The Ten Commandments and the Literary Structure of Deuteronomy

The book of Deuteronomy is the capstone of the Pentateuch, a remarkable account of the dying words of Moses,¹ and a compilation of his final exhortations to Israel on the plains of Moab, just prior to their entrance into Canaan. At such a pivotal moment in Israel’s history, Deuteronomy contains perhaps the most important speeches in the entire Old Testament, especially given their influence on Israel’s moral life in the land and on later biblical authors.²

Overview of the Structure of Deuteronomy

Many scholars agree that the literary structure of Deuteronomy is composed of three sermons/addresses: Deuteronomy 1–4, 5–26, 27–29, followed by Moses’s final song and arrangements for the future (31:1–32:47), an account of his death (34:1–8), and a postscript (34:9–12).³ It is best, however, to delineate four sermons and not three, as Deuteronomy 5–11 constitutes a unique message with a clear beginning and ending:

3. While the title Deutero + nomos means “second law,” Moses terms his speeches in Deuteronomy the “Book of the Torah” (29:21 [20]; 30:10; 31:26), which means “instruction,” and better describes the goal of the book.

First Sermon: Deuteronomy 1–4

Second Sermon: Deuteronomy 5–11

Third Sermon: Deuteronomy 12–26

Fourth Sermon: Deuteronomy 27–30

Song/Blessing: Deuteronomy 31–33

Death/Postscript: Deuteronomy 34

Deuteronomy 12–26 is the book’s central and largest section, which is composed primarily of laws and stipulations intended to guide Israel in relationship with Yahweh once they settle in Canaan. The unit is marked off by matching expressions that bracket the contents in between:

4. All Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.

12:1 These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess.

26:16 This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul.⁴

5. E.g., Daniel I. Block, Hearing the Gospel According to Moses: A Commentary on Deuteronomy Chapters 12–23 (Hong Kong: Inspirata Publishing, 2024), 7.

Scholars are divided as to the literary arrangement of the laws in the central section. Some understand the arrangement in topical outline,⁵ while others see allusions within each law to principles in the Ten Commandments, often called the Decalogue.⁶ It is this latter concern that I am addressing here. Are the laws in Deuteronomy arranged according to the sequence and principles found in the Decalogue?⁷ What follows is an argument in favor of this literary arrangement.

The Ten Words in Deuteronomy 5

First, we note that the beginning of Moses’s second sermon in Deuteronomy is a nearly verbatim restatement of the original Decalogue in Exodus 20:2–17.⁸ The fact that the Ten Words are repeated at the beginning and ending of the thirty-eight-year wilderness wandering invites an association between these texts. For example, both texts are spoken in unique historical contexts. Exodus 20:2–17 is spoken by Yahweh, occurring at Israel’s arrival at Sinai and entry into the wilderness. Deuteronomy 5:6–21 is spoken by Moses (presumably from memory), occurring at Israel’s departure from the wilderness and just prior to entry into Canaan. Both texts include a narrative comment about Israel’s fear of Yahweh’s voice and the plea for Moses to adopt a mediatorial role between God and the people (Exod. 20:18–21; Deut. 5:23–27). Both texts are followed by pastoral exhortations that are to govern Israel’s moral life under Yahweh’s rule.⁹ Exodus 20 is followed by the Book of the Covenant (20:22–23:19), while Deuteronomy 5 is followed by covenant legislation as instruction for life in the Promised Land (Deut. 6–26). And, as we will see in Deuteronomy 6–26, both texts are followed by substantial allusions to and restatements of the Decalogue.¹⁰ The question we are asking here is whether there is evidence of influence, and why.

