Deuteronomy is Moses' farewell Torah: remembered history and renewed instruction shaped around love, loyalty, justice, and the choice between life and death.
Jewish and Christian tradition receives Deuteronomy as Mosaic Torah, and the book presents Moses as its commanding speaker, covenant mediator, law teacher, poet, and writer of particular material. Yet Deuteronomy 34 narrates Moses' death from a later perspective. Most modern scholars therefore distinguish the book's Mosaic voice and traditional attribution from the long, debated process through which its received literary form developed.[1][2][3][4]
The book retells Israel's journey, repeats the Decalogue, calls for exclusive covenant loyalty, reworks earlier laws for life in the land, protects vulnerable neighbors while remaining embedded in an unequal ancient social order, and closes with succession, song, blessing, and death. Its theological force comes not from being a simple duplicate of earlier law but from interpreting memory and instruction for a new generation.[1][7][8]
Deuteronomy quick facts
- Traditional author
- Moses, as the fifth book of the Torah or Pentateuch.
- Hebrew title
- Devarim or Debarim, "Words," from the opening phrase.
- Greek and English title
- "Deuteronomy," associated with a copy or repetition of the law in Deuteronomy 17:18.
- Likely composition
- A layered work with preexilic material and substantial growth often related to late monarchic, exilic, and postexilic settings.
- Original language
- Biblical Hebrew, including prose exhortation, law, poetry, blessing, and narrative.
- Major textual witnesses
- Masoretic tradition, Judean Desert manuscripts, Samaritan Pentateuch, and Greek Septuagint.
- Narrative location
- The plains of Moab, before Israel crosses the Jordan and after forty years in the wilderness.
- Canonical status
- Shared Scripture in Jewish, Samaritan, and all major Christian biblical traditions.
Who wrote the Book of Deuteronomy?
Traditional Mosaic attribution
Deuteronomy belongs to the Torah traditionally associated with Moses. Its opening identifies the discourse as words Moses spoke to all Israel, and later passages describe Moses writing this Torah, a song, and words of instruction. Jewish and Christian reception has therefore treated Moses as the book's authoritative lawgiver and traditional author.[1][2][3]
What the book itself claims
The literary voice is overwhelmingly Mosaic speech, but the book does not say in one place that Moses personally composed every verse of its final form. Deuteronomy 34 recounts his death, burial, mourning, Joshua's succession, and a retrospective comparison with later prophets. The traditional question of Mosaic authority and the literary question of final-form authorship are therefore related but not identical.
Modern scholarly assessment
Critical scholarship commonly reads Deuteronomy as a layered work. Reconstructions differ, but many proposals relate a substantial form of the legal and exhortative material to late seventh-century Judah, then identify exilic and postexilic expansions, framing, and incorporation into the Pentateuch. Other proposals emphasize northern traditions, Hezekian settings, different redactional sequences, or later stages more strongly. No single map of layers has universal agreement.[4][5][6][7]
Responsible conclusion: Moses is Deuteronomy's authoritative literary speaker, covenant mediator, and traditional authorial figure. Modern historical study examines how Mosaic discourse, law, poetry, narrative framing, and later editorial perspective became the received book. The evidence supports careful distinction rather than either dismissing tradition or overstating certainty.
When was Deuteronomy written?
The narrated setting is the fortieth year, on the plains of Moab, as Moses addresses Israel before entry into the land. That story setting is not automatically the date of the final literary form.[1]
A common scholarly model connects a substantial core with the late seventh century BCE and the reform era associated with King Josiah, partly because Deuteronomy's demand for worship at one chosen place resembles the centralizing reform in 2 Kings 22-23. The biblical account, however, calls the temple scroll a book of the Torah without identifying it as the complete canonical Deuteronomy known today. The connection is influential but remains reconstructed rather than directly proven.[4][6]
Many scholars also identify exilic interpretation of national catastrophe and postexilic stages connected with the formation of the Pentateuch. A cautious date statement is therefore a range and process: older traditions and possible preexilic cores, major late monarchic development, and exilic or postexilic growth. Exact boundaries remain debated.[4][5][11]
In what language and manuscripts is Deuteronomy preserved?
