohibition of cult prostitution appears.
  • David F. Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality (1990) p. 140

• Among the earliest proponents of the northern-origin theory were A. C. Welch and Albrecht Alt. The latter saw in Deuteronomy a restoration programme drawn up in the northern kingdom some time after the catastrophe of 721 BC, i.e., the destruction of the kingdom by the Assyrians. However, Alt had shed no light on how the book arrived at the Jerusalem temple in Josiah's reign. This is the question that Nicholson wishes to answer in a very interesting monograph. Nicholson's view is that the ancient core of the Deuteronomic traditions was preserved at the major shrine in the North in the period of the judges. 'Behold there is the feast of Yahweh from year to year in Shiloh' (Judges 21.19) may be a reference to an annual covenant festival. Shechem, Gilgal and Bethel were perhaps other such centers of covenant traditions.
  • Irving M. Zeitlin, Ancient Judaism: Biblical Criticism from Max Weber to the Present (1984)

• In Deuteronomy 20 and 21, God gives the Israelites a blanket policy for dealing with cities that don’t accept them as overlords: smite the males with the edge of the sword and abduct the cattle, women, and children. Of course, a man with a beautiful new captive faces a problem: since he has just murdered her parents and brothers, she may not be in the mood for love. God anticipates this nuisance and offers the following solution: the captor should shave her head, pare her nails, and imprison her in his house for a month while she cries her eyes out. Then he may go in and rape her. With a designated list of other enemies (Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites), the genocide has to be total: “Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them ... as the Lord thy God has commanded thee.” Joshua puts this directive into practice when he invades Canaan and sacks the city of Jericho. After the walls came tumbling down, his soldiers “utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.” More earth is scorched as Joshua “smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded.”
  • Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature (2012)