11.21 As long…earth, i.e., forever (cf. Ps 89.29; Jer 31.36–37; 33.25–26).
11.22–23 Cf. 10.12–13, 20; 9.1.
11.24 Every place…yours. Josh 1.3 cites this promise. Your territory. The boundaries encompass the broad expanse of Syro-Palestine and correspond approximately to the scope of Davidic hegemony in the early tenth century BCE (see note on 1.7; cf. Ex 23.31). Western Sea, the Mediterranean.
11.25 For the promise, see 2.25.
11.26–28 A blessing and a curse are the alternatives of weal and woe posed by the constant choice that Israel must make between fidelity to the Lord and apostasy (cf. 30.15–20; Josh 24.14–28). These fundamental options are sanctioned by the specific lists of conditional “blessings” and “curses” in ch. 28 (see also Lev 26).
11.28 Gods…not known, gods whose effective presence you have not experienced (cf. 4.32–39; 32.16–17; Judg 2.11–13; 5.8).
11.29 This anticipates the rites prescribed in ch. 27 (cf. Josh 8.30–35). Ancient Shechem was situated in the valley between Mount Gerizim on the south and Mount Ebal on the north.
11.30 Geographical sense is not evident in the association of Canaanite inhabitants of the Arabah (cf. Num 13.29) with the site of Gilgal near Jericho (see Josh 4–5) and the distant oak of Moreh at Shechem (Gen 12.6; 35.4; cf. Josh 24.26).
11.31–12.1 These verses form a rhetorical seam between the general instructions, now completed, and the following promulgation of the statutes and ordinances; see note on 4.44–45.
DEUTERONOMY 12
Pagan Shrines to Be Destroyed
1These are the statutes and ordinances that you must diligently observe in the land that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has given you to occupy all the days that you live on the earth.
2You must demolish completely all the places where the nations whom you are about to dispossess served their gods, on the mountain heights, on the hills, and under every leafy tree. 3Break down their altars, smash their pillars, burn their sacred polesa with fire, and hew down the idols of their gods, and thus blot out their name from their places. 4You shall not worship the LORD your God in such ways. 5But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes as his habitation to put his name there. You shall go there, 6bringing there your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and your donations, your votive gifts, your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and flocks. 7And you shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your households together, rejoicing in all the undertakings in which the LORD your God has blessed you.
8You shall not act as we are acting here today, all of us according to our own desires, 9for you have not yet come into the rest and the possession that the LORD your God is giving you. 10When you cross over the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is allotting to you, and when he gives you rest from your enemies all around so that you live in safety, 11then you shall bring everything that I command you to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and your donations, and all your choice votive gifts that you vow to the LORD. 12And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you together with your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, and the Levites who reside in your towns (since they have no allotment or inheritance with you).
A Prescribed Place of Worship
13Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place you happen to see. 14But only at the place that the LORD will choose in one of your tribes—there you shall offer your burnt offerings and there you shall do everything I command you.
15Yet whenever you desire you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns, according to the blessing that the LORD your God has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, as they would of gazelle or deer. 16The blood, however, you must not eat; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. 17Nor may you eat within your towns the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, the firstlings of your herds and your flocks, any of your votive gifts that you vow, your freewill offerings, or your donations; 18these you shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God at the place that the LORD your God will choose, you together with your son and your daughter, your male and female slaves, and the Levites resident in your towns, rejoicing in the presence of the LORD your God in all your undertakings. 19Take care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land.
20When the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, “I am going to eat some meat,” because you wish to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you have the desire. 21If the place where the LORD your God will choose to put his name is too far from you, and you slaughter as I have commanded you any of your herd or flock that the LORD has given you, then you may eat within your towns whenever you desire. 22Indeed, just as gazelle or deer is eaten, so you may eat it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it. 23Only be sure that you do not eat the blood; for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the meat. 24Do not eat it; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. 25Do not eat it, so that all may go well with you and your children after you, because you do what is right in the sight of the LORD. 26But the sacred donations that are due from you, and your votive gifts, you shall bring to the place that the LORD will choose. 27You shall present your burnt offerings, both the meat and the blood, on the altar of the LORD your God; the blood of your other sacrifices shall be poured out besideb the altar of the LORD your God, but the meat you may eat.