Deuteronomy was composed in Biblical Hebrew. The Masoretic textual tradition underlies modern critical Hebrew editions, while earlier Hebrew witnesses from the Judean Desert, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the ancient Greek Septuagint preserve agreements and meaningful variants that reveal a history of transmission and revision.[12][14]
Judean Desert manuscripts
The Israel Antiquities Authority catalogs multiple Deuteronomy manuscripts. Its 4Q44 record identifies a Hebrew parchment manuscript from the Herodian period, and its naming guide uses 4Q41, or 4QDeutn, as an example. These witnesses predate the medieval Masoretic codices by more than a millennium.[13][15]
Masoretic tradition
Medieval Masoretic codices preserve a carefully transmitted Hebrew form that became central to Jewish reading and modern Hebrew editions. Earlier manuscript evidence sometimes agrees with it and sometimes preserves alternative readings.[12]
Greek Septuagint
The Greek Deuteronomy is an ancient translation and major textual witness. The Goettingen Septuagint publishes the critical Deuteronomium edition edited by John William Wevers and Udo Quast, together with studies of its textual history and translation character.[16]
Samaritan Pentateuch
Samaritans preserve Deuteronomy within their Torah. Characteristic readings, including the tradition identifying the chosen sanctuary with Mount Gerizim, must be studied alongside Masoretic, Greek, and Judean Desert evidence rather than treated as incidental spelling differences.[17]
The witnesses preserve recognizable forms of one book, not unrelated compositions. Their differences matter because they show that the text's wording and interpretive shaping were not entirely uniform before later traditions became more standardized.
Summary of Deuteronomy
On the plains of Moab, Moses recalls Israel's journey from Horeb, repeats and explains covenant instruction, restates the Decalogue, calls Israel to hear and love the Lord, and presents laws for worship, leadership, family, land, debt, poverty, war, and public justice. Blessings and curses frame the consequences of loyalty and rebellion; covenant renewal calls the people to choose life; Joshua is commissioned; Moses teaches a song, blesses the tribes, sees the land from afar, and dies. The book turns memory into instruction so a new generation can enter the land without forgetting the God who delivered and formed them.[1][2]
How is Deuteronomy organized?
1. Retrospective journey
Deuteronomy 1:1-4:43 reviews Horeb, leadership, the spies, wilderness failure, recent victories, land allocation, and Moses' exclusion from the land.
2. Covenant exhortation
Deuteronomy 4:44-11:32 restates the Decalogue, gives the Shema, warns against forgetting, and calls for love, loyalty, teaching, and obedience.
3. Deuteronomic laws
Deuteronomy 12:1-26:19 addresses worship, festivals, food, debt, vulnerable neighbors, officials, prophets, courts, warfare, family, labor, property, and firstfruits.
4. Covenant consequences
Deuteronomy 27:1-30:20 presents covenant ceremony, blessings and curses, renewal in Moab, restoration, and the choice between life and death.
5. Succession, song, and blessing
Deuteronomy 31:1-33:29 commissions Joshua, provides for public Torah reading, preserves the Song of Moses, and blesses the tribes.
6. Moses' death
Deuteronomy 34 narrates the view from Nebo, Moses' death and burial, Israel's mourning, Joshua's leadership, and a final evaluation of Moses.
Ancient and modern readers divide the speeches differently, and the book contains seams and resumptions. This six-part map is a reading aid, not a claim that one uncontested outline controls every literary question.[1][2]
What are the central themes of Deuteronomy?
Hear, love, and remain loyal
The Shema joins hearing, exclusive covenant loyalty, whole-person love, remembered words, embodied practice, and intergenerational teaching. Love is not merely emotion; it is durable allegiance expressed in life.[18][19]
Remember grace; resist self-sufficiency
Israel must remember deliverance, wilderness dependence, discipline, and gift. Prosperity creates a spiritual danger when people credit their own power and forget the source of land and life.
Teach the next generation
Words are to be spoken at home and on the road, in ordinary rhythms and public assemblies. Torah is a communal practice of memory, not information reserved for specialists.
One chosen place
Deuteronomy 12 repeatedly refers to the place the Lord will choose for the divine name. The text itself does not name Jerusalem there; later Jewish and Samaritan traditions identify the place differently.[17]
Justice for vulnerable neighbors
Resident aliens, orphans, widows, debtors, poor people, laborers, and enslaved Israelites repeatedly receive legal attention. Landowners are told to remember their own history of enslavement.[20]
Law as interpretation
Deuteronomy reuses and reshapes earlier legal traditions. Its differences reveal active legal reasoning about how inherited instruction addresses a new social and rhetorical setting.[7][8]
Blessing, curse, and moral choice
Covenant loyalty is narrated as a path toward communal life, while rebellion leads toward disintegration and exile. Deuteronomy 30 places life and death before the hearer and demands a real response.
