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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 Jeremiah 19:5

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Jeremiah echoes Deuteronomy's ban against child sacrifice, describing how this condemned foreign practice had become part of Jerusalem's practices. The passage connects it to Baal worship and related sacrifices in the ancient Near East.

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

Jeremiah 19:5

Hebrew Bible
3 Say, ‘Listen to the Lord’s message, you kings of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem! This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, has said, “Look here! I am about to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it ring. 4 I will do so because these people have rejected me and have defiled this place. They have offered sacrifices in it to other gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah knew anything about. They have filled it with the blood of innocent children. 5 They have built places here for worship of the god Baal so that they could sacrifice their children as burnt offerings to him in the fire. Such sacrifices are something I never commanded them to make. They are something I never told them to do! Indeed, such a thing never even entered my mind. 6 So I, the Lord, say: ‘The time will soon come that people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Hinnom Valley. But they will call this valley the Valley of Slaughter! 7 In this place I will thwart the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. I will deliver them over to the power of their enemies who are seeking to kill them. They will die by the sword at the hands of their enemies. I will make their dead bodies food for the birds and wild beasts to eat.
500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jeremiah

References

"... The divine recipients of the mlk sacrifice vary within the same cultures. In Israel mlk in Jeremiah 19:5 and 32:35 (compare 2 Kings 17:16-17) is a term for a human sacrifice intended allegedly for Baal. Psalm 106:34-38 attributes child sacrifice to Baal Peor. According to 2 Kings 17:31 the Sepharvites devoted child sacrifice to two gods, Adrammelek and Anammelek. Jeremiah 7:31; 19:5, and 32:35 deny that mlk sacrifice was offered in Yahweh’s name; these denials may suggest that offering this sacrifice in Yahweh’s name occurred (compare Leviticus 18:21; 20:3; Genesis 22) ... Isaiah 30:27-33 appears as the best evidence for the early practice of child sacrifice in Israel. According to Mosca, the image of child sacrifice in this eighth or seventh century passage serves as a way to describe Yahweh’s coming destruction of Israel. In this text there is no offense taken at the Tophet, the precinct of child sacrifice. It would appear that Jerusalemite cult included child sacrifice under Yahwistic patronage; it is this that Leviticus 20:2-5 deplores. Ezekiel 16:20, 21, 36 and 23:39 assume that child sacrifice was intended for a multiplicity of deities. The legal proscriptions against child sacrifice in the Holiness Code (Leviticus 18:21; 20:2-5) and in Deuteronomy 12:31 and 18:10 are unclear regarding the divine recipients. Leviticus 20:2-5 suggests that this sacrifice is not to take place in Yahweh’s temple, perhaps to avoid performance of it in his name ..."
Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, 2nd ed., The Biblical Resource Series (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 168.

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 Jeremiah 19:5

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