28Be careful to obey all these words that I command you today,c so that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, because you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God.
Warning against Idolatry
29When the LORD your God has cut off before you the nations whom you are about to enter to dispossess them, when you have dispossessed them and live in their land, 30take care that you are not snared into imitating them, after they have been destroyed before you: do not inquire concerning their gods, saying, “How did these nations worship their gods? I also want to do the same.” 31You must not do the same for the LORD your God, because every abhorrent thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods. They would even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. 32d You must diligently observe everything that I command you; do not add to it or take anything from it.
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a Heb Asherim
b Or on
c Gk Sam Syr: MT lacks today
d Ch 13.1 in Heb
e Ch 13.2 in Heb
f Sam Gk Compare Tg: MT lacks your father’s son or
12.2–26.15 Articles of the covenantal polity are arranged in five broad topical divisions: the single sanctuary (12.2–28); communal service of the Lord (12.29–17.13); constitutional offices (17.14–18.22); major juridical principles and precedents (19.1–25.19); and liturgical reaffirmations of fidelity (26.1–15).
12.2–28 In this initial division, four complementary articles (vv. 2–7, 8–12, 13–19, 20–28) develop a radical reinterpretation of the sanctuary law in Ex 20.24–26. The revision’s chief concern correlates closely with reforms attributed to the Judean kings Hezekiah at the end of the eighth century BCE (2 Kings 18.3–6, 22) and Josiah in the later seventh (2 Kings 23.4–19): suppression of apostasy and cultic pluralism by restricting Israel’s performance of sacrificial rites and related ceremonies to the temple in Jerusalem.
12.2–7 A categorical distinction is drawn between the manifold cultic installations that Israel must destroy while conquering its homeland and the single, divinely designated place where Israel’s own national worship center will be established.
12.2–3 Antecedent injunctions are Ex 23.23–24; 34.11–14 (cf. also Deut 7.5; Num 33.51–52). Heights…leafy tree. See, e.g., 2 Kings 16.4; Jer 2.20. Their name, the sovereignty claimed by the defunct nations but al
so the immanence of putative gods associated with the installations (cf. 7.24–25; 25.19; Gen 35.14–15; Ex 20.24; Josh 23.7).
12.4 According to many witnesses, this is just what happened. See, e.g., Judg 17.3–5; 1 Kings 12.28–30; 14.22–24; 2 Kings 17.8–12; Jer 3.6–10; 17.1–3; Ezek 6.2–7; 18.6; Hos 4.12–13; 10.8.
12.5 Israel should seek the Lord in worship not at “every place” commemorating the divine name (Ex 20.24) but only at the one place chosen out of all your tribes, i.e., Jerusalem’s acropolis, where David’s tent shrine for the ark was soon replaced by the Solomonic temple (cf. 2 Sam 6.17; 7.6–7, 13; 24.18–25; 1 Kings 8.16–21; 11.32; 14.21; 2 Kings 21.7; Ps 132). Although in Deuteronomic theology the transcendent God does not “reside” in any earthly abode, the Lord’s name (Hebrew shem) is localized at the one sanctuary as a manifestation of divine presence and cosmic attentiveness (26.15; 1 Kings 8.27–30, 43, 48–49; cf. Ex 23.20; Ps 74.7; Isa 18.7; Jer 3.17; 7.12–14; Tob 13.11). Hence as his habitation is a dubious rendering; the Hebrew may be translated instead “to establish it (the divine name),” similarly in 12.11; 14.23; 16.2, 6, 11; 26.2.