Leadership under Torah
Judges, kings, priests, Levites, prophets, elders, and military officers are all constrained by covenant instruction. Even the king must copy and read Torah rather than exalt himself above fellow Israelites.
Popular and important passages in Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy 5:1-22
The Decalogue is repeated for the Moab generation, with Sabbath grounded in Israel's deliverance from slavery.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
The Shema calls Israel to hear, love God wholly, keep the words in the heart, and teach them through daily life.
Deuteronomy 8:2-18
Wilderness hunger, daily provision, discipline, prosperity, memory, and the danger of self-made power are held together.
Deuteronomy 10:12-22
Fear, love, service, inward transformation, divine impartiality, and love for the resident alien form one ethical appeal.
Deuteronomy 15:1-11
Debt release, generosity, poverty, calculation, and the open hand expose the economic demands of covenant community.
Deuteronomy 18:15-22
The promise of a prophet like Moses establishes a test of prophetic speech and becomes important in later Jewish and Christian reception.
Deuteronomy 24:17-22
Justice for the resident alien, orphan, and widow is tied to Israel's memory of slavery and expressed through gleaning practices.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
The firstfruits confession turns harvest into remembered migration, oppression, deliverance, land, worship, and shared celebration.
Deuteronomy 29:29
The verse distinguishes hidden matters from revealed instruction and warns readers against turning mystery into an excuse for disobedience.
Deuteronomy 30:11-20
Torah is presented as near rather than inaccessible, and the people are summoned to choose life by loving and holding fast to God.
Deuteronomy 31:6-8
Moses commissions Israel and Joshua with courage grounded in the conviction that God will not abandon them.
Deuteronomy 32:1-47
The Song of Moses poetically witnesses to divine faithfulness, human corruption, judgment, memory, and the life-giving seriousness of Torah.
What difficult questions surround Deuteronomy?
Was Deuteronomy the scroll found under Josiah?
Second Kings 22 reports the discovery of a Torah scroll in the temple, followed by reform. Deuteronomy's emphasis on one chosen place and covenant consequences makes a relationship plausible to many scholars, but the narrative never supplies a modern title or surviving manuscript. Proposals involving Josiah, Hezekiah, northern traditions, exile, and later editing remain historical reconstructions.[4][6]
Jerusalem, Mount Gerizim, and the chosen place
Deuteronomy 12 does not name Jerusalem. Later Jewish tradition identifies the chosen place with Jerusalem, while the Samaritan Torah and community identify Mount Gerizim. Textual and archaeological debates concern when centralization emerged, how it was practiced, and how distinctive readings developed.[17]
Does Deuteronomy contradict earlier law?
Its laws sometimes restate earlier material with changed rationale, scope, personnel, or procedure. Research on legal innovation and the relationship among pentateuchal codes treats these differences as evidence of interpretation and revision, not merely careless duplication. The precise direction and historical setting of each relationship must be argued rather than assumed.[7][8][22]
Ancient treaties, laws, and curse traditions
Deuteronomy shares forms and ideas with ancient Near Eastern legal collections, loyalty oaths, treaties, and curses. These comparisons illuminate scribal culture, but similar form does not by itself prove direct copying or fix the date of the whole book. Researchers continue to debate which parallels are strongest and how transmission occurred.[9][10]
Slavery, captive women, and unequal power
Deuteronomy limits some exploitation and commands release and provision for enslaved Israelites, yet it does not abolish slavery. Deuteronomy 21:10-14 concerns a woman captured in war and restrains some actions by her captor, but the situation does not represent modern consent or equal power. Historical context can clarify the law without turning coercion into moral approval.[21][22][23]
Gendered sexual and household laws
Deuteronomy 22 and related laws are difficult because their vocabulary, reconstructed scenarios, and outcomes are debated, while their social assumptions often privilege male household authority. They should never be used to blame victims or bypass modern safeguarding, consent, and legal responsibilities. Responsible study names both ancient legal aims and the harms visible from the perspective of women and other vulnerable people.[21][23]
Conquest and herem
Deuteronomy 7 and 20 command forced displacement and totalizing destruction against named peoples in the book's literary world. Ancient war rhetoric, archaeology, compositional setting, and later reception all matter, but none makes the violence disappear. These texts must never be transferred into authorization for hostility toward any modern ethnic, national, or religious group.[24]
Ethical reading guardrail: Deuteronomy contains profound demands for love, generosity, and justice alongside laws embedded in patriarchy, slavery, warfare, and unequal status. Faithful study does not need to hide either side. It should protect vulnerable readers, reject violent modern application, and distinguish historical explanation from ethical endorsement.
