NOTES for Deu 4:1-49
The Book of Deuteronomy did not receive its name by accident. In fairness, it should be noted that the name was given by the translators who rendered the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch into Greek in the second century BC. Yet it proved very apt: this is a second law, a new form of the Torah that appeared later than the first, early form found in the Book of Exodus. Biblical scholars speak of the late origin of Deuteronomy, while its author dates his text to the time of Moses. Be that as it may, it is assumed in any case that the laws found in Deuteronomy appeared later than those contained in Exodus.
Legislation develops—that is the main point, while everything else is merely historical detail that does not alter the essence of the matter. If the Torah can change over time, it is no longer so important whether forty years or six centuries pass from one change to another. What matters is the very fact that the Torah changes, develops and takes shape in the course of history. The Book of Deuteronomy, and its first introductory chapters containing a historical survey of the path travelled by the people, bear witness precisely to such development of the Torah. Here the legislation is preceded by a description of the path travelled, and it is given on the basis of that journey.
The Torah changes in accordance with this path and at the same time defines it, giving it a meaning without which the whole path travelled by the people would be worth nothing. One could say that, in a certain sense, the Torah itself becomes a path—the path of the people before God, while the external, geographical and historical path becomes its outward form. The path of the Torah cannot exist without that outward path, but without the Torah as its spiritual core, the outward path remains only an empty shell. There is no history without the Torah—at least no history of God’s people precisely as God’s people.
Yet neither is there a Torah outside history. Even if the Torah is regarded only as legislation or only as a moral code, it is inconceivable without the people who will carry it out, apart from the context of their history and their spiritual and practical journey. The Torah is embodied in history, above all in the history of God’s people, and at the same time becomes the force that gives history its spiritual form and quality, filling it with meaning—not transient human meanings, but God’s eternal and imperishable meaning, which binds earthly history to the Kingdom.