The Book of the Covenant. As we begin reading the fifth and final book of the Torah,

I'd like to discuss three questions. First, why does the book of Devarim have the structure it does,

a mixed of history, law, recollection, and anticipation? The sages knew that Devarim had a clear structure. Elsewhere in the Torah, some rabbis used the principle of smithat, smithutah parisiod, that we can learn something from the fact that passage Y occurs immediately after passage X. However, others didn't because there's a rule ain't Mukdam or Mohra by Torah, meaning the

Torah doesn't always follow a strict chronological sequence, so we cannot always attach significance

to the fact that the passages are in the order they are.

However, everyone agrees that there is precise order and structure in the book of Devarim.

But what is that order?

Second, the rabbis originally called Devarim Mishnet Torah, a second law.

Hence the Latin named Deuteronomy, which means the second law.

But in what sense is Devarium a second law some of the laws moses states in the book have appeared before others haven't is it a repetition of the laws moses received at sinai in the tent of meeting or is it something new what exactly is the meaning of Mishnah Torah third? What is the book doing here?

It represents the speeches Moses delivered in the last month of his life to the generation who would cross the Jordan and enter the promised land.

Why is it included in the Torah at all? If the terror is a history book, then we should proceed

directly from the end of Bermidba, the arrival of the Israelites at the bank of the river Jordan,

to the book of Joshua when they crossed the river and began their conquest of the land.

If the terror is a book of law, then DeVarim should just be a collection of

laws without all the historical reminiscence and prophecy it contains. So what kind of book is Devarim?

And what is its significance to the Torah Zahol? A number of relatively recent archaeological discoveries have, however, thrown

new light on all these questions. They're the engraved records of ancient treaties between

neighboring powers. Among them are the steely of the vultures, commemorating the victory of Aonatum, Ruggulah of Lagash in southern Mesopotamia, over the people of Umah, and that of Naram Sin, king of Kish and Akad, with the ruler of Elam.

Both date from the third millennium BCE, that is to say, before the time of Abraham.

These treaties are of two kinds, between parties of roughly equal power, which are called

parity treaties, and those between a strong one, precursor of the modern idea of a superpower and a weak one.

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