Key points to remember
- Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Torah and presents Moses' final instruction in Moab.
- Its Hebrew title means "Words"; its Greek-derived title reflects a copy or repetition of law.
- Moses is the authoritative speaker and traditional authorial figure, while the final book includes later narrative perspective.
- Modern scholarship commonly understands the work as layered, with the history of those layers still debated.
- The Shema joins hearing, exclusive loyalty, love, memory, embodied practice, and teaching.
- Deuteronomy interprets earlier law rather than merely repeating it word for word.
- Its chosen-place language became central to Jewish-Samaritan differences over Jerusalem and Mount Gerizim.
- Memory of deliverance grounds commands concerning workers, debtors, resident aliens, orphans, widows, and the poor.
- The book's social protections remain within an ancient order that includes slavery, patriarchy, and coercive warfare.
- Blessing and curse frame the communal consequences of covenant loyalty and rebellion.
- The Deuteronomistic History hypothesis connects Deuteronomy with Joshua-Kings, but the model has multiple debated forms.
- Jewish, Samaritan, and Christian communities share Deuteronomy as Scripture while interpreting its text and law differently.
Scripture that deserves deeper study
Deuteronomy 1-4
Compare Moses' retelling with Exodus and Numbers, noting selection, changed emphasis, leadership, rebellion, judgment, land, and exhortation.
Deuteronomy 5-6
Study the Moab generation's covenant participation, the Sabbath rationale, the Shema's translation, love, household teaching, and embodied signs.
Deuteronomy 7-9
Hold election, divine love, conquest, memory, testing, self-righteousness, the golden calf, and Moses' intercession together without isolating comforting lines.
Deuteronomy 12
Trace the chosen-place formula, destruction of rival sites, ordinary slaughter, blood prohibition, Levite, household celebration, and Jewish-Samaritan reception.
Deuteronomy 14-16
Compare food laws, tithes, debt release, enslaved Israelites, firstborn animals, festivals, judges, and shared celebration with vulnerable neighbors.
Deuteronomy 17-18
Map courts, kingship, priests, Levites, prohibited divination, the prophet like Moses, and tests for public authority.
Deuteronomy 19-21
Examine refuge, witnesses, warfare, unsolved murder, captive women, inheritance, and the rebellious son through the lens of procedure and unequal power.
Deuteronomy 22-25
Work slowly through mixed laws on property, bodies, sexuality, marriage, exclusion, labor, divorce, pledges, wages, gleaning, punishment, and levirate duty.
Deuteronomy 27-30
Compare ceremony, inscribed Torah, curses, blessings, exile, return, inward change, nearness of the word, witness, and the choice of life.
Deuteronomy 31-34
Follow succession, public reading, divine foreknowledge, the Song of Moses, tribal blessing, Moses' final view, death, burial, and retrospective legacy.
Connections with other biblical and early writings
Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers: Deuteronomy remembers exodus and wilderness events, restates the Decalogue, and reworks laws about worship, festivals, food, debt, slavery, leadership, sacrifice, warfare, and family. Comparing the wording shows both continuity and purposeful reinterpretation.[7][8]
Joshua through Kings: Covenant loyalty, the chosen place, prophetic evaluation, blessing and curse, apostasy, reform, exile, and return shape these narratives. Martin Noth's Deuteronomistic History hypothesis and its revisions describe this relationship, but unity, authorship, and redaction remain debated.[25]
Hosea, Jeremiah, and other prophets: Covenant love, knowing God, circumcision of the heart, return, law, land, and warnings against other gods create strong literary and theological relationships. Shared vocabulary does not settle which text influenced another in every case.
Psalms and wisdom: Psalm 1's meditation on Torah, Psalm 78's remembered history, Psalm 95's wilderness warning, and wisdom traditions about teaching and the heart resonate with Deuteronomy's formation of faithful hearers.
