Deuteronomy
The name Deuteronomy comes from the Greek name of the book which means "the second law." The Hebrew title means "These are the words," based on the first verse of the book.
Key phrases in Deuteronomy:
"with all your heart and soul,"
"in order that it may go well with you,"
"be thankful,"
"in a place he himself will choose,"
"a land where milk and honey flow,"
"if only you obey the voice of Yahweh your God."
Because Deuteronomy 12 demanded that Israel sacrifice only at a single (unnamed) sanctuary, which was taken to be the Temple at Jerusalem, Josiah ordered the wholesale destruction of all other altars, shrines, and cult sites at which the country people had worshiped for centuries. Ironically, a text intended to enhance a sanctuary in the northern kingdom, probably at either Shiloh or Shechem, ultimately was used to support the preeminence of Solomon's Temple.
The Shema
The Shema is a classic definition of Israel's essential faith. Read Deuteronomy 6:4-9.
The Deuteronomic Hypothesis of History
It states that Israel's future is totally conditional on the Israelites' collective religious behavior. Obedience to the Torah will bring national prosperity; disobedience will result in national disaster, including military defeat and exile. This idea is fundamental to the rest of the Old Testament. You will need to understand the Deuteronomic Hypothesis to understand what happens in Judges, and with the prophets.
The Year of Jubilee
This is when debts are forgiven and slaves freed. Note Deuteronomy chapter 15. Israelite slaves were those who had sold themselves into slavery in order to pay off their financial obligations. The purpose of the Year of Jubilee was two-fold:
1. to limit the accumulation of wealth by prosperous creditors
2. ensuring that the poor did not sink permanently into hopeless debt.
Every seventh year was called the Sabbatical Year. During this year, the land was to lie uncultivated, with neither sowing nor harvesting permitted. Yahweh was to be acknowledged as the supreme landlord, and the human owners as merely "strangers and guests." (Note Leviticus 25:1-2).
There is also the "super" Sabbatical Year. This year was called the Year of Jubilee. It was held in the fiftieth year as the culmination of seven Sabbatical cycles of seven years each. During this year of Jubilee, all land was to be returned to its ancestral owners and all Israelite slaves freed. This festival of wholesale land remission was proclaimed on the Day of Atonement by the blowing of a shofar which is a trumpet made from a ram's horn. This celebration takes its name from the Hebrew word for ram's horn.
Many scholars believe that the Jubilee was introduced at the close of the Babylonian exile, which lasted exactly forty-nine years (587 to 538 B.C.E.), permitting exiles returning to their homeland to reclaim property they or their forbears had been forced to sell when they were deported to Babylon. This concept of the Jubilee Year was later seen as prophetic of a future time of full liberation for the Israelites.
Moses saw the Promised Land but he died on Mt. Nebo. He dies at the age of 120. The final words of the Book of Deuteronomy serve as his epitaph. (Read Deut. 34:1-12.)
Conclusion
In its present position, Deuteronomy functions as a capstone to the Pentateuch. It is also a thematically appropriate introduction to the second major division of the Hebrew Bible, the books of Joshua through 2 Kings. Like Deuteronomy, the Deuteronomistic History is written from the perspective that the covenant people freely chose their tragic fate by failing to honor their collective vow to worship Yahweh alone.