Home

For Teaching

Deuteronomy 18: What the Passage Says

56 claims across 22 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Deuteronomy 18 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Moses sets out the support for the priests and Levites, who receive no land of their own but live on the offerings and firstfruits, and he allows any Levite who moves to the chosen place to serve there on equal terms. He then forbids Israel to copy the practices of the nations in Canaan: sacrificing children in fire, divination, sorcery, and consulting the dead. Finally he tells them the LORD will raise up a prophet like Moses from among them, whom they must listen to, and gives a rule for spotting a prophet the LORD has not sent: his word does not come true.

Claim by Claim

  1. 18:1
    • The priests the Levites, that is the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel.
    • They shall eat the offerings made to the LORD by fire.
    • They shall eat the LORD's inheritance.
  2. 18:2
    • Levi shall have no inheritance among his brothers.
    • The LORD himself is Levi's inheritance.
    • The LORD had said this to Levi.
  3. 18:3
    • This is the priests' due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether ox or sheep.
    • The one sacrificing shall give the priest the foreleg.
    • The one sacrificing shall give the priest the two jowls.
    • The one sacrificing shall give the priest the stomach.
  4. 18:4
    • You shall give the priest the first of your grain, your new wine, and your fresh oil.
    • You shall give the priest the first of the shearing of your flock.
  5. 18:5
    • The LORD your God chose Levi out of all your tribes.
    • Levi was chosen to stand and minister in the name of the LORD.
    • This ministry belongs to Levi and his sons for all time.
  6. 18:6
    • If a Levite comes from any of your towns anywhere in Israel where he has been residing,
    • and he comes with all the desire of his soul to the place the LORD will choose,
  7. 18:7
    • then he shall minister in the name of the LORD his God.
    • He shall minister like all his fellow Levites who stand there before the LORD.
  8. 18:8
    • They shall eat equal portions.
    • This equal portion is apart from what he receives from his sales connected with the fathers, a phrase whose sense is not clear.
    • The King James takes this as the proceeds of the sale of his inherited family property.
  9. 18:9
    • You are coming into the land the LORD your God is giving you.
    • You shall not learn to do according to the abominations of those nations.
  10. 18:10
    • There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire.
    • There shall not be found among you anyone who practices divination.
    • There shall not be found among you a soothsayer.
    • There shall not be found among you one who reads omens.
    • There shall not be found among you a sorcerer.
  11. 18:11
    • There shall not be found among you one who casts spells.
    • There shall not be found among you one who consults a ghost or familiar spirit.
    • There shall not be found among you a spiritist.
    • There shall not be found among you one who inquires of the dead.
  12. 18:12
    • Everyone who does these things is an abomination to the LORD.
    • Because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving those nations out from before you.
  13. 18:13
    • You shall be blameless with the LORD your God.
  14. 18:14
    • These nations that you are dispossessing listen to soothsayers and to diviners.
    • The LORD your God has not appointed such a thing for you.
  15. 18:15
    • The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet from among you, from your brothers.
    • That prophet will be like Moses.
    • You shall listen to him.
  16. 18:16
    • This is according to all that you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly.
    • You said, Let me not hear the voice of the LORD my God again.
    • You said, Let me not see this great fire any more.
    • You said this so that you would not die.
  17. 18:17
    • The LORD said to Moses that the people had spoken well in what they said.
  18. 18:18
    • The LORD said he will raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like Moses.
    • The LORD said he will put his words in that prophet's mouth.
    • The LORD said that prophet will speak to them all that the LORD commands him.
  19. 18:19
    • The LORD said that whoever will not listen to his words which the prophet speaks in his name, the LORD will require it of him.
  20. 18:20
    • The LORD said that a prophet who presumes to speak a word in his name that he has not commanded him to speak shall die.
    • The LORD said that a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods shall die.
  21. 18:21
    • You may say in your heart, How shall we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?
  22. 18:22
    • If a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD and the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is a word the LORD has not spoken.
    • The prophet has spoken it presumptuously.
    • You shall not be afraid of him.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

18:1
Israel was made up of twelve tribes, and when the land was divided each tribe received its own territory. Levi did not: the tribe was set apart to serve at the sanctuary and was supported instead by a share of what other Israelites brought as offerings. "Offerings made by fire" are the sacrifices burned on the altar; the priests lived on the portions of them that were not burned.
18:2
"The LORD is their inheritance" is a way of saying that what the other tribes got in land, Levi got in the form of a claim on the offerings brought to the LORD.
18:3
The shoulder, the cheeks (jowls) and the stomach were the priest's fixed fee from an ordinary sacrifice, one in which the worshiper and his family ate most of the meat themselves. The rest of the animal went back to the person who brought it.
18:4
"First and best" translates a word usually rendered "firstfruits": the earliest part of a harvest or a shearing, handed over before the household used any of it. Grain, wine and olive oil were the three staple crops of the region, so this covers a farmer's whole income.
18:5
This work was passed down in the family. Levi's sons, and their sons after them, kept doing it.
18:6
"The place the LORD will choose" is Deuteronomy's standing phrase for the one authorised sanctuary, never named in the book itself. The point of this law is that a Levite living out in the country towns could come to that sanctuary and take his turn serving there on equal terms.
18:7
To stand before the LORD means to do the work at God's holy place. It was like showing up for a job God gave you.
18:8
The Hebrew of the last clause is obscure and disputed; it seems to mean that his equal share of the offerings is his regardless of any private income he has, whether from selling family property or from some other family entitlement.
18:9
"Disgusting practices" translates a Hebrew word for something religiously off-limits and repellent, not merely distasteful. It marks out conduct treated as unacceptable in the presence of the LORD.
18:10
The Hebrew literally says to make a son or daughter "pass through the fire." It is generally understood as child sacrifice, though some read it as a fire ritual short of killing. The four practices that follow are all ways of trying to learn hidden things or bend events: divination (seeking answers by casting lots, arrows or the like), fortune-telling, reading omens in natural signs, and sorcery. The exact difference between the terms was already blurred in antiquity.
18:11
Casting spells means binding someone by a spoken charm. Consulting ghosts or spirits refers to mediums who claimed to call up and question the dead, the practice Saul later uses at Endor.
18:13
The word behind "completely loyal" is the one used of a sacrificial animal without blemish: whole, entire, nothing missing. Applied to a person it means undivided allegiance rather than moral perfection.
18:14
"Suffered" is old English for "allowed" or "permitted", a sense of the word almost lost today. The verse is not saying God endured something; it is saying he has not given Israel permission.
18:15
"Raise up" means appoint or bring on the scene. The Hebrew word for prophet is singular but can be read collectively, so the sentence can mean either a continuing line of prophets after Moses or one particular figure; the text does not settle which.
18:16
Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai. "The day the people gathered" refers to the occasion when Israel stood at the mountain and heard God speak out of the fire, and asked Moses to receive the words for them instead.
18:19
"Hold that person accountable" renders a Hebrew idiom, literally "I will require it of him": I will call him to answer for it.
18:20
The Hebrew word translated "dares" means acting on one's own authority, without being sent, presuming to speak for God when God has not spoken.
18:22
This gives a practical test rather than a theory: a message that does not come true was not from the LORD, and the speaker carries no authority, so no one owes him fear or obedience.

Read Deuteronomy 18