Influence of the Decalogue in Deuteronomy 6–26

Second, each section of the Deuteronomic law corresponds in principle with one command of the Ten Words. In broad outline, we can organize the laws in the following way:¹¹

What we see in the exposition column are general scenarios that correspond to and match the primary commands of the Decalogue. In other words, the laws are applications of the moral code in the Decalogue, which stands at its head. While the laws include no direct quotations of the Ten, each subunit contains stipulations grouped together in association with one command. Since the entire section begins with a recapitulation of the Ten Words in Deuteronomy 5, there is no need to repeat each command at the beginning of new units; the law is already operative among the Israelites.¹²

11. This table is my own attempt to modify those found in Kaiser, Toward Old Testament Ethics, 129; Hamilton, God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment, 128. See also Mitchell L. Chase, Walton, “Deuteronomy,” 214, organizes the laws around four major issues: authority (commands 1, 5), dignity (commands 2, 6, 7, 8), commitment (commands 3, 9), and rights and privileges (commands 4, 10).

The first exposition is clearly the longest (Deuteronomy 6–11), but corresponds to the importance of the first command, which governs all others with its emphasis on loving Yahweh alone (Deut. 6:4–5), which grows out of one’s heart in reverence to Yahweh’s supremacy (Deut. 4:35; 6:4; 33:26), and manifests in acts of obedience to Yahweh’s ways. If Israel is to maintain a relationship with Yahweh, the Deuteronomic pattern is unmistakable (see Deut. 4:10; 5:23–29; 6:1–2; 10:12–13):

READ/TEACH > HEAR > LEARN TO FEAR > OBEY = LIFE¹³

12. Kaufman, “The Structure of the Deuteronomic Law,” 115.

This result marks those whose lives are devoted to the first command, who align their hearts to none other than Yahweh.

13. Daniel I. Block, “The Grace of Torah: The Mosaic Prescription for Life (Deut 4:1–8; 6:20–25),” Bibliotheca Sacra 162, no. 645 (2005): 15.

The commands which follow can only be reviewed briefly here. The second exposition opens and closes with exhortations about appropriate worship and the destruction of Canaanite idols (Deut. 12:1–3, 29–31), which frame the central point of Deuteronomy 12, that Israel may only worship at the place the Lord will choose. The third exposition emphasizes that Israel is “holy to the Lord your God” (Deut. 14:2, 21), a phrase etched onto a gold plate on the turban of the high priest, who “bears/lifts up the name of Yahweh” on his forehead as he ministers to Israel, a clear connection with the third commandment not to bear Yahweh’s name in vain (cf. Exod. 28:36–38). The fourth exposition is about the Sabbath and the sabbatical year (Deut. 15:1–23), the Passover, which Israel celebrates for seven days (Deut. 16:1–8), the feast of weeks, which is a seven-week cycle (Deut. 16:9–12), the feast of booths, which is a seven-day cycle (Deut. 16:13–15), and the tithe, which is brought to the place of worship during these festivals at three points during the year (Deut. 14:22–29).

Honoring father and mother is a command that affects all social relationships, which is the primary subject of the fifth exposition. That relationship serves as a template for any other relations of authority, including judges (Deut. 16:18–20), priests (Deut. 17:8–13), kings (Deut. 17:14–20), and prophets (Deut. 18:15–22). The sixth exposition is influenced by the sixth commandment. Many of the laws in this section effectively clarify what kind of killing is murder and what is not murder, such as involuntary manslaughter (the subject of Deuteronomy 19 and the cities of refuge), warfare (the subject of Deuteronomy 20), or even unsolved murders (the subject of the first half of Deuteronomy 21). Sometimes the guilt of a person is clear, but sometimes not. These laws help Israel know what the Lord’s will is in the matter. The seventh exposition in Deuteronomy 22:9–23:14 is influenced by the seventh commandment, which concerns not only adultery in a marriage, but also sexual immorality (Deut. 22:13–23:2), the unlawful coupling of two things (such as two kinds of seed, Deut. 22:9–11), or even unclean things in the camp of Israel while they are at war with their enemies (Deut. 23:9–14). The seventh command also extends to Israel’s foreign relationships, such as those with Moab who, under Balaam’s influence, had caused Israel to commit both physical and spiritual adultery at Peor, with drastic consequences (Deut. 23:3–6; cf. Num. 25).

