100 Fun Facts About Deuteronomy

Which mountain did Moses climb from the plains of Moab to see the promised land he would never enter?

Mount Nebo. God tells Moses to climb it and die there 'just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor', so a view across the Jordan is all he ever gets of the land.

Moses died at 120, says Deuteronomy 34, within sight of which 'City of Palms' across the Jordan?

Jericho. Moses sees the city from the mountain with eyes that 'were not weak' even at 120, but he gets no closer, and its walls fall to Israel only in the next book.

What food does Deuteronomy 8 say God sent to teach Israel that 'man does not live on bread alone'?

Manna, 'which neither you nor your ancestors had known', was meant to humble Israel into dependence, and Jesus quoted the lesson back to the devil when told to turn stones into bread.

Which word completes the Shema, the prayer that opens 'Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is ___'?

One ends the creed that observant Jews recite every morning and evening and traditionally speak as their last words, and Jesus quoted it when a teacher of the law asked which commandment mattered most.

What reason does Deuteronomy 5 give for the Sabbath, where Exodus 20 points to creation?

Their years as slaves in Egypt are the motive: 'Remember that you were slaves in Egypt', so Deuteronomy's Sabbath is framed as rest owed to servants and animals rather than as an echo of creation.

Deuteronomy 34 says no one knows where Moses is buried; which archangel does Jude show disputing with the devil over his body?

Michael. The verse says only that 'he buried him', usually read as God himself, in a valley opposite Beth Peor, and Jude 9 is thought to draw on a later legend of a dispute over the body.

Whom did the LORD commission at the tent of meeting, in a pillar of cloud, to lead Israel after Moses?

Joshua son of Nun was 'filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him', and the book that follows Deuteronomy in the Bible carries his name.

All three of Jesus' replies to the devil in Matthew 4 quote Deuteronomy; which words introduce each one?

It is written. He answers every temptation from Deuteronomy 6 and 8: live on more than bread alone, do not put God to the test, and worship the Lord your God only.

Which ritual object grew from Deuteronomy 6's command to tie God's words 'as symbols on your hands' and foreheads?

Tefillin. The small leather boxes hold the passage itself on parchment, and the very next verse, about writing the words on doorframes, gave Judaism the mezuzah.

Which animal does Deuteronomy 14 call unclean because it 'has a divided hoof' but 'does not chew the cud'?

The pig fails one of the two tests while the camel, rabbit and hyrax fail the other, and the same chapter bans touching their carcasses as well as eating the meat.

From which mountain were six tribes to pronounce the curses in Deuteronomy 27, facing the blessings on Gerizim?

Mount Ebal. The next book reports the order carried out: an altar of uncut stones goes up on the mountain and the law is read aloud with half the people standing before each peak.

What relic of Og king of Bashan, 'more than nine cubits long', does Deuteronomy 3 say still stood in Rabbah?

His iron bed. The verse cites its size straight after calling Og the last of the giant Rephaites, as the proof, and some translators think the word means his sarcophagus.

Which animals does Deuteronomy 17 forbid Israel's king to 'acquire great numbers of'?

Horses. 1 Kings 10 shows Solomon breaking the rule: he imports horses from Egypt, where the law tells kings not to send for them, and piles up the silver and gold it also forbids.

Which apostle, preaching at Solomon's Colonnade in Acts 3, applied Deuteronomy 18's promised 'prophet like me' to Jesus?

Peter had just healed a lame beggar at the temple gate, and he quotes Moses' promise of a prophet 'from among your own people' to a crowd, warning that anyone who ignores him 'will be completely cut off'.

What does Deuteronomy 21 say of anyone 'hung on a pole', a verse Paul applied to the crucifixion?

He is under God's curse, in the reading Paul follows, so the body must be buried the same day, and John's Gospel has the crucified taken down before the Sabbath began.

Which two fibres does Deuteronomy 22 forbid wearing 'woven together' in one garment?

