Deuteronomy דברים
The fifth book of the Torah: Moshe's farewell addresses on the plains of Moav in the last weeks of his life.
Devarim differs from the other books in tone: almost all of it is Moshe speaking in the first person. It is his farewell—thirty-seven days of addresses to a nation he led out of Egypt as children and that now enters the Land without him.
He retells the forty years, sparing neither the people nor himself; repeats the Ten Utterances with small variations; and speaks the Shema, which became the opening of every prayer. Here too are the laws of the king, of war, of courts, of shmita and charity; the commandments of tefillin and mezuzah; the blessing and the curse; and, again and again, the demand to remember.
The book closes with the song Haazinu, the blessing of the tribes and the account of Moshe's death on Mount Nebo.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Tanakh
- Devarim 1–34 — Moshe’s farewell addresses
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Megillah 31b — the curses of Devarim are read before Rosh Hashanah
- Bava Batra 14b — the dispute over the last eight verses
- Sifrei Devarim — the halakhic midrash on the book
Rishonim
- Rashi on Devarim 1:1 — the reproaches concealed in the place names
Basis: tradition.