Introduction

Commentaries come in all sorts of form, shape and flavour. Some are written by scholars for scholars; these, naturally assume that the reader are familiar with the various schools of interpretational theories involved. Others are written by pastors for pastors. With regards to Deuteronomy, there are quite a number of these latter ones. These tend to be heavy on application and thin—sometimes woefully so—on exegesis. These commentaries prove the point that it is possible to write a commentary that is faithful in what it says and yet leaves readers totally in the dark about what the book of Deuteronomy actually says. A good example Deut 1:9-18. Almost all of them would go on a lengthy discussion about the structure and qualities of leadership that Moses is supposed to have espoused to the ancient Israelites and how they may or should apply in the Christian community. These comments can be extremely useful and sound, but they say nothing, e.g., about what the passage does within the book of Deuteronmy. As has been noted elsewhere in the introduction to the book of Deuteronmy, the book is an edited record of what Moses had taught the Israelites on the eve of their conquest of the Promised Land. There, on the plains of Moab, the system of leadership exemplified by Deut 1:9-18 had already been in service for nearly forty years, and this passage simply recalled (reported) what Moses had done with and for the parents of those on the plains of Moab. What those commentaries say about the structure and qualities of leadership may be, as we have said, be sound and useful, but they explain nothing about why Moses recalled that incidence of their introduction four decades earlier, which, properly is what a good commentary should do. Many of them, in fact, do not even seem to be aware of the difference between a record and a report.

The present commentary is adament that we should understand Deuteronomy within its own context. While application—what do Deuteronomy has to teach us about living the life of faith before God today—is extremely important to us, we are convince that the book has first to be understood in the way that the narrator/s (who put Moses's exposition into writing) had structured the book. Anything less, we believel, is a failure to understand the book. But Deuteronomy is a highly sophisticated piece of literature. To do what we want to do—diving into the structural innards of the book, to see how it is held together—means that we have to go back and forth; first looking at large blocks of the texts (imagine looking at the forest from an aeroplane), then going down to the level of the individual verses and words (looking in detail at indiviudal trees or plants among the undergrowth), and then back again into the aeroplane. This is a lot of work, both for the commentator, as well as the readers. The hard work, however, is extremely rewarding, offering the would-be reader vistas of theological and literary treasures one never suspects even existed. I had attempted as hard as I could to explain things as clearly as I can with such a complex work in the commentary when it was first published by Asia Theological Association. The editing process, however, had obscured this like the vines on Sleeping Beauty's castle. I hope that this electronic version will restore that view and open fresh insights for the reader as it was originally intended.