Deuteronomy 31 Summary and Study Guide

Deuteronomy 31:6 turns up on cards, on walls and at funerals: he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Eleven verses later, in the same chapter, God tells Moses that he will forsake Israel and hide his face from them. This Deuteronomy 31 summary and study guide takes the whole chapter, both halves, in order.

Setting the Stage

Years before this, at a place called Meribah, the people had no water and turned on their leaders. God told Moses to speak to a rock so that water would come out of it. Moses struck the rock instead, and struck it twice. God’s answer was that Moses would not be the one to bring the nation into the land (Numbers 20:12).

Everything in Deuteronomy 31 follows from that sentence. Moses has spent the whole book setting God’s law and God’s promises before a new generation camped east of the Jordan, and he has just finished by setting life and death before them and telling them to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19). Now he has to hand the work to somebody else.

Comprehensive Deuteronomy 31 Summary

Moses is a hundred and twenty years old, and he tells Israel plainly that he can no longer lead them and that God has forbidden him to cross the Jordan. God himself will go over ahead of them and destroy the nations there, as he destroyed Sihon and Og, and Joshua will go over ahead of them too. So the nation is to be strong and take courage, because God will not fail them or abandon them. Moses then calls Joshua out in front of everybody and says the same thing to him by name.

He writes the law down and gives it to the priests who carry the ark of the covenant, and to the elders of every tribe. His instruction is that once every seven years, in the year debts are cancelled, at the Feast of Tabernacles, the whole nation is to gather and hear the law read aloud: men, women, children and foreigners living among them, so that each new generation learns to fear God.

Then God calls Moses and Joshua into the tent of meeting and appears there in a pillar of cloud. What he says in private is the reverse of what Moses has just said in public. After Moses dies, Israel will chase other gods, break the covenant and abandon the LORD. His anger will burn, he will abandon them in turn and hide his face, and trouble will find them.

So he tells Moses to write a song and teach it to the people, to stand as evidence against them when that day comes. Moses writes it the same day. God then charges Joshua himself. Moses finishes the book, has it placed beside the ark as a second piece of evidence, warns the elders that they will corrupt themselves after he is gone, and begins to speak the song aloud.

One Word Summary

• Handover: the office, the book and the song all pass to other hands.
• Witness: three of them left behind in one chapter.
• Forsake: the chapter’s own repeated word, running in both directions.

In One Sentence

Moses, at a hundred and twenty and barred from the Jordan, charges Israel and Joshua to take courage, puts the written law into the keeping of the priests and the tribal elders, and writes a song God gives him to testify against Israel’s coming rebellion.

Theme of Deuteronomy 31

Deuteronomy 31 is about an agreement built to outlast the man who delivered it. Moses is going, and God puts in place everything Israel will need to survive his death: a leader God has chosen himself, a written law in the hands of the priests and elders, and a song in the mouths of the people. A harder truth runs underneath all of it. God binds himself to Israel while telling them to their faces what they are going to do to him.

Deuteronomy 31 Outline

• 31:1-2 Moses tells all Israel that he is a hundred and twenty and that God has told him he will not cross the Jordan.
• 31:3-6 He says God and Joshua will go over ahead of them, and charges the nation to be strong and unafraid.
• 31:7-8 He charges Joshua in front of the whole nation.
• 31:9-13 He writes the law, gives it to the priests and elders, and commands that it be read to everyone every seventh year at the Feast of Tabernacles.
• 31:14-18 God calls Moses and Joshua to the tent of meeting and foretells that Israel will abandon him and that he will hide his face.
• 31:19-22 God tells Moses to write a song and put it in Israel’s mouths, and Moses writes it and teaches it the same day.
• 31:23 God charges Joshua himself.
• 31:24-29 The finished book is placed beside the ark as evidence, and Moses warns the elders of the rebellion to come.
• 31:30 Moses speaks the song to the whole assembly.

Observations from Deuteronomy 31

One word runs through this chapter in both directions (31:6, 31:8, 31:16, 31:17)

Moses tells Israel God “will not fail thee, nor forsake thee” (31:6), and tells Joshua the same (31:8). God will not walk out