The Rational Bible: Deuteronomy

Dennis Prager

• Publisher: Regnery Faith
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781621579007
• eBook ISBN: 9781621579014
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Is the Bible, the most influential book in world history, still relevant?

Why do people dismiss it as being irrelevant, irrational, immoral, or all of these things?

This explanation of the Book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible, will demonstrate how it remains profoundly relevant—both to the great issues of our day and to each individual life.

Do you doubt the existence of God because you think believing in God is irrational? This book will cause you to reexamine your doubts.

The title of this commentary is The Rational Bible because its approach is entirely reason-based. The reader is never asked to accept anything on faith alone. In Dennis Prager’s words, “If something I write is not rational, I have not done my job.”

The Rational Bible is the fruit of Prager’s forty years of teaching to people of every faith and no faith at all. On virtually every page, you will discover how the text relates to the contemporary world in general and to you on a personal level.

His goal: to change your mind—and, as a result, to change your life.

CHAPTER

1

This is the last of the five books of the Torah, the most influential body of literature in history. Deuteronomy is particularly significant because it is, in effect, Moses’s last will and testament to Israel and, for that matter, to the world.

The name Deuteronomy comes from the Greek words for “second law” or “second teaching” (deuteros = second; nomos = law). Moses himself describes this book as a “second teaching” (Deuteronomy 17:18), which is how ancient Jews referred to the book. It is the “second teaching” because it is Moses’s review of many of the laws found in the previous books of the Torah (as well as additional laws and teachings).

Just about every aspect of life—religion, morality, happiness, anger, judgment—is contained in Deuteronomy. And the most important document of the Bible, the Ten Commandments, is repeated here.

As there is virtually no narrative in Deuteronomy—only laws and beliefs—it is not necessary to read Deuteronomy straight through. I therefore suggest that general readers (as opposed to students of the Bible) first look for subject headings that interest them and proceed from there.

WHY MOSES INTRODUCED NEW LAWS AND NEW IDEAS

1.1 These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel

Deuteronomy consists of three final addresses given by Moses to the Israelites. In addition to reviewing laws and giving new laws, he offered his perspective on the people’s travels and travails. Deuteronomy is, therefore, composed overwhelmingly of Moses’s words. But due to Moses’s uniquely close relationship with God—“Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses whom the Lord singled out face to face” (Deuteronomy 34:10)—these words can be regarded as having divine approval for inclusion in the Torah.

As to why Moses gave new commandments in Deuteronomy, the Bible commentator Nachmanides (Ramban, 1194–1270, Spain and Israel) explained: “The reason the new commandments were not mentioned in earlier books… is that perhaps these commandments, though incumbent on the individual wherever he might be, were not actually practiced until they entered the land. Moses did not mention them until it was time for the generations of those who left Egypt to take possession of the land.”

Thus, for example, Moses introduced certain offerings to be brought to the Temple with the words, “When you enter the land which I am giving you to settle in…” (Numbers 15:2, emphasis added). So, then, my understanding of Deuteronomy is that it consists of Moses’s words (except when God is directly quoted). No matter when or how it was written, it has the divine imprimatur, and is therefore part of the Torah.

DID MOSES WRITE EVERY WORD OF DEUTERONOMY?

on the other side of the Jordan

The words “on the other side of the Jordan [River]” have presented scholars, both modern and medieval, with an obvious question. The medieval Bible scholar Ibn Ezra (1089–1167, Spain) posed the question this way: If Moses wrote every word in the Torah, why would he use the phrase “on the other side of the Jordan”? That implied that Moses was writing from inside the Jordan River, i.e., Israel—not “the other side.” But Moses was never in Israel.

Citing Ibn Ezra, the British Jewish theologian Louis Jacobs wrote: “This expression makes sense only to someone writing in Israel, which Moses never entered. This would appear to suggest some parts of the Torah were written after Moses. Ibn Ezra appears to accept this, but because it is a very radical departure from the tradition [that Moses wrote the Torah], he remarks on it only by hint.”¹

There are two ways of dealing with the dilemma cited by Ibn Ezra.² One is that Moses could simply have written whatever God instructed him to write, including writing of the Canaanites in the past tense (“And the Canaanite was then in the land”—Genesis 12:6), as well as details of his own death and burial. The other is to accept that Joshua or someone else wrote some of the Torah’s words after Moses’s death.

As I write in the introduction, I am not concerned with the who or how of the Torah’s composition. I am concerned that it be regarded as a divine document. That is what matters.

—through the wilderness, in the Arabah near Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab.

1.2 It is eleven days from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea by the Mount Seir route.—

The Hebrew Bible uses Horeb interchangeably with Mount Sinai.

Kadesh-barnea is at the entrance to the southern border of Canaan. Moses stated that it takes only eleven days to get there from Sinai. The reason he did so is obvious. In the words of the ancient rabbinic commentary Sifre, “Had Israel been worthy, they could have entered the Land within eleven days; but they were sadly found wanting, and they drew upon themselves the punishment of forty years’ wandering.”

1.3 It was in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, that Moses addressed the Israelites in accordance with the instructions that the Lord had given him for them,

1.4 after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan, who dwelt at Ashtaroth [and] Edrei.

The Hebrew of this verse is ambiguous: Is Moses or God credited with defeating Sihon? This English translation spells “he” with a lowercase “h,” meaning the translators believe the reference is to Moses. In any case, Moses mentions these victories to remind the Israelites of all that God did for them.

The Torah’s description of the defeat of Sihon and Og is in the Book of Numbers, the book immediately preceding Deuteronomy (Numbers 21:21–35; see also Numbers 32:33). Although Moses alludes to this victory yet again in Deuteronomy 3, the story of the conquest of Canaan is related in the Book of Joshua, the biblical book immediately following Deuteronomy.