The eighth commandment influences Deuteronomy 23:15–24:7 as a general exposition about property. Many describe this section as miscellaneous laws, but they very clearly apply the command about not stealing to various situational cases, such as an escaped servant (Deut. 23:15–16; 24:7), when a daughter has been brought into a cult as a prostitute (effectively stolen from the family, Deut. 23:17–18), or when interest is charged to an Israelite (stealing from a brother, Deut. 23:19–20). The influence of the ninth and tenth commands is more difficult to detect in Deuteronomy 24:8–26:15, but the laws seem to apply the moral principles with specific applications. In Deuteronomy 24:8–25:4, for example, any kind of mocking or belittling of people is deemed a form of bearing false witness. Kaiser writes, “the point is that the result of the person exercising such fairness is as important, if not more so, than the one receiving such mercy; for God is desirous of inculcating merciful attitudes and marks of truthfulness in his people.”¹⁴ The tenth command appears prominently in Deuteronomy 25:5–16, which deals not only with coveting money (Deut. 25:13–16), but also the law of levirate marriage (Deut. 25:5–10): a man who raises up offspring for his dead brother’s family line is an unselfish man, not coveting his own plans for the future in order to be faithful to the law.

14. Kaiser, Toward Old Testament Ethics, 136.

Logical Sequence and Interpretive Significance

With these points in mind, we can be relatively confident of direct influence of the Decalogue on its applications in Deuteronomy. Moreover, what is notable upon review is the sequence of applications: the order of the Ten Words dictates the legal logic and arrangement of the stipulations in Deuteronomy 6–26. In other words, the laws in Deuteronomy are not ordered randomly, but correspond to the order of the parent text in Deuteronomy 5:6–21 (and Exod 20:2–17). This point substantiates the likelihood that Moses’s intention as Israel’s lawgiver and author was to draw their attention back to the Ten Words as the summary of God’s moral law, which guides all of life’s decisions and provides a legal basis and way of life for the community of faith in the land of Canaan.

Furthermore, the placement of commands in the Decalogue with specific applications has relevance for the interpretive significance of the law in biblical theology. For example, several laws occur in unexpected places, which has bearing on how the law should be understood. The law of divorce is placed in relation to the eighth command not to steal (Deut. 24:1–4), not the seventh command about adultery. The law about a person who is unclean from leprosy is placed in relation to the ninth command about false testimony (24:8–9), which is difficult to resolve. Some authors reject the organization I have argued above because they perceive these instances as discrepancies, which, in their view, makes the entire arrangement tenuous at best.¹⁵ While I admit there could be overlap in these laws, the point Moses seems to be making is illustrative for how the law is to be interpreted, even into the New Testament. The eighth command is not only about the theft of one’s property (the subject of 23:15–25) but also the theft of life (the subject of divorce in 24:1–7). Therefore, the command more broadly protects dignity and social status as well as personal property. Similarly, while the law about leprosy seems unassociated with the ninth command, Moses ties the law to Miriam’s slanderous accusations against her brother from Numbers 12 (Deut. 24:9). The law, therefore, is not merely about strict adherence to stipulations concerning the clean and unclean; it also applies to all kinds of accusations which are forms of bearing false witness. Miriam learned both lessons the hard way.

15. Millar, Now Choose Life, 145.

What these points indicate is that the commandments were never intended to be interpreted as discrete, precise rules. Rather, they introduce categories and principles that apply to all of life, both privately (“talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise,” Deut. 6:7) and publicly (“write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,” Deut. 6:9).¹⁶

16. John Scott Redd, “Deuteronomy,” in A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the Old Testament, ed. Miles V. Van Pelt (Wheaton: Crossway, 2016), 142.

