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Who Is Deuteronomy’s Audience?
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Moses speaks to his people in the land of the Moab, in the fortieth year of Exodus. Etching by C. Mosley, 1747. Wellcome Images
Moses’s three addresses of unequal length, each preceded by a brief third-person introduction, make up most of Deuteronomy:
- 1:6–4:43, with the introduction in 1:1–5
- 5:1–28:69, with the introduction in 4:44–5:1
- 29:1b–30:20, with the introduction in 29:1a
The book closes with a third-person narrative (chs. 31–34) that includes another, very brief, address by Moses (31:2–6), as well as two poems purportedly written and spoken by Moses (32:1–43, ch. 33).
The attribution to Moses makes the book an early example of a pseudepigraphon, a work attributed to a great hero of the past who was not its actual author, a mode that flourished in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity.[1] Deuteronomy is also the first instance of what Hindy Najman (University of Oxford) has called “Mosaic discourse,” the attribution of a work or traditions to Moses; the book of Jubilees from the Second Temple period is another example of such discourse.
The attribution to Moses serves to confer greater authority on a work than it would otherwise command, but it also likely reflects the authors’ understanding that they write in continuity with the traditions of Moses, even as they update those traditions to clarify their relevance to contemporary situations.[2]
Imagining an Audience for Moses’s Speeches
Casting Moses’s words in the form of farewell addresses required the authors to imagine an audience,[3] which Deuteronomy presents as the assembled Israelites as they stand on the verge of entering the land. Deuteronomy’s authors devote significant effort to evoking Moses’s audience, including repeated reminders to his listeners of what they personally experienced in the course of the exodus and the forty years in the wilderness.
A particularly striking example, at the beginning of Moses’s third speech, focuses on the bodily experience of his audience—what they saw with their own eyes at the Exodus:
דברים כט:א וַיִּקְרָא מֹשֶׁה אֶל כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם אַתֶּם רְאִיתֶם אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה יְ־הוָה לְעֵינֵיכֶם בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לְפַרְעֹה וּלְכָל עֲבָדָיו וּלְכָל אַרְצוֹ. כט:ב הַמַּסּוֹת הַגְּדֹלֹת אֲשֶׁר רָאוּ עֵינֶיךָ הָאֹתֹת וְהַמֹּפְתִים הַגְּדֹלִים הָהֵם.
Deut 29:1 Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: You have seen all that YHWH did before your very eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his courtiers and to his whole country; 29:2 the wondrous feats that your own eyes saw, those prodigious signs and marvels.[4]
The appeal to what the Israelites saw with their own eyes is a repeated refrain in Deuteronomy, phrased in several different ways:
- אשר ראו עיניך, “which your eyes saw” (4:9, 7:19, 10:21, 29:2)
- עיניכם הראות, “your eyes [that] see” (3:21 [addressed to Joshua, here with a singular possessive], 4:3, 11:7)[5]
- לעיניכם/לעיניך, “before your eyes” (1:30, 4:34, 9:17, 29:1)
Yet Moses’s account of the behavior of the very Israelites whose eyes saw YHWH’s wonderous deeds includes the incident of the golden calf (Deut 9:11–20) and other instances of complaints and rebellious behavior (9:21–23). Perhaps this is why Deuteronomy admits that seeing does not necessarily lead to understanding:
דברים כט:ג וְלֹא נָתַן יְ־הוָה לָכֶם לֵב לָדַעַת וְעֵינַיִם לִרְאוֹת וְאָזְנַיִם לִשְׁמֹעַ עַד הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה.
Deut 29:3 Yet to this day YHWH has not given you a mind to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.
And if Deuteronomy is skeptical about the efficacy of personal experience for the generation of the exodus, what did its authors expect the impact of Moses’s rhetoric of personal experience would be on their own audience? Paradoxically, the vividness of the evocation of what the Israelites experienced helps Deuteronomy’s readers imagine the experience and its power, yet the repeated insistence that the experience belongs to the generation of the exodus has a distancing effect on readers who are surely not members of that generation.[6]
Deuteronomy’s audience, however, is not so different from Moses’s implied audience.[7] In the story of the scouts, which Moses recounts in his first address, the Israelites’ lack of faith in the wake of the scouts’ report leads YHWH to swear that the generation that left Egypt as adults will not be allowed to enter the land (1:34–35).[8] Moses later notes that this generation has already died (2:14–16).
