Structure of Deuteronomy

The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Torah or the last book of the Pentateuch.  The Hebrew Bible calls it Devarim (דְּבָרִים‎, deḇarim).  The English title comes from the Greek Deuteronomion, Δευτερονόμιον, that literally means “second law.”  This book purports to be the last words of Moses in three sermons.  At the same time, it talked about a book that Moses was writing.  Thus, this was the origin of the idea that Moses wrote the whole Torah or at least this Book of Deuteronomy.  Mosaic authorship of the Torah was the common belief of Jewish and Jewish Christians.  God had dictated the first five books of the Bible to Moses on Mount Sinai.  The Middle-Aged Jewish scholar Maimonides (1135–1204) claimed that his was the 8th of the 13 Jewish principles of faith.  Deuteronomy presented Moses giving these three long sermons before his death.  Parts of this work had Moses speaking in the first-person singular, ‘I,’ which has beautiful moving descriptions of how Moses felt as he led the Israelites from Egypt up to eastern banks of the Jordan River.  This personal touch was lost in the later parts of this book where there was a switch to the third-person singular, describing Moses and his actions with a return to the more prosaic “Moses says.”  Deuteronomy is somewhat of a duplication of the stories in the other books of the Torah.  Like at the end of Numbers, Moses was there on the plains of Moab, on the east side of the Jordan River, as they planned to take the land on the west side, Canaan, the Promise Land, the land flowing with milk and honey.  The first thirty chapters had these three sermons of Moses.  Thus, the first sermon recounted the forty years of wilderness wanderings which had led to this moment and ended with an exhortation to observe the law.  Moses was telling his people what had happened to them, the Israelites, since they left Egypt.  He continually reminded them about their unbelief, especially at Kadesh and at Peor.  He also related the conquests on the east side of the Jordan, against King Sihon and Og.  The second sermon reminded the Israelites of the need to follow Yahweh and the laws or teachings that he had given them.  The third sermon offered the comfort that, even should the nation of Israel prove unfaithful and so lose the land, if they repented, all could be restored.  The final four chapters contain the Song of Moses, the Blessing of Moses, and the narratives recounting the passing of the mantle of leadership from Moses to Joshua and, finally, the death of Moses on Mount Nebo.  There may be other structures to this work, when compared to Hittite treaties.  This treaty was between Israel and Yahweh.  Have you ever made a treaty with God?