12.6 Burnt offerings, “holocausts” in which flayed animal carcasses were wholly consumed by fire on the altar, sustained the system of expiatory sacrifices (cf. Lev 1.3–17; 6.9–13; Num 28.2–8, 23–24; Am 5.22). Other sacrifices were usually consumed in part by the worshipers who presented them and also by priestly officiants (cf. 18.1–3; Lev 3; 7.29–36). Tithes…firstlings, i.e., all types of sacred dues (14.22–27; 15.19–23; 23.21–23; 26.12–15; cf. Lev 27.1–8; Num 15.18–21; 30.2–15; Am 4.4–5).
12.7 Emphasis on inclusive religious celebrations is characteristic of the Deuteronomic polity (cf. 12.12, 18–19; 14.26–27;15.20; 16.11, 14; 26.11).
12.8–12 A temporal distinction is made between divergent practices today and the unification of worship that will become normative for settled Israel.
12.8 We are acting…all of us according to our own desires, lit. “each person (doing) what is right in his own sight”: individual willfulness reigns (cf. Judg 17.6; 21.25) rather than divine authority (what is right and good in the sight of the LORD; cf. 6.18; 12.25, 28).
12.9–10 Rest and…possession, secure territorial dominion (see notes on 3.18–20; 11.24; cf. 33.28–29). According to developed Deuteronomic tradition, the conditions were only met with the creation of David’s empire (cf. Josh 23.1–5; 2 Sam 7.1–16; 1 Kings 5.3–5;8.56).
12.11 As a dwelling for his name, better “to establish his name” see note on 12.5.
12.12 Levites. See notes on 10.8–9; 18.1–8.
12.13–19 Two key functional distinctions are made here, one between extant cultic “places” (cf. Ex 20.24; 1 Sam 7.16; Josh 22.10–34), which are not or no longer to be used for sacrificial worship, and the chosen place, and the other between animals sacrificed at the altar and animals slaughtered for food.
12.15 Whenever you desire, as your appetite dictates (cf. 18.6; Prov 23.2) and the Lord’s blessing permits (cf. 7.13). The unclean and the clean may eat of it. Since domestic slaughter of livestock is no different from the killing of game (gazelle or deer) for edible meat, rules of purity that pertain to the consumption of sacrificial offerings and other sacral dues are not applicable (cf. also 12.20–22; 15.22; Lev 7.19–21; 17.3–9).
12.16 Blood is the essence of animal “life” and must not be consumed (cf. 12.23; 15.23; Gen 9.4–5; Lev 17.10–14; 19.26; 1 Sam 14.31–35).
12.20–28 A summary paragraph emphasizes orthopraxy and its motives: though nonsacrificial slaughter is permitted as a geographical necessity (When the LORD…enlarges your territory; cf. 14.24; 19.8–9; Ex 34.24), sacrificial slaughter remains preferable whenever the altar of the single sanctuary is near enough for use (vv. 20–22, 27; cf. Lev 17.3–9).
12.23 The restriction on eating blood must never be relaxed (vv. 23–25; cf. 12.16; Lev 17.10–14); requisite offerings and sacral dues must be presented regularly at the sanctuary (vv. 26–27; cf. 14.22–27; 15.19–20; 16.16–17; 26.1–15).
12.28 A concluding exhortation composed of familiar phrases (e.g., 4.40; 5.29; 6.3, 17–18; 12.25).
12.29–17.13 This division treats corporate obligations and institutional structures designed to maintain Israel’s national identity as the covenant people of God.
12.29–32 Specific provisions are introduced by another warning against any compromise of Israel’s distinctiveness as defined by the Mosaic legislation (cf. 4.1–2; 5.32–6.3; 11.31–12.1).
12.30 Snared, here through attraction to aboriginal religious culture rather than by political or nuptial alliance with the condemned nations (cf. 7.1–5, 25; Ex 23.33; 34.12; Judg 2.3).
12.31 Abhorrent. See note on 7.25–26. Immolation of children by fire is particularly associated with the cult of Molech, practiced during the monarchical era in the Hinnom Valley, southwest of Jerusalem (Lev 18.21; 20.2–5; 2 Kings 23.10; Jer 7.31; 19.5; cf. also 18.10; 2 Kings 3.27; 16.3; 21.6).