Thus, Moses’s audience would not have personally experienced all the wonders that he insists their eyes have seen; rather, they would be the descendants of the exodus generation. If Moses can talk to these descendants as though they experienced the exodus, then later readers of Deuteronomy as well can see themselves as addressed by Moses’s words.
Moses Originally Addressed the Exodus Generation
Against this reading, Jeffrey Stackert (University of Chicago) has recently argued that in the original form of Deuteronomy, Moses’s audience was the exodus generation and its offspring.[9] In Stackert’s view, Deuteronomy understood Israel’s time in the wilderness not as punishment for specific sins, as it is in the other sources of the Torah, but rather as a period of preparation and training intended to improve Israel and wean it from its inclination to sin.
The scouts who brought back the bad report of the land were themselves to die in the wilderness, but the punishment did not fall on the entire generation.[10] Indeed, Stackert argues, punishment of the entire generation would undercut the didactic purpose Deuteronomy attributed to the time in the wilderness.[11]
Only when the Torah was assembled and readers came to Deuteronomy after absorbing Numbers’ scouts narrative (chs. 13–14) did Deuteronomy’s picture of the composition of Moses’s audience become a problem. Deuteronomy was then revised to accommodate the readers’ expectation that the generation of the exodus had died in the wilderness.[12]
Future Generations
But even if Stackert is correct, Deuteronomy’s readers still have reason to believe that Moses is addressing them along with the audience of Israelites about to enter the land, as Moses himself makes clear at the beginning of his third and final speech, when he explicitly identifies whom he is addressing:
דברים כט:ט אַתֶּם נִצָּבִים הַיּוֹם כֻּלְּכֶם לִפְנֵי יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם רָאשֵׁיכֶם שִׁבְטֵיכֶם זִקְנֵיכֶם וְשֹׁטְרֵיכֶם כֹּל אִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל. כט:י טַפְּכֶם נְשֵׁיכֶם וְגֵרְךָ אֲשֶׁר בְּקֶרֶב מַחֲנֶיךָ מֵחֹטֵב עֵצֶיךָ עַד שֹׁאֵב מֵימֶיךָ. כט:יא לְעָבְרְךָ בִּבְרִית יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ וּבְאָלָתוֹ אֲשֶׁר יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ כֹּרֵת עִמְּךָ הַיּוֹם.
Deut 29:9 You stand this day, all of you, before YHWH your God—your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, 29:10 your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water drawer— 29:11 to enter into the covenant of YHWH your God, which YHWH your God is concluding with you this day, with its sanctions.
Perhaps most remarkable, Moses claims that he is speaking not only to those present but also to “those who are not with us here this day”:
דברים כט:יג וְלֹא אִתְּכֶם לְבַדְּכֶם אָנֹכִי כֹּרֵת אֶת הַבְּרִית הַזֹּאת... כט:יד כִּי אֶת אֲשֶׁר יֶשְׁנוֹ פֹּה עִמָּנוּ עֹמֵד הַיּוֹם לִפְנֵי יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ וְאֵת אֲשֶׁר אֵינֶנּוּ פֹּה עִמָּנוּ הַיּוֹם.
Deut 29:13 I make this covenant…not with you alone, 29:14 but both with those who are standing here with us this day before YHWH our God and with those who are not with us here this day.
Moses here is referring to the future generations who are implicated in the Israelites’ acceptance of the covenant, a concept that Deuteronomy’s authors may have drawn from ancient treaty traditions.