Second Temple Judaism and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Deuteronomy was copied, interpreted, excerpted, and reused in legal and sectarian literature. Manuscripts and rewritten texts show high authority alongside textual plurality.[14][26]
Early rabbinic Judaism: Mishnah, Tosefta, and Sifre Devarim interpret Deuteronomic laws and exhortations within developing halakhic and pastoral traditions. These sources preserve diverse arguments rather than one simple reception.[29]
Jesus and the Gospels: The wilderness responses in Matthew 4 and Luke 4 draw from Deuteronomy 6 and 8. The command to love God in the Synoptic Gospels uses Deuteronomy 6:5, joined with love of neighbor from Leviticus 19:18.
Acts, Paul, and other New Testament writings: Acts applies Deuteronomy 18's prophet-like-Moses language to Jesus. Romans 10 reuses Deuteronomy 30's language of nearness, Galatians cites covenant curse language, and Hebrews draws on covenant and Moses traditions. These Christian readings are later reception, not replacements for Jewish interpretation.[27]
Which communities receive Deuteronomy as Scripture?
Deuteronomy belongs to the Torah in Judaism and the Samaritan Pentateuch. It stands in the Christian Old Testament across Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Ethiopian Orthodox traditions. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church's official list identifies Deuteronomy as the fifth Old Testament book.[17][28]
Shared canonical standing does not erase differences in wording, translation, chosen-place tradition, halakhic authority, Christological reception, or present application. Those differences should be described as part of the book's living reception history rather than collapsed into one reading.
Frequently asked questions
Who wrote the Book of Deuteronomy?
Jewish and Christian tradition receives Deuteronomy as Mosaic Torah, and Moses is the book's authoritative speaker and mediator. The text attributes words, teaching, law, song, and written Torah to Moses, but Deuteronomy 34 narrates his death from a later standpoint. Most modern scholars therefore distinguish Mosaic attribution and literary voice from the layered composition of the received book.
When was Deuteronomy written?
Its story is set in Moab before Israel enters the land. Modern scholarship commonly traces the book's literary growth across several periods, often relating a substantial core to late seventh-century Judah and recognizing exilic and postexilic editing. The exact sequence, origin, and limits of those layers remain debated.
Why is it called Deuteronomy?
The Hebrew title Devarim means "Words." The Greek title arose from the Septuagint rendering of Deuteronomy 17:18 and was understood as a second or repeated law. The book does repeat and reinterpret earlier instruction, but its Hebrew title does not mean "second law."
What is the Shema in Deuteronomy 6?
The Shema begins at Deuteronomy 6:4 and calls Israel to hear, confess loyalty to the Lord, love God wholly, keep these words in the heart, and teach them across generations. It is foundational in Jewish confession and practice. The exact English rendering of verse 4 remains debated.
Was Deuteronomy the book found during Josiah's reign?
Many scholars connect a substantial form of Deuteronomy with the law book reported in 2 Kings 22 and Josiah's reform, but the narrative does not identify that scroll by its modern biblical title. The connection is influential, not proven beyond dispute.
Does Deuteronomy command genocide?
Deuteronomy 7 and 20 use herem language and command totalizing conquest violence against named peoples in the book's literary world. These passages must be named honestly, studied in ancient war rhetoric and reception history, and never applied as authorization for violence against modern ethnic or religious communities.
How does Deuteronomy relate to the New Testament?
Jesus' wilderness responses draw from Deuteronomy 6 and 8, the Great Commandment uses Deuteronomy 6:5, Acts applies the prophet-like-Moses passage, and Paul reuses Deuteronomy in Romans and Galatians. These Christian readings do not erase the book's Jewish setting or ongoing Jewish interpretation.
Which communities receive Deuteronomy as Scripture?
Deuteronomy belongs to the Torah in Judaism and Samaritan tradition and to the Pentateuch in all major Christian biblical traditions, including Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches.
Sources and scholarly bibliography
- Deuteronomy. Primary biblical text. References use chapter and verse rather than reproducing a copyrighted modern translation. See also the USCCB introduction and text.
- Tigay, Jeffrey H. The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy. Jewish Publication Society, 1996. Publisher record.
- Weinfeld, Moshe, with David R. Seely. Deuteronomy 1-11. Anchor Yale Bible 5. Yale University Press, paperback edition published 1995. Publisher record.
- Hagedorn, Anselm C. "The Literary History of Deuteronomy." In The Oxford Handbook of Deuteronomy, edited by Don C. Benjamin, 3-17. Oxford University Press, online 2024. DOI record.
