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Deuteronomy

About this book
Chapter 18

1 The Levitical priests—indeed,⁠ the entire tribe of Levi—will have no allotment or inheritance with Israel; they may eat the burnt offerings of the Lord and of his inheritance. 2 They will have no inheritance in the midst of their fellow Israelites; the Lord alone is their inheritance, just as he had told them. 3 This shall be the priests’ fair allotment from the people who offer sacrifices, whether bull or sheep—they must give to the priest the shoulder, the jowls, and the stomach. 4 You must give them the best of your grain, new wine, and olive oil, as well as the best of your wool when you shear your flocks.⁠ 5 For the Lord your God has chosen them and their sons from all your tribes to stand and serve in his name permanently. 6 Suppose a Levite comes by his own free will from one of your villages, from any part of Israel where he is living, to the place the Lord chooses 7 and serves in the name of the Lord his God like his fellow Levites who stand there before the Lord. 8 He must eat the same share they do, despite any profits he may gain from the sale of his family’s inheritance. 9 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn the abhorrent practices of those nations. 10 There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire,⁠ anyone who practices divination,⁠ an omen reader, a soothsayer, a sorcerer,⁠ 11 one who casts spells, one who conjures up spirits, a practitioner of the occult, or a necromancer.⁠ 12 Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord, and because of these detestable things the Lord your God is about to drive them out from before you. 13 You must be blameless before the Lord your God. 14 Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things. 15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you—from your fellow Israelites; you must listen to him. 16 This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore or see this great fire anymore lest we die.” 17 The Lord then said to me, “What they have said is good. 18 I will raise up a prophet like you⁠ for them from among their fellow Israelites.⁠ I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command.⁠ 19 I will personally hold responsible anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet speaks in my name. 20 “But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. 21 Now if you say to yourselves, ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’— 22 whenever a prophet speaks in my name and the prediction is not fulfilled, then I have not spoken it; the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”

Texts in conversation

Compare Deuteronomy 18:10 and 2 Kings 21:6

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

2 Kings 21 shows Manasseh practicing divination, sorcery, and child sacrifice, violating the banned practices in Deuteronomy 18. This emphasizes how Manasseh not only violated the covenant but represented the opposite of the Deuteronomistic ideal.

Passages

Deuteronomy 18:10

Hebrew Bible
8 He must eat the same share they do, despite any profits he may gain from the sale of his family’s inheritance. 9 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn the abhorrent practices of those nations. 10 There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, anyone who practices divination, an omen reader, a soothsayer, a sorcerer, 11 one who casts spells, one who conjures up spirits, a practitioner of the occult, or a necromancer. 12 Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord, and because of these detestable things the Lord your God is about to drive them out from before you.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

2 Kings 21:6

Hebrew Bible
4 He built altars in the Lord’s temple, about which the Lord had said, “Jerusalem will be my home.” 5 In the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple he built altars for all the stars in the sky. 6 He passed his son through the fire and practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits and appointed magicians to supervise it. He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. 7 He put an idol of Asherah he had made in the temple, about which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, “This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home. 8 I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors, provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law my servant Moses ordered them to obey.”
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Kings

References

"... The verb ('divination') is used only twice in the present Deuteronomistic history, here and 2 Kings 21:6. In this latter passage is also found the rare expression which is repeated in the account of Josiah's reform at 23:24, a secondary passage about which more will be said below. This latter phrase is also found in 1 Samuel 28:3 and 9, where it is noted that Saul expelled diviners. Verse 9 is an integral part of the historian's source, the Saul story, while verse 3 is an editorial introduction dependent upon it, probably by the historian himself. Thus this expression is not really characteristic of the historian at all, only copied for a limited editorial purpose. The exilic editor, on the other hand, seems to have been deeply impressed by Deuteronomy 18:10, perhaps because of the popularity of divination among the neo-Babylonians. Upon this passage is based both the general accusation against Israel in 2 Kings 17:17 and the more specific one against Manasseh in 21:6 ..."
Richard D. Nelson, The Double Redaction of the Deuteronomistic History, JSOTSup 18 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1981), 59–60.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Deuteronomy 18:10 and 2 Kings 21:6

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