Esarhaddon’s Loyalty Oath
It has long been recognized that Deuteronomy’s understanding of God’s covenant with Israel is indebted to the treaties the great kings of the ancient Near East made with their vassals.[13] Until the middle of the twentieth century scholars could draw only on Hittite treaties from the second millennium B.C.E., long before Deuteronomy was composed.[14] But in 1956 at Nimrud in Iraq, and again in 2009 at Tell Tayinat in Turkey, archeologists discovered copies of the treaty, or, better, loyalty oath, that the Assyrian king Esarhaddon imposed on subject kings to assure the accession of his chosen heir, Assurbanipal.[15]
The treaty dates to 672 B.C.E., not far from the dates many scholars suggest for Deuteronomy’s composition.[16] Many elements of the treaty serve to illumine Deuteronomy,[17] but most relevant for our purposes is its explicit claim that the oath of allegiance Esarhaddon requires from his vassals obligates not just those taking the oath but future generations as well:
The adê [loyalty oath] of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, with the governor of Kunalia, with the deputy, the majordomo, the scribes, the chariot drivers, the third men, the village managers, the information officers, the prefects, the cohort commanders, the charioteers, the cavalrymen, the exempt, the outriders, the specialists, the shi[eld bearers (?)], the craftsmen, (and) with [all] the men [of his hands], great and small, as many as there are—[wi]th them and with the men who are born after the adê [loyalty oath] in the [f]uture, from the east […] to the west, all those over whom Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, exercises kingship and lordship….[18]
If there were any doubt about the referent of Deuteronomy’s “those who are not with us here this day,” the explicit references to future generations in the different versions of Esarhaddon’s treaty would clinch the case. The rabbis’ claim that the souls of all future generations of Israelites were present in Moses’s audience to obligate themselves to the covenant goes beyond the plain sense of Deuteronomy but is nonetheless in tune with its intention:
תנחומא בובר נצבים ח ולא אתכם לבדכם (דברים כט:יג), אלא אף דורות העתידין לבא היו שם, שנאמר כי את אשר ישנו פה עמנו וגו' ואת אשר איננו פה עמנו היום (שם שם יד).
Tanhuma Buber Nitzavim 8 “And not only with you” (Deut 29:13), but also the generations to come were there, as stated: “but with those who are here with us,” etc. “and with those who are not here with us today” (v. 14).[19]
All Israel
In light of Deuteronomy’s covenantal concerns and the explicit inclusion of future generations in Moses’s audience, the repeated references to that audience as כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל, “all Israel,” serve as an invitation to readers to see themselves in that audience.[20] The first instance of the phrase comes at the very beginning of Deuteronomy:
דברים א:א אֵלֶּה הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר מֹשֶׁה אֶל כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּעֵבֶר הַיַּרְדֵּן בַּמִּדְבָּר....
Deut 1:1 These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan in the wilderness....”
And the book—and indeed the Torah as a whole—concludes with the phrase:
דברים לד:יב וּלְכֹל הַיָּד הַחֲזָקָה וּלְכֹל הַמּוֹרָא הַגָּדוֹל אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה מֹשֶׁה לְעֵינֵי כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל.
Deut 34:12 For all the great might and awesome power that Moses displayed in the sight of all Israel.
Deuteronomy 34 was not part of the original form of Deuteronomy. Thus, the final appearance of the phrase must have been the work of redactor.[21] The redactor’s choice to place the phrase in such a prominent location is significant. It indicates his recognition of the importance for Deuteronomy of encouraging its readers to understand Moses’s words as directed nor only at their ancestors but at them as well.
Deuteronomy also takes up the problem of transmitting the covenant to future generations in a way that encourages readers to see themselves as part of Moses’s audience:
דברים ו:כ כִּי יִשְׁאָלְךָ בִנְךָ מָחָר לֵאמֹר מָה הָעֵדֹת וְהַחֻקִּים וְהַמִּשְׁפָּטִים אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ אֶתְכֶם. ו:כא וְאָמַרְתָּ לְבִנְךָ עֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ לְפַרְעֹה בְּמִצְרָיִם וַיּוֹצִיאֵנוּ יְ־הוָה מִמִּצְרַיִם בְּיָד חֲזָקָה.
Deut 6:20 When tomorrow your child asks you, “What mean the decrees, laws, and rules that YHWH our God has enjoined upon you?,” 6:21 you shall say to your child, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and YHWH freed us from Egypt with a mighty hand.”
