Having reminded GenB of the covenant in which they now stand and how he came into his present role as their intermediary, Moses now turns to the future, to life in the land GenB was crossing over to occupy. His speech here consists largely of four portraits of life in that land, each dealing with a different concern about that life:

While the four portraits may be read as independent units they, nonetheless, are bound by over-arching structures so that they fall into two larger units consisting of Chaps 6-8 (which we titled here as "Blessings & Temptations in the Land") and Chaps 9:1-11:17 ("No Room for Presumptuous Self-Righteousness"). Bracketing these two units (or four portraits of life in the land) we find outer sets of twin calls to obey and to teach the Word to the children in 6:1-9 and 11:18-25:

¹These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God your God directed me to teach you . . . your children and their children . . . may fear the Lord your God . . . by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you . . . ³Hear, O Israel, . . . promised you. . . . Love the Lord your God your God. . . ⁶These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹Write them on the door-frames of your houses and on your gates.

(Blessings & Temptations of the Land)

1. Life in the Land as Cause to Fear Yahweh, 6:10-25,

2. Life in the Land and the Matter of its Present Inhabitants, 7:1-26,

3. Life in the Land and the Danger of Forgetting Yahweh, 8:1-20,

(No Room for Presumptuous Self-Righteousness)

4. Life in the Land & the Fact of Israel as a Rebellious People, 9:1-11:17

¹⁸Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ¹⁹Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ²⁰Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, . . If you carefully observe all these commandsI am giving you to follow—to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him . . .—²³then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, . . . as he promised you . . .

The fourth portrait is the most complex and with it Moses reaches the climactic centre of his speech (and the centre of the book of Deuteronomy) in which he recalls Israel's rebellion in their orgy with the golden calf at Horeb. Here Mount Horeb stands out among the narrative like Kilimanjaro among the Tanzanian plains. There they had made Yahweh angry enough to want to destroy them. The point is made lucidly clear that whatever Israel may accomplish in the land, she lives by grace; that what she needs is not a detailed and comprehensive catalogue of laws but a heart that is disposed towards trusting Yahweh, loving him, and walking in his ways. The law is not the heart of Deuteronomy; Israel's heart is.

A first reading of this section can seem confusing because of the large number of repetitions. These repetitions—as you would have already glimpse from the early introduction to Moses' Second Address (for a reminder ☰)—are, however, not artless. The first portrait in Chap 6 serves like a prologue and in it are raised initial concerns, for example, about loving Yahweh (v5), not forgetting Him after being sated in the land (v12), fearing Yahweh (v13), and not worshipping other gods (v14). These are then taken up and expounded in greater details in the following portraits.

B. At the Mountain of Rebellion,6:1-11:25

B. At the Mountain of Rebellion,
6:1-11:25