This description broadly accords with Jesus’s corrective applications in the Sermon on the Mount, in which he provides the true interpretation of the law as that which concerns the heart instead of outward, legalistic obedience. We find this notably present in Jesus’s expansion of the laws of adultery (Matt. 5:27–30), divorce (Matt. 5:31–32), and the lex talionis (Matt. 5:38–42).

Conclusion

In the history of interpretation, Deuteronomy has been the seedbed of secular theories about how the book has been revised to ensure it accords with reforms being made during the late Israelite monarchy.¹⁷ But the literary structure outlined above attests to single authorship, presenting the book as a unique theological work of a pastor who is pleading with his congregation to be faithful to the Lord. What I have argued here is that Deuteronomy 6–26 is a unified presentation of God’s law, which is crafted upon the structure and content of the Ten Commandments that preceded it (Deut. 5:6–21), and should be interpreted according to its central principles. I am more convinced than not that the Ten Commandments form not only the substantive basis for the law in Deuteronomy, but also the logical structure of how those laws are presented by Moses in his third sermon.

17. Kaufman suggests that Deuteronomy was the work of a single redactor who organized its content according to the Decalogue in Exodus 20 (Kaufman, “The Structure of the Deuteronomic Law,” 105–58). See in response John H. Walton, “The Decalogue Structure of the Deuteronomic Law,” in Interpreting Deuteronomy: Issues and Approaches, ed. David G. Firth and Philip S. Johnston (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012), 93–117.

This is instructive for Old Testament theology in three particular ways. First, it speaks to the primacy of the Ten Commandments, not as a detailed explanation of God’s law, but as a short summary from which all other laws are suspended. Even the placement of the Decalogue at the head of Israel’s laws (Exod. 20:2–17; Deut. 5:6–21), coupled with the structure of the ensuing applications, points back to the importance of the Ten, the only words of Scripture written with “the finger of God” (Exod. 31:18; Deut. 9:10; cf. Exod. 24:12; 32:15–16; Deut. 5:22). The Decalogue is rightly termed apodictic, not casuistic, which emphasizes its universal scope.

Second, it illustrates the enduring effect of the law for future applications beyond the time of Israel in the land, namely for Christians under the New Covenant administration of Christ. Christians today are not under the law as a covenant like those Israelites in the Old Testament; Christ is the end of the law for righteousness (Rom. 10:4; Gal. 5:18). As a formal covenant, the Old/Mosaic Covenant was a temporary administration and has been abolished. Yet the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good (Rom. 7:12). Jesus (Mark 10:17–19) and Paul (Rom. 13:8–10; 1 Tim. 1:8–10) cite the Decalogue for holy living. While Scripture does not address every possible sin, the applications in Deuteronomy illustrate and reveal that all moral law and sin can be defined in principle by the Decalogue. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus makes this point especially clear. All the Law and Prophets “hang” from the supreme commands to love God and neighbor (Matt. 22:34–40), which is a short summary of the Ten. More practically, this point is explained by the third use of the law as a rule of life:

…informing them [i.e. believers] of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering also the sinful pollutions of their natures, hearts, and lives, so as examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against, sin; together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ and the perfection of his obedience; it is likewise of use to the regenerate to restrain their corruptions, in that it forbids sin; and the threatenings of it serve to show what even their sins deserve, and what afflictions in this life they may expect for them, although freed from the curse and unallayed rigour thereof.¹⁸

18. Found in the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, “Of the Law of God,” chapter 19, paragraph 6.

Third, the use of the Decalogue in the applications of Deuteronomy reveals the character of God and what pleases him. In Exodus 19:6, God told the people that he would make them a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” The Ten Commandments reflect the manner in which God’s people are to be “holy.” Therefore, as God’s revealed will, the Decalogue deserves our close attention and obedience. We see in them not simply what we must do, but what God is like as “God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe” (Deut. 10:17).

May we delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it day and night (Ps. 1:2).