12.32 Everything, neither less nor more, because worship of the Lord augmented with pagan practices becomes paganism (cf. 2 Kings 17.7–41).
DEUTERONOMY 13e
1If prophets or those who divine by dreams appear among you and promise you omens or portents, 2and the omens or the portents declared by them take place, and they say, “Let us follow other gods” (whom you have not known) “and let us serve them,”3you must not heed the words of those prophets or those who divine by dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you indeed love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. 4The Lord your God you shall follow, him alone you shall fear, his commandments you shall keep, his voice you shall obey, him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast. 5But those prophets or those who divine by dreams shall be put to death for having spoken treason against the Lord your God—who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery—to turn you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
6If anyone secretly entices you—even if it is your brother, your father’s son orf your mother’s son, or your own son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your most intimate friend—saying, “Let us go worship other gods,” whom neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7any of the gods of the peoples that are around you, whether near you or far away from you, from one end of the earth to the other, 8you must not yield to or heed any such persons. Show them no pity or compassion and do not shield them. 9But you shall surely kill them; your own hand shall be first against them to execute them, and afterwards the hand of all the people. 10Stone them to death for trying to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11Then all Israel shall hear and be afraid, and never again do any such wickedness.
12If you hear it said about one of the towns that the LORD your God is giving you to live in, 13that scoundrels from among you have gone out and led the inhabitants of the town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods,” whom you have not known, 14then you shall inquire and make a thorough investigation. If the charge is established that such an abhorrent thing has been done among you, 15you shall put the inhabitants of that town to the sword, utterly destroying it and everything in it—even putting its livestock to the sword. 16All of its spoil you shall gather into its public square; then burn the town and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God. It shall remain a perpetual ruin, never to be rebuilt. 17Do not let anything devoted to destruction stick to your hand, so that the LORD may turn from his fierce anger and show you compassion, and in his compassion multiply you, as he swore to your ancestors, 18if you obey the voice of the LORD your God by keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, doing what is right in the sight of the LORD your God.
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13.1–18 Three cases are summarized to prescribe severe retribution against instigators of sedition.
1
3.1–5 Mantic incitement to apostasy is a criminal offense, never credible even when supported by accurate prognostication.
13.1–3 Divine by dreams. See, e.g., Gen 37.5–10; Num 12.6; Judg 7.13–14; Jer 23.25; 27.9; Joel 2.28. Omens or portents, any forecasts or signs offered to authenticate claims of divine empowerment (see 34.11; Ex 4.1–9, 21; 7.9; Judg 6.17–21, 36–40). Testing. See 8.2, 16.
13.4 An emphatic restatement of allegiance to the Lord alone (cf. 6.13; 10.20; 11.22).
13.5 Spoken treason also describes prophetic duplicity in Jer 28.16; 29.32. So…midst. The formula emphasizes communal responsibility to eradicate perpetrators of virulent evil from Israel’s midst (also 17.7, 12; 19.19; 21.21; 22.21, 22, 24; 24.7).
13.6–11 Clandestine enticement to apostasy must be confronted with equal resolve and harsh punishment.
13.6–8 Loyalty to Israel’s divine sovereign takes precedence over even the closest human bonds of kinship, marriage, and collegiality.
13.6 Intimate friend, one as beloved as one’s own self (cf. 1 Sam 18.3).
13.8 No pity. Cf. 7.16; 19.13, 21; 25.12.
13.9–10 To kill offenders by stoning on presumption of guilt legitimates communal lynching (cf. 1 Sam 30.6; 1 Kings 12.18). But the Septuagint may preserve the preferable reading, that an accuser must first “decry” or “publicly charge” a culprit, thereby initiating judicial proceedings that may result in capital punishment carried out by accuser and communal court (cf. 17.4–7; 21.18–21; 22.20–24; Josh 7.10–26; 1 Kings 21.8–14).
13.11 Publicized execution in such circumstances is meant as a deterrent (cf. 17.12–13; 21.21).
13.12–18 This case outlines judicial procedure and martial retribution in the event that an entire town in Israel becomes contaminated by apostasy.
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