Wool and linen are still kept apart by observant Jews by the rule called shatnez, and Leviticus 19 gives the same ban alongside one on mating different kinds of animals.

What must an Israelite release when taking eggs or chicks from a nest found by the road, in Deuteronomy 22?

The mother bird goes free 'so that it may go well with you and you may have a long life', the same reward the Ten Commandments attach to honouring parents.

What does Deuteronomy 23 tell soldiers to carry with their equipment, for when they relieve themselves outside the camp?

Something to dig with was required because 'the Lord your God moves about in your camp', so the latrine had to be outside it and every hole covered over.

Deuteronomy 25 caps a flogging at forty lashes to avoid what?

Degrading the offender. Later courts stopped at thirty-nine, reportedly so that a miscount could never pass forty, and that is the 'forty lashes minus one' Paul says he received five times.

Which animal does Deuteronomy 25 say to leave unmuzzled 'while it is treading out the grain', a line Paul quotes about pay?

An ox that treads grain must be allowed to eat as it works, and Paul turns the verse into an argument that preachers deserve a living in 1 Corinthians 9 and 1 Timothy 5.

In Deuteronomy 25, what does a widow remove from the brother-in-law who refuses to marry her?

His sandal comes off in front of the elders and his line is branded 'The Family of the Unsandaled', a rite Jewish law still performs as halizah when a brother declines a levirate marriage.

Which people does Deuteronomy 25 order Israel to 'blot out' for attacking the weary stragglers on the road from Egypt?

Amalekites cut down the stragglers when Israel was 'weary and worn out', and 'Do not forget!' is still read in synagogues on the Sabbath before Purim, since Haman is styled a descendant of their king Agag.

Which two peoples does Deuteronomy 23 bar from 'the assembly of the LORD' even in the tenth generation?

Ammonites and Moabites are barred for refusing Israel bread and water and hiring Balaam against it, yet Ruth the Moabite marries Boaz and becomes the great-grandmother of King David.

What does Deuteronomy 14 forbid boiling in milk, the verse behind the kosher separation of meat and dairy?

A young goat boiled in milk is banned here and twice more in Exodus, and the rabbis widened that one line into separate dishes and waiting times for meat and milk.

What does Deuteronomy 14 let a far-off Israelite buy with tithe silver at the sanctuary, alongside cattle and sheep?

Wine or fermented drink is on the approved list, 'or anything you wish', so the tithe ends as a feast eaten 'in the presence of the Lord your God' with the whole household rejoicing.

What does Deuteronomy 15 warn lenders against as the seventh-year debt release nears?

Refusing loans. The chapter calls it a wicked thought to hold back because the release is close, and warns that a neighbour turned away may cry to God against the lender, who will be guilty of sin.

Which men do Deuteronomy 20's officers send home before battle, in a rule Gideon later used to thin his army?

The afraid and fainthearted join men with a new house, a new vineyard or a fiancée in being excused, and Gideon used the rule in Judges 7 to send 22,000 of his 32,000 men home.

What does Deuteronomy 24 forbid the first husband of a woman divorced by certificate, once her second marriage has ended?

Marrying her again. The law calls that detestable, and the certificate is what the Pharisees cite to Jesus in Mark 10, where he says Moses allowed it only 'because your hearts were hard'.

Which creature does Deuteronomy 7 say the LORD will send among the Canaanites until even survivors in hiding perish?

The hornet, as most versions render a Hebrew word of uncertain meaning, is promised in Exodus 23 too, and the farewell speech that ends the next book credits it with driving out two Amorite kings.

Why does Deuteronomy 7 say the LORD chose Israel, a people it calls 'the fewest of all peoples'?

Because he loved them and kept his oath to their ancestors is the only reason given, and two chapters later Moses adds that it was 'not because of your righteousness'.

Which king of Judah heard Hilkiah's 'Book of the Law', found in the temple and long identified with Deuteronomy?

