Deuteronomy 12:2-28

I. First Division of the Laws: on Worship and Religious Institutions Deuteronomy 12:2 to Deuteronomy 16:17; Deuteronomy 16:21 to Deuteronomy 17:7

Some 16 laws occupying because of their subject the premier place in the Code.

2 28. The Law of the One Altar and its Corollary

As we have seen the law of One Sanctuary for Israel was, in the circumstances of that people in the 7th century, an inevitable consequence from the prophetic proclamation of One God for Israel. For the practice of worshipping Him at many shrines, sanctioned by Himself in the earlier period of Israel's settlement, had, especially as many of the sites chosen were those of the Canaanite worship of local Ba-alim, tended to break up the people's belief in His Unity. He became to their minds many Jehovahs (see above on Deuteronomy 6:4); and at the same time their conceptions of Him were degraded by the confusion of His attributes with those of the deities to whose shrines He had succeeded. Therefore as the Unity of Jehovah and His ethical character are the burden of the Miṣwah or Charge introductory to the Code it is appropriate that the first of the laws should be that abolishing the custom of sacrifice at many sanctuaries and limiting His ritual to a single altar. Note, too, how this is immediately followed by a warning against the worship of other gods (Deuteronomy 12:29); and that the next laws (Deuteronomy 12:32 to Deuteronomy 13:18) deal with those who entice, or are enticed, to that worship. Nothing could more clearly show how urgently the concentration of the worship of Jehovah was required in the interest of faith in His Unity and in His spiritual nature. How thoroughly such a law contradicts the earlier legislation about altars, as well as the divinely sanctioned practice of sacrifice in Israel after the settlement; and how far it is incompatible with the corresponding laws in P, will appear in the notes.

The chapter has some obvious editorial insertions disturbing the connection (Deuteronomy 12:3; Deuteronomy 12:15; Deuteronomy 12:32); but there are besides repetitions of the central injunction of the law in the same or similar phraseology and introduced or followed by different reasons for it. A careful analysis shows that these are not due to the discursiveness of one writer, but are statements of the same law from different writers of the same religious school. This conclusion is confirmed by the prevalence in Deuteronomy 12:2 of the Pl. and in Deuteronomy 12:13 of the Sg. form of address. But even within Deuteronomy 12:2 there is a double statement of the central injunction; on the other hand in Deuteronomy 12:13 the repetitions are either clearly editorial insertions, or due to the necessity of repeating the central injunction of the law in a practical corollary permitting the non-sacrificial enjoyment of flesh to Israelites, too far from the One Altar to be able regularly to consecrate it there. Thus we may distinguish three statements or editions of the law, 1st Deuteronomy 12:2 Pl.; 2nd Deuteronomy 12:8 Pl.; 3rd Deuteronomy 12:13 Sg., with the practical corollary or supplement to the law, Deuteronomy 12:20, the whole enforced by a general exhortation in Deuteronomy 12:28. All three statements have much in common: defining the One Sanctuary as the place which Jehovah your(or thy) God shall choose to put His name there(1st and 3rd) or cause His name to dwell there(2nd); detailing the same list of sacrifices and offerings which are to be brought(1st and 2nd) or offered(3rd which has also take and go), but with some variations, for while all have burnt offerings, vows, tithes, contributions (A.V. and R.V. heave offerings), only the 1st and 3rd add sacrifices to burnt-offerings, the 2nd speaks of choice vows, the 3rd defines the tithes to be in kind, the 1st and 3rd add freewill offerings and firstlings and the 3rd speaks of holy things. The variations in the descriptions of how the feasts are to be enjoyed and who are to enjoy them are just such as might be made by different but sympathetic writers with the same aim. But all three give different prefaces to the law, the first two containing different reasons for it. As it is uncertain whether we have these three readings of the law complete, it is impossible to say which of them is the earlier. It is natural to suppose priority for the Sg. statement; but as they stand the 1st is the least developed. And it is only the 3rd or Sg. statement which has added to it the practical corollary of permission for the non-sacrificial enjoyment of flesh.