As in Moses’s appeals to what his audience has seen with their own eyes, the passage insists on the events of the exodus as something the parents themselves experienced, even using the familiar language of sight:
דברים ו:כב וַיִּתֵּן יְ־הוָה אוֹתֹת וּמֹפְתִים גְּדֹלִים וְרָעִים בְּמִצְרַיִם בְּפַרְעֹה וּבְכָל בֵּיתוֹ לְעֵינֵינוּ. ו:כג וְאוֹתָנוּ הוֹצִיא מִשָּׁם לְמַעַן הָבִיא אֹתָנוּ לָתֶת לָנוּ אֶת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לַאֲבֹתֵינוּ. ו:כד וַיְצַוֵּנוּ יְ־הוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת כָּל הַחֻקִּים הָאֵלֶּה לְיִרְאָה אֶת יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ לְטוֹב לָנוּ כָּל הַיָּמִים לְחַיֹּתֵנוּ כְּהַיּוֹם הַזֶּה.
Deut 6:22 “YHWH wrought before our eyes marvelous and destructive signs and portents in Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household; 6:23 and us He freed from there, that He might take us and give us the land that He had promised on oath to our fathers. 6:24 Then YHWH commanded us to observe all these laws, to revere YHWH our God, for our lasting good and to keep us alive, as today.”
But while the markers of time—“tomorrow” (v. 20), “today” (v. 24)—are immediate and thus relevant to Moses’s audience, the passage’s concern for transmission encourages readers to hear Moses speaking to them. For surely Moses cannot be understood to mean that the process of transmission begins and ends with the generation of the exodus and its children. And though they did not personally experience the exodus and may begin by identifying with the generation of the children, Deuteronomy’s readers are now, or will likely someday be, in the position of the parents, answering the child’s question as if they were the ones who had come out of Egypt.
It is no accident that Deuteronomy 6:20–24 plays an important part in the Passover Haggadah’s call to participants in the seder to identify with the generation of the exodus. The recitation of the story of the exodus begins with the first-person plural: עֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ לְפַרְעֹה בְּמִצְרָיִם , “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt” (v. 21).[22] At the conclusion of the recitation, the Haggadah quotes R. Gamaliel’s words from the Mishnah:
משנה פסחים י:ה בְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת עַצְמוֹ כְאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לֵאמֹר בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה ה' לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִּצְרָיִם (שׁמות יג:ח).
m. Pesachim 10:5 In every generation, a person must see himself as if he had come out of Egypt, as it is said: “And you shall explain [the eating of matza] to your child on that day, ‘It is because of what Hashem did for me when I went out of Egypt’” (Exod 13:8).
The sentiment is very much in tune with Deuteronomy, although R. Gamaliel’s prooftext is taken from Exodus. But the Haggadah continues to hammer away at the point, this time using a prooftext from Deuteronomy:
לֹא אֶת־אֲבוֹתֵינוּ בִּלְבַד גָּאַל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, אֶלָּא אַף אוֹתָנוּ גָּאַל עִמָּהֶם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְאוֹתָנוּ הוֹצִיא מִשָּׁם לְמַעַן הָבִיא אוֹתָנוּ לָתֶת לָנוּ אֶת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לַאֲבֹתֵינוּ (דברים ו:כג).
It was not only our ancestors the Holy One, blessed be he, redeemed; us too he redeemed together with them, as it is said: “And us He freed from there, that He might take us and give us the land that He had promised on oath to our fathers” (Deut 6:23).
Once again the first-person plural brings the participants in the seder together with the generation of the exodus. In other words, modern readers were not the first to notice Deuteronomy’s potential for eliding the gap between generations.
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July 19, 2025
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Footnotes

Prof. Martha Himmelfarb is the William H. Danforth Professor of Religion emerita at Princeton University. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 1981. Her most recent book is Jewish Messiahs in a Christian Empire: A History of the Book of Zerubbabel (2017). Other books include A Kingdom of Priests: Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism (2006) and The Apocalypse: A Brief History (2010).
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