Josiah responded by tearing his robes and launching a purge of idols and high places that matches Deuteronomy's demand for a single sanctuary, which is why scholars link the scroll to the book.

Which metal will the sky become over a disobedient Israel, in the curses of Deuteronomy 28?

Bronze, or copper in some versions, overhead means a sky that gives no rain, and the chapter goes on to turn 'the rain of your country into dust and powder' that falls from the skies instead.

What does Deuteronomy 29 say 'belong to the LORD our God', in the verse that closes the chapter?

The secret things. The verse sets them against 'the things revealed', which 'belong to us and to our children forever' so that every word of the law can be followed.

Where did Moses tell the Levites to place his written Book of the Law, to remain 'as a witness against you'?

Beside the ark, not inside it: the chest itself held the two stone tablets, and when Hebrews 9 lists its contents it adds a gold jar and Aaron's staff but no scroll.

How does Deuteronomy 34 say the LORD knew Moses, a way in which 'no prophet has risen in Israel' since?

Face to face is also how Deuteronomy 5 says the LORD spoke to all Israel at Horeb, yet the frightened people begged Moses to go near and do the listening for them.

Whose discouraging words at Kadesh Barnea turned an eleven-day trip from Horeb into forty years?

The spies. Deuteronomy 1 gives the eleven-day distance, then has Moses retell how their talk of a taller people and cities walled to the sky made Israel refuse to go up.

What does the Greek title of Deuteronomy mean, in contrast to its Hebrew name Devarim, 'words'?

Second law. The Greek translators took the title from chapter 17, where the king must write out 'a copy of this law', while the Hebrew name is just the book's opening, 'These are the words'.

Which faculty does Deuteronomy 6 name after heart and soul, where Matthew's Jesus says 'mind'?

Strength. The Hebrew word normally just means 'very', so versions split between strength and might, while Matthew's Jesus says mind and Mark's names all four.

In Deuteronomy 28's curses, who becomes 'the head' while a disobedient Israel becomes 'the tail'?

Foreigners among them. It turns the chapter's earlier blessing upside down: an obedient Israel was to be 'the head, not the tail' and to lend to many nations, never borrow.

Which pet name for Israel, linked to the Hebrew for 'upright', does the Song of Moses say 'grew fat and kicked'?

Jeshurun appears only four times in the Bible, all but one of them in Deuteronomy, and the Song of Moses uses it to mock a people grown 'heavy and sleek' who 'abandoned the God who made them'.

Which of Jacob's twelve sons has no tribe named in the Hebrew text of the Blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy 33?

Simeon is the tribe the standard Hebrew text leaves out, which fits Jacob's deathbed words on his violence in Genesis 49 and the tribe's later absorption into the territory of Judah.

Where Exodus 20's commandment on coveting starts with the house, what does Deuteronomy 5 name first?

His wife heads Deuteronomy's list and gets a verb of her own, which is one reason Catholic tradition counts coveting as two commandments, the ninth for the wife and the tenth for goods.

At which waters does Deuteronomy 32 say Moses and Aaron 'broke faith', costing Moses his entry to the land?

Meribah Kadesh in the Desert of Zin is where Numbers 20 has Moses strike the stone twice instead of speaking to it, though in Deuteronomy 1 and 3 Moses blames the people: 'because of you the Lord was angry with me'.

Which Song of Moses line does Paul quote in Romans 12, urging readers to leave room for God's wrath?

'It is mine to avenge; I will repay' is quoted again in Hebrews 10 as a warning, and Paul's point in Romans 12 is to feed a hungry enemy rather than pay him back.

Who could flee to the cities Moses set aside east of the Jordan in Deuteronomy 4?

One who killed by accident, 'without malice aforethought', was safe there from revenge, and Bezer, Ramoth and Golan were matched by three more such cities west of the river once the land was taken.

What does Deuteronomy 23 say to do with a slave who has taken refuge with you?

Let them live where they choose. 'Do not hand them over to their master', the law begins, the reverse of Hammurabi's code, which put to death anyone who sheltered a runaway slave.