- Rüterswörden, Udo. "The Place of Deuteronomy in the Formation of the Pentateuch." In The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch, 276-296. Oxford University Press, 2021. DOI record.
- Sweeney, Marvin A. "Deuteronomy and the Reigns of Kings Hezekiah and Josiah of Judah." In The Oxford Handbook of Deuteronomy, 252-266. Oxford University Press, 2020. DOI record.
- Levinson, Bernard M. Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation. Oxford University Press, 1997. DOI record.
- Stackert, Jeffrey. "The Relationship of the Legal Codes." In The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch, 297-314. Oxford University Press, 2021. DOI record.
- Russell, Stephen C. "Near Eastern Practice of Law in Deuteronomy." In The Oxford Handbook of Deuteronomy, 18-32. Oxford University Press, 2020. DOI record.
- Quick, Laura. "Deuteronomy 28 and Ancient Near Eastern Curses." In Deuteronomy 28 and the Aramaic Curse Tradition, 12-40. Oxford University Press, 2017. DOI record.
- Benjamin, Don C., ed. The Oxford Handbook of Deuteronomy. Oxford University Press, online 2020; print 2025. DOI record.
- Crawford, Sidnie White. "The Text of the Pentateuch." In The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch, 41-60. Oxford University Press, 2021. DOI record.
- Israel Antiquities Authority. "4Q Deuteronomy" (4Q44 / 4QDeutq). Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library. Manuscript record.
- Feldman, Ariel. "Deuteronomy in the Texts from the Judean Desert." In The Oxford Handbook of Deuteronomy, 365-383. Oxford University Press, 2020. DOI record.
- Israel Antiquities Authority. "How to Read a Dead Sea Scrolls Manuscript Name," using 4Q41 / 4QDeutn as an example. IAA guide.
- Wevers, John William, and Udo Quast, eds. Deuteronomium. 2nd ed. Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum 3.2. Goettingen, 2006; with Wevers, Text History of the Greek Deuteronomy and Notes on the Greek Text of Deuteronomy. Goettingen Septuagint record.
- Kartveit, Magnar. "The Pentateuch and the Samaritans." In The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch, 95-110. Oxford University Press, 2021. DOI record.
- MacDonald, Nathan. Deuteronomy and the Meaning of Monotheism. 2nd corrected ed. Forschungen zum Alten Testament II/1. Mohr Siebeck, 2012. DOI record.
- Lynch, Matthew. "Monotheism and Deuteronomy." In The Oxford Handbook of Deuteronomy, 71-92. Oxford University Press, 2020. DOI record.
- Glanville, Mark R. "The 'Stranger, Fatherless, and Widow' in Deuteronomy." In The Oxford Handbook of Deuteronomy, 233-251. Oxford University Press, 2020. DOI record.
- Jacobs, Sandra. "Women in Deuteronomy." In The Oxford Handbook of Deuteronomy, 189-203. Oxford University Press, 2021. DOI record.
- Milstein, Sara J. "Hebrew Legal Fictions and the Development of Deuteronomy." In Making a Case: The Practical Roots of Biblical Law, 53-89. Oxford University Press, 2021. DOI record.
- Anderson, Cheryl B. "Problematic Biblical Laws: The View from the 'Other' Side." In Ancient Laws and Contemporary Controversies, 31-58. Oxford University Press, 2009. DOI record.
- Pitkänen, Pekka. "War in Deuteronomy." In The Oxford Handbook of Deuteronomy, 146-159. Oxford University Press, 2020. DOI record.
- Lasine Thelle, Rannfrid I. "Deuteronomy, the Deuteronomistic History, and the Books of Joshua through Kings." In The Oxford Handbook of Deuteronomy, 310-327. Oxford University Press, 2022. DOI record.
- Collins, John J. "The Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism." In The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch, 61-78. Oxford University Press, 2021. DOI record.
- Labahn, Michael. "Deuteronomy in the New Testament." In The Oxford Handbook of Deuteronomy, 384-401. Oxford University Press, 2023. DOI record.
- Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. "The Canonical Books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church." Official church record. Canonical list.
- Gereboff, Joel. "Deuteronomy and Early Rabbinic Judaism." In The Oxford Handbook of Deuteronomy, 402-416. Oxford University Press, 2020. DOI record.