The status of the
Deuteronomic History as the further words of Moses is directly challenged by
13:1. Not only is this pericope followed by a law relating to apostasy that
negates the negative criterion found in 18:21-22, it is also preceded by a
commandment forbidding apostasy; 12:29-31. It is as if Moses were depicted as
stating in 13:1 that to add to or subtract from these further words of the LORD
is tantamount to preaching apostasy since the word of God will have been
altered internally by adding on spurious laws or withholding genuine
ones, or externally by presuming to comment on or interpret these sacred
and immutable words of the LORD. To alter the word of God is to follow other
gods and to entice Israel to follow other gods. The penalty is death (13:6)
even if the (false) prophet offers a sign or a portent that comes true (13:3).
The command of 13:1 (as well
as of 4:2 of which it is a reiteration) is in fact a hermeneutic anomaly within
Deuteronomy. This would not be so were the lawcode formulated as the word of
the LORD quoted in direct discourse, so that the “I” of this command referred
to the LORD himself. Here in is the lawcode, the “I” of the command of 13:1 is
the direct word of Moses himself and there is no way one can distinguish
between the reporting “I” of Moses and the reported “I” of the LORD. Moreover,
there is nothing within the lawcode that enables one to separate the reported
words of the LORD from the commenting and responding words of Moses. In such a situation,
where statute, commentary, and response are interwoven throughout the entire
lawcode by the leveling speech of Moses, the very words of Moses as interpretation
of the further words of the LORD may not be added to or taken away from.
13:1 is totally at odds with 18:16-19 since the latter provides for an authoritative
revision of the lawcode through the “further words” of the prophet whom God would
raise up after Moses. The hermeneutic dilemma posed by 13:1 lies in the fact
that it both validates and invalidates the subsequent pericope of 18:14-22.
13:1 commands Israel to “observe everything I command you.” Therefore, the
command to listen to and obey the prophet coming after Moses must be observed.
However, 13:1b commands that “you must not add anything to it, nor take
anything away from it.” Thus, the command to listen to and obey the prophet coming
after Moses must not be observed since this would be adding to or taking
something away from what Moses commands. How are we to disentangle ourselves
from the hermeneutic snare of 13:1 in which the right hand giveth and the left
hand taketh away?
There seems to be two compositional
pointers that may set up in the right direction in interpreting this pair of
conflicting pericopes. First, the word of the LORD expressed in direct
discourse in chapter 18 has the crucial function of authenticating the role of
the Deuteronomic narrator vis-a-vis his history. The “I” of 18:18-20 is
directly that of the LORD. On the other hand, the “I” of 13:1 directly refers
to Moses. It may be therefore that we are listening once more to the dialogue between
two voices that we have been describing in other sections of Deuteronomy. Both
voices are here on the surface of the text, both voices are in obvious conflict
with one another, and it is only by a close compositional analysis that we can
come to some conclusion about the relative strength of each voice. In 13:1 we
undoubtedly hear the voice that has all along exalted the unique status of
Moses as prophet vis-a-vis Israel. As such, it fits in with the content of the
entire lawcode, except that of 18:14-22. But even here, within the
phraseological composition of the two conflicting commands, there is an
indication that the voice represented by 18:14-22 has subordinated the voice
found in 13:1 and throughout most of the lawcode. For, whereas in 13:1, it is
only Moses speaking directly who seems to be exalting his unique role, in
18:18-20 it is (atypically in the lawcode) God who directly denies the unique
role attributed to Moses throughout the greater part of the surface of the text.
Second, the very content of
13:1 is contradicted by the composition of Deuteronomy itself. For if
13:1 forbids anything to be added to or taken away from a lawcode that is as
much commentary and response to divine legislation as it is divine legislation
itself, then the very setting of this lawcode within the immediate context of
the surrounding reported words of Moses (especially 6:20-25) and within the
larger context of the reporting words of the narrator both in Deuteronomy and
in Joshua-2 Kings effectively neutralizes the command of 13:1 and subordinates
the voice for which it stands to another voice that has taken over these words
for its own purposes.
What we seem to have in
12:29-13:6 are the words of an argument that threatens even under the penalty
of death, the very existence of the enterprise carried through by the
Deuteronomist. Taken at face value, this pericope supports an understanding of
Israelite law and religion that is rooted in an attitude toward the divine word
which we have called authoritarian dogmatism. Taken to its logical
conclusion, this voice is the voice of a religious tyranny that allows no room
for subsequent revision or revitalization of God’s word. However, such a tyrannical
voice is devastatingly neutralized in its very proclamation by the varied
compositional strategies we have been noting. First, its content is contradicted
by the context into which the Deuteronomist has placed the lawcode: Deuteronomy
is an interpretation—a putting into perspective—of a lawcode in which is found
the command not to interpret it. Second, its content it contradicted by a subsequent
portion of the lawcode in such a way that, whereas Moses is described as saying
no one may follow him as supreme interpreter of God’s word, he is then
described as quoting God in direct discourse to the effect that a prophet will
indeed come after him. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the Deuteronomist
has stilled this voice at the same time as he has allowed it to speak simply
by constructing the entire lawcode according to a surface style that directly contradicts
this voice’s own authoritarian tyranny. How better to focus on the
absurdity of forbidding any ongoing process of interpreting the word of God than
by putting such a prohibition within the law code whose basic style already
inextricably combines word of God with commentary and response to that word?
13:1-6 as representative of other
dogmatic utterances like it in Deuteronomy is not just contrary to an isolated
pericope following later in the lawcode, it is in fact subjected to a
multifaceted compositional attack. This onslaught insurss that its readers will
ultimately reject its claims as quickly as they are made. The style of the prohibition
has been deliberately fashioned to override and submerge its content. To
believe that Moses could have spoken as directly as he is characterized as
doing in the lawcode of Deuteronomy is, in terms of both style and substance,
the means by which the Deuteronomist prepares his audience to accept as authoritative
the subsequent books of his history. (Robert Polzin, Moses and the Deuteronomist:
A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History [New York: The Seabury Press,
1980], 63-65, italics in original)
This is, for example, the
case in Jeremiah 26:2 where God is quoted in direct discourse saying, “You shall
tell them everything that I command you to say to them, keeping nothing back.”
For in Jeremiah’s case, once he has conveyed God’s words to his listeners,
there is nothing to prevent him from responding to and commenting upon the
words of the LORD, as he in fact does in Jeremiah 26:12-15. (Ibid., 217 n. 8)
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