I cannot but see the book of Deuteronomy as standing on quite a different ground in the purpose of God than the four books. It is more than questionable if a single ordinance of these books, after their first establishment, was perfectly fulfilled in the wilderness-their children were not circumcised.
It is an elaborate system formed after the pattern shown in the Mount, and as to events " they happened unto them for types, and are written for our admonition." It is an immense typical system, the facts historically true, but selected and given with ulterior and spiritual intention, often unknown to the author. Where, as in Deuteronomy, there are instructions for the practical living state of things in the land, and where this order was in no way carried out, the general provision is for the state of Judges. They are referred to, and the case is put of their having a king, but it is a practical state of things prophetically seen from the time of going over Jordan till the final restoration of Israel—the secret things The notion of its subsequent composition is absurd-if the Pentateuch existed, no one would have connected another contradictory system both being composed together subsequently is equally absurd. But the abstract typical system, and the directions for an actual disordered state of things, pursuing the great elements and introducing moral principles of a more general character, are perfectly intelligible. Had Moses, instead of being inspired, made both as an arranged composition, it would have been equally difficult. It is true inspiration, which is the key of it all. It is, in the main, a general direction for order in the country, and provision for an unformally ordered state. The types, when there are any, as in chapter 16, are of a more general spiritual bearing. The four books are a systematically ordered system, in many respects indeed, only fitted for the wilderness. Tabernacles was not, and that was never regularly kept.
The Lord quotes from Deuteronomy in His temptations. The moral motives for obedience are chiefly there.
In this book, holiness, grace and communion are much more remarkable; and note also the people are entirely anew placed in covenant with the Lord, see chapters 26:17, 18, and 27:9, 10. And remark here the new form of the dictation of this covenant; it anticipatively supposes them to be in possession of the land, and in worship and in joy before the Lord, and Moses and the priests the Levites. He who mediates, as revealer, the blessing, and they who minister its maintenance by a sacrifice and communication of worship, place them as " this day become the Lord's people," and therefore insist on keeping the commandments commanded. This is altogether a new covenant from Sinai, as it is said "the covenants," see also chapter 29: 1. It is a new base; it is not now "if ye shall be," but "avouched to be"—worshipping in joy, supposed in the Land, "This day ye are become," "Thou shalt therefore keep." Yet as the endurance, quod nota, of the blessing rests on the perseverance of the people in fidelity, it fails in result, though there be room for patience, as well as if it were based on the "If ye will obey, ye shall be."