What word must 'all the people' answer after each of the twelve curses the Levites recite in Deuteronomy 27?

Amen. The Hebrew word means 'truth' and is said in the sense of 'so be it', so with each reply the people take the curse on themselves, beginning with anyone who sets up an idol in secret.

What title does the Song of Moses give God in its opening verses: 'He is the ___, his works are perfect'?

Rock. The Song keeps returning to the title and then turns it into a taunt: the gods Israel ran to are 'the rock they took refuge in', and 'their rock is not like our Rock'.

What does Deuteronomy 4 call the LORD, 'a jealous God', in a phrase the Letter to the Hebrews repeats?

A consuming fire is Hebrews 12's closing warning too, and Deuteronomy uses it right after recalling that Israel saw 'no form' at Horeb, only fire and a voice.

What must Israel's army do first when it marches up to attack a distant city, in Deuteronomy 20?

Offer it terms of peace, and if the city opens its gates its people become forced labour; only the cities of the nations inside the land are denied the offer, with nothing 'that breathes' left alive.

What does Deuteronomy 8 say never wore out on the Israelites during forty years in the wilderness?

Their clothing lasted the whole journey, Moses reminds the people, and their feet never swelled. He offers both as proof that God had looked after them all along.

What does Deuteronomy 20 forbid an army to chop down during a long siege of a city?

Fruit trees were to be spared because the soldiers could eat from them. The verse asks whether a tree is a human being, that an army should besiege it too.

As what does the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 say God guarded Israel in the desert?

The apple of his eye is how the song puts it, after God finds Israel in a howling wasteland. The phrase is still used for someone cherished above all others.

What did Moses burn, grind to powder and throw into a mountain stream in Deuteronomy 9?

The golden calf was made while Moses was away on the mountain. He says he then lay before God for forty days and nights, pleading for the people and for Aaron.

Which two features must a sea creature have to count as clean food under Deuteronomy 14?

Fins and scales are the test, so most fish pass while shrimp, crabs and other shellfish do not. The rule is still followed in kosher kitchens.

What must Israelites eat for seven days at Passover in Deuteronomy 16, recalling a hasty exit?

Unleavened bread is called the bread of affliction here, because the people left too fast for dough to rise. No leaven was to be found in the land all week.

With which two foods does Deuteronomy repeatedly say the land promised to Israel is flowing?

Milk and honey sum up a land of rich pasture and natural sweetness. Deuteronomy uses the phrase six times, from chapter 6 through to chapter 31.

What does Deuteronomy 34 say had not weakened when Moses died at the age of 120?

His eyesight was still sharp and his vigour undiminished, the chapter says. The Israelites then wept for him on the plains for thirty days.

What does Deuteronomy 12 forbid eating along with meat, giving the reason that it 'is the life'?

The blood must be poured out on the ground like water, the chapter says. That rule is why kosher meat is still drained and salted before cooking.

Which small case on Jewish doorposts holds verses from Deuteronomy, as the book itself commands?

Mezuzah is simply the Hebrew word for doorpost. The parchment inside is copied out by a specially trained scribe and then rolled up in the case.

On what does Deuteronomy 5 say God wrote the Ten Commandments before handing them to Moses?

Two stone tablets carried the words, first spoken aloud out of cloud and deep darkness. Moses later shattered the pair and had to chisel out replacements.

Which of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5 promises long days in the land to those who keep it?

Honour your parents is the one Paul calls the first commandment with a promise, when he quotes it to children in his letter to the Ephesians.

What does Deuteronomy 24 excuse a newly married man from for one full year?

Military service and every other public duty were waived for twelve months. The stated reason is simply that he should stay at home and bring joy to his bride.

What does Deuteronomy 16 warn Israel's judges blinds the eyes of the wise?

A bribe blinds even the wise, the verse warns. The same passage puts judges in every town and sums up their task as justice, and justice alone.

