Essay do Powtórzonego Prawa 27:78

As if to dramatize what has just concluded, the text at this point interpolates a ceremony that in location (Shechem) and theme anticipates what we find at the end of the book of Joshua (Chap. 24). It also encourages viewing Deuteronomy as a Northern document. Here the core is the series of curses uttered on Mount Eval in vv.15–26 (the blessings, curiously, do not appear). The curses, which do not introduce any new material as such, reflect the community’s fear that someone will sin in secret and not be found out, and the entire community will suffer as a result (Bellefontaine). The public pronouncement of threats was not unusual at the sealing of an agreement in the ancient Near East. As in previous legal sections, we are presented with a mixture of areas—criminal, sexual, and ritual—ending with the general provision that the “words of this Instruction” are to be carefully observed.