Devarim

In the synagogue the Torah is read aloud in a fixed annual cycle of fifty-four weekly portions (parashiyot), one each Shabbat morning, with certain adjacent portions doubled in ordinary years so the sequence fits the calendar. Each portion is named for a distinctive word near its opening and is paired with a haftarah, a reading from the Prophets. The cycle closes and restarts on Simchat Torah. Devarim ('Words', Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22) opens the book of Deuteronomy, Moses' long farewell address on the plains of Moab, recalling the journey from Sinai, the appointment of leaders, the episode of the spies, and the conquests east of the Jordan. It is read on the Shabbat before the fast of Tisha b'Av, called Shabbat Chazon.

Devarim opens the book classical Jewish tradition calls Mishneh Torah, a repetition or review of the Torah, since Moses' address largely retells and reframes the preceding books' narrative and law for a new generation that had not itself stood at Sinai, the entire first generation of the Exodus having died in the wilderness over the preceding forty years. Moses' recollection of appointing judges 'wise, understanding and full of knowledge' (Deuteronomy 1:13-15) is read by commentators alongside its earlier telling in Yitro, where the idea originates with Jethro rather than Moses himself, a discrepancy classical commentary reconciles by reading Devarim's version as Moses' own retrospective account emphasising the people's participation in choosing their leaders.

Deuteronomy's overall structure, an opening historical review of the journey from Sinai, a central law code, and closing blessings and curses invoking witnesses to the covenant, closely follows the standard form of ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties known from Hittite and later Assyrian archives, which likewise open with a historical prologue recounting the great king's past benefits before setting out obligations and consequences. Biblical scholars, drawing on this comparison, read Devarim as opening a book deliberately organised as a covenant renewal document addressed to a new generation, structurally distinct from the narrative-legal style of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers that precede it.

Deuteronomy's speeches shift, sometimes within a single paragraph, between addressing Israel in the second person singular and the second person plural, a grammatical inconsistency easily lost in English translation but visible in the Hebrew text, that scholars studying Deuteronomy's own composition, apart from the broader source-critical model applied to the earlier books, have long used as evidence that the book combines material from more than one stage of composition or editing, though specialists differ on how many layers to distinguish and how to date each one.