What does Deuteronomy 19 require before any charge can stand, a rule Jesus repeats in Matthew 18?

Two or three witnesses must agree, because a lone accuser is never enough. A witness caught lying receives whatever he meant the accused to suffer.

How does Deuteronomy 11 say the promised land is watered, unlike Egypt's foot-irrigated gardens?

Rain from the sky feeds a land of hills and valleys, the chapter says. Harvests there depend on God sending the autumn and spring showers in season.

What must a king of Israel write out for himself on taking the throne, in Deuteronomy 17?

A copy of the law stayed with the king, who had to read it every day he reigned. The aim was to stop him thinking himself above his fellow Israelites.

Which tool pierces the ear of a servant who chooses to stay for life in Deuteronomy 15?

An awl is driven through the ear into the door of the household the servant has come to love. Otherwise a Hebrew servant went free in the seventh year, with gifts.

What must the builder of a new house put around its roof, in Deuteronomy 22?

A railing was required because a fatal fall made the whole household guilty. The same chapter tells finders to return a neighbour's straying livestock.

What must Israelites make on the four corners of the cloaks they wear, in Deuteronomy 22?

Tassels of knotted thread, called tzitzit, are still worn by observant Jews. They hang from the corners of the prayer shawl and of a smaller undergarment.

Which book of the Torah comes directly before Deuteronomy in the Bible?

Numbers, named for its two censuses, ends with Israel camped on the plains by the Jordan, which is exactly where Deuteronomy opens with Moses beginning his farewell speeches.

Which better-known name do other biblical books give Horeb, Deuteronomy's mountain of the covenant?

Mount Sinai is the name Exodus prefers. Deuteronomy says Horeb throughout and uses the other name just once, in the blessing near its close.

Which bird does the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 picture carrying its young on its wings?

An eagle hovering over its nest is the song's image of God leading Israel through the desert alone, with no foreign god alongside.

Which cave manuscripts, found from the 1940s, hold more copies of Deuteronomy than of Genesis?

Dead Sea Scrolls copies of Deuteronomy are outnumbered only by those of the Psalms, a sign of how heavily the community at Qumran leaned on the book.

Which crop does Deuteronomy 8 list beside wheat, barley, vines, figs and olive oil in the good land?

Pomegranates belong to the list Jewish tradition calls the Seven Species. Only the earliest pickings of those seven could be brought to the Temple as offerings.

Which pair does Moses summon to testify in Deuteronomy 30 as he urges Israel to choose life?

Heaven and earth are called on as he lays out the two paths open to the people. He invokes the same pair in the next chapter, before teaching his song.

Which tribe was split in Deuteronomy 3, half of it settling east of the Jordan with Reuben and Gad?

Manasseh's eastern half received Bashan, the former kingdom of Og. Its fighting men still had to cross the river armed and help the other tribes.

Whose descendants in Seir does Deuteronomy 2 forbid Israel to provoke, calling them brothers?

Esau was Jacob's twin, so his people counted as family. Israel was told to pay them in silver for every bit of food and water used while passing through.

Which son of Jephunneh does Deuteronomy 1 exempt from the ban on that generation entering the land?

Caleb was spared because he had followed the LORD wholeheartedly. He was promised the very ground his feet had walked on while scouting the country.

Why does Deuteronomy 7 say God will drive out the nations 'little by little' rather than at once?

Wild animals would multiply in emptied countryside before Israel could settle it. The chapter still promises that no king will be able to stand against them.

What must a harvester do with a sheaf forgotten out in the field, according to Deuteronomy 24?

Leave it behind is the rule, so that widows, orphans and newcomers can gather it. Olives and grapes were to be picked over only once for the same reason.

What does Deuteronomy 25 forbid a trader to keep two kinds of in one bag, heavy and light?

Weights that differ let a cheat buy with the heavy set and sell with the light. The chapter demands honest measures at home too, and ties long life to them.

