Answer
After the Israelites escaped slavery in Egypt, they camped at Mount Sinai for 11 months before heading north into the Sinai desert toward the Promised Land. What should have been a journey of a few days or weeks stretched into 40 years because of their lack of faith, during which thousands of Israelites died without entering the land flowing with milk and honey. This was a dark period in Israel’s history, and future generations needed to learn from it. For this reason, God led Moses to write Deuteronomy, which primarily consists of three speeches he gave to encourage the Israelites to obey God. Moses wrote it at the end of the 40-year period, around 1400 BC, while Israel was encamped near the Promised Land.
Deuteronomy identifies Moses as its author five times (1:1, 5; 31:9, 22, 24), helping to establish a timeframe for its composition. He lived from approximately 1520 to 1400 BC, dying at the age of 120 just before the Israelites entered the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 34:7). As Deuteronomy reveals, Moses spoke and then wrote down the three speeches that make up the book during the last year of his life (Deuteronomy 32:44–47).
The setting of Deuteronomy is the plains of Moab, near the Jordan River, just outside the eastern boundary of the Promised Land. The first verse of the book identifies the geographic location: “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab” (Deuteronomy 1:1, ESV; cf. 29:1). In the context of Israel’s history, this geographic description suggests a date of approximately 1400 BC, helping to establish the time of Moses’ speeches and, therefore, when Deuteronomy was written.
Moreover, Moses’ first speech in the book is dated to the specific day: “In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them” (Deuteronomy 1:3). The fortieth year refers to four decades after God freed Israel from Egyptian slavery. Moses spoke the three speeches recorded in Deuteronomy on that day. Later, he wrote them down.
Skeptics reject the straightforward reading of Deuteronomy’s statements regarding the time of its composition. They counter the biblical account with conclusions from their own studies, arguing that the book is the work of writers and editors who lived hundreds of years after Moses. This theory, popularized in the 1800s by German scholar Julius Wellhausen, is known as the documentary hypothesis. This hypothesis suggest that multiple authors and editors composed the writings of Moses, including Deuteronomy, for religious and political purposes centuries after the events they describe. However, conservative Bible scholars who affirm the inspiration of Scripture interpret the chronological indicators in Deuteronomy regarding the time of its writing in a straightforward manner.
Moses’ final words to the Israelites were reminders and encouragements to live according to God’s covenant. Deuteronomy 6:5 emphasizes that deep affection for God should motivate them to live righteously: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (ESV). The best evidence indicates that these words, and the rest in the book, are not the product of nameless editors who lived hundreds of years later but were spoken and recorded by Moses who witnessed these events firsthand.
