Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy is the interpretive key to everything that follows in Israel history. The blessing-and-curse structure of chapters 27-28 explains the Exile; the new-heart promise of 30:6 anticipates the New Covenant; the Prophet-like-Moses of 18:15 governs NT messianic expectation (Acts 3:22, 7:37). The Shema (6:4-5) is the confession Jesus calls the greatest commandment. No book in the OT is more frequently cited in the NT or more foundational to the whole biblical storyline.

1. Read Deuteronomy as Moses' great sermon to a new generation standing on the edge of the promised land , a second giving of the law, not a mere repetition.
2. Follow the covenant treaty structure: historical prologue, law, blessings, curses, and succession. Deuteronomy is formally a covenant document.
3. Let the Shema (chapter 6) govern your reading of everything else: total love for God is the root from which all specific commands grow.
4. Read the blessing and curse sections (chapters 27-28) as the interpretive key to all of Israel's later history in the land , they explain exile and they anticipate restoration.
5. Pay attention to the Moses-Joshua transition: Deuteronomy ends with the death of Moses and the installation of Joshua, pointing the entire Pentateuch forward toward the land and a coming prophet like Moses.