ON THE NEED TO EXPLAIN THE TORAH

1.5 On the other side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to expound this Teaching.

The most revered Jewish Bible commentator, Rashi (1040–1105, France), wrote that the meaning of “expound this Torah (‘Teaching’)” here and in Deuteronomy 27:8 was that Moses had the Torah translated into seventy languages. “Seventy nations” is the traditional way of referring to all the world’s nations.³ In other words, Jews are obligated to bring the Torah to the world. And since the world’s nations will relate only to a text that is perceived as rational, it is imperative to explain (“expound”) the Torah—and its laws. The entire premise of this commentary, The Rational Bible—that the Torah is to be explained to the world if there is any chance of goodness prevailing on Earth—is not some idiosyncratic view of mine, but the normative view of Jews going back thousands of years.

The related question of whether one should seek rational explanations for all the Torah’s laws is the subject of three extended essays:

“Do People Need to Understand Religious Rituals?” (Numbers 19:2).

“Do All of the Torah’s Laws Have Reasons?” (Deuteronomy 4:1).

“What Does It Mean to Be ‘Wise in the Eyes of the Nations’?” (Deuteronomy 4:6).

It is also the subject of the commentary to Deuteronomy 27:8.

MOSES’S FIRST ADDRESS

He said:

This marks the beginning of Moses’s first address, which lasts until Deuteronomy 4:40.

1.6 The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying: You have stayed long enough at this mountain.

1.7 Start out and make your way to the hill country of the Amorites and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, the hill country, the Shephelah, the Negeb, the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and the Lebanon, as far as the Great River, the river Euphrates.

1.8 See, I place the land at your disposal. Go, take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to assign to them and to their heirs after them.

As noted on a number of occasions, the purpose of taking possession of the Promised Land was to enable the Israelites to build a society that would be a “light unto the nations” (Isaiah 49:6). Therefore, if the Israelites engaged in immoral behavior, they too would be dispossessed (see, for example, Leviticus 18:28).

1.9 Thereupon I said to you, “I cannot bear the burden of you by myself.

Moses said, “I said to you at that time” (italics added), even though most of the people he was addressing were not alive at the time he was discussing. Moses spoke this way throughout his address, mixing past, present, and future generations, because he was addressing every generation who will ever read Deuteronomy.

In the words of Bible scholar Richard Elliott Friedman (professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia): “The concept of a ‘nation’ or ‘people’ is a fluid one, crossing lines of generations. Like a river, which is constantly being made up of new molecules of water yet is always the same river… so a people retains its identity even though its individual members are constantly changing over time.”⁴

1.10 The Lord your God has multiplied you until you are today as numerous as the stars in the sky.—

“Numerous as the stars in the sky” is an expression, not a literal statement. See the commentary to Genesis 22:17.

1.11 May the Lord, the God of your fathers, increase your numbers a thousandfold, and bless you as He promised you.—

Although Moses asserted that the Israelites’ great numbers became a burden, he nonetheless asked God to continue to increase their numbers. Despite his periodic exasperation and anger with the Israelites, Moses remained their great advocate.

1.12 How can I bear unaided the trouble of you, and the burden, and the bickering!

Of all the problems the Israelites presented to Moses, it was their constant arguing (“bickering” here) and complaining that most angered him. Anyone who lives with a querulous individual at home or at work can well understand Moses.

ESSAY: A GOOD SOCIETY IS UNATTAINABLE WITHOUT WISDOM

1.13 Pick from each of your tribes men who are wise, discerning, and experienced, and I will appoint them as your heads.”

In Moses’s recounting, God did not tell him to pick good men to be leaders. Wouldn’t being a good person be one of the major attributes, if not the major attribute, one would seek in a leader? While the Torah takes for granted that a leader should be a good person, goodness is not sufficient. That is why all three traits listed here concern wisdom. There is an extraordinarily important lesson here—one of the most important in the Torah and in life: A good society is unattainable without wisdom.

That is why God told Moses to choose wise men rather than good men. There have always been people who were personally good—individuals who had good intentions and even a kindly disposition—who enabled evil to prevail.

Let me offer two examples, one personal and one global.

I have interviewed recovering drug and alcohol addicts, many of whom told me one reason they continued their drug or alcohol use was that their family enabled them. People who enable addicts often hurt them. This damage is done by people with good and loving intentions.

Quite aside from addiction, parents who coddle or spoil their children don’t necessarily lack goodness or good intentions; they lack wisdom.

In the global sphere, the most obvious modern example of the devastating effects of good intentions without wisdom has been communism, which killed about one hundred million innocent people, non-combatants all, and enslaved a billion more. Communist tyrants had tens of millions of supporters within their countries and around the world. Most communist leaders were power-hungry, cruel, and evil people, and many of their supporters were immoral sycophants. But a significant number of people supported communism because they thought it would make a better world.

For many of its supporters, communism was rooted in a desire to do good. The many millions of people all over the world who supported communism did not think they were supporting unprecedented levels of mass murder and torture, or the near-total deprivation of the most fundamental human rights for a substantial percentage of humanity. They thought they were supporting the creation of a beautiful future for humanity. They were convinced the moral arc of history was bending in their direct...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Preface
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20
• Chapter 21
• Chapter 22
• Chapter 23
• Chapter 24
• Chapter 25
• Chapter 26
• Chapter 27
• Chapter 28
• Chapter 29
• Chapter 30
• Chapter 31
• Chapter 32
• Chapter 33
• Chapter 34
• Genesis
• About the Author
• Notes
• Copyright