By when must a lender return a poor man's cloak taken as security, according to Deuteronomy 24?

Sunset is the deadline, because the cloak is also the man's blanket at night. A hired worker's wages fall due by the same hour each day.

What share of an estate does Deuteronomy 21 guarantee a firstborn son whose mother is unloved?

A double portion belonged to the eldest by right. A man with two families could not hand that privilege to the son of the woman he preferred.

How does Deuteronomy 18 say to recognise a prophet who speaks presumptuously in the LORD's name?

His prediction fails to come true, and that is the whole test. The people are told they have no need to fear such a speaker.

What does Deuteronomy 10 tell Israel to circumcise, a metaphor Paul takes up in Romans 2?

Their hearts, not only their bodies, were to carry the sign of the covenant. Deuteronomy 30 goes further and promises that God will perform the operation himself.

What does Deuteronomy 19 forbid an Israelite to move, set up by ancestors on a neighbour's land?

A boundary marker fixed where a family's inherited plot ended, so shifting it was theft by stealth. Chapter 27 condemns the offence before the whole people.

What does Deuteronomy 33 say are 'underneath' Israel, whose dwelling place is the eternal God?

The everlasting arms come near the end of the blessing Moses gives the tribes. They are among the last words he speaks before climbing the mountain to die.

At which festival does Deuteronomy 31 order the teaching read aloud to Israel every seventh year?

Feast of Tabernacles crowds were to include men, women, children and resident outsiders, so that even those who had never heard the words would learn them.

Which tool does Deuteronomy 23 forbid a passer-by to use on a neighbour's standing grain?

A sickle would turn a snack into a harvest. Plucking a few ears by hand was allowed, the custom Jesus' disciples were following when they picked grain in a field.

Which household tools does Deuteronomy 24 forbid a creditor to take as security for a debt?

Millstones ground each day's flour, so seizing even the upper one took away a family's means of eating. The verse calls that taking a livelihood as security.

Which animal do a town's elders kill beside a stream when a murder goes unsolved, in Deuteronomy 21?

A heifer that has never worn a yoke is chosen. The elders of the nearest town wash their hands over it and declare that they neither did the deed nor saw it.

Which wood did Moses use to build the chest God ordered in Deuteronomy 10?

Acacia wood made the box that held the rewritten commandments. Moses says he placed them inside himself after coming down, and that they were still there.

Which people in Deuteronomy 7's list of nations to be driven out held Jerusalem until David took it?

Jebusites close the chapter's list of seven peoples said to be larger and stronger than Israel. Their city went by the name Jebus before it was conquered.

Which Bashan city named in Deuteronomy 4 shares its name with a plateau in south-west Syria?

Golan is listed with Bezer and Ramoth, giving each of the tribal groups settled east of the river a town of its own that Moses had set apart.

Deuteronomy's curses are often compared with vassal treaties of Esarhaddon, king of which empire?

Assyria was ruled by Esarhaddon from 681 to 669 BCE. The scholar Moshe Weinfeld pointed to close parallels between his loyalty oaths and Deuteronomy's own.

Which tribe does the Blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy 33 call a lion's cub leaping out of Bashan?

Dan receives one of the shortest blessings in the chapter, a single line. Jacob's older deathbed blessing in Genesis gives the lion image to Judah instead.

In Deuteronomy 26's harvest-offering creed, the worshipper calls his ancestor a wandering what?

Aramean opens a short creed that retells the whole story: a handful of people go down to Egypt, grow into a nation, are oppressed and are brought out again.

Which German scholar coined 'Deuteronomistic history' in 1943 for the books that follow Deuteronomy?

Martin Noth argued that a single writer in the sixth century BCE shaped those histories to explain the fall of Jerusalem in Deuteronomy's own language.

Which part of the body does Deuteronomy 9 call stiff when Moses describes Israel's stubbornness?

The neck gives the old insult stiff-necked, which Moses uses to insist that the good land is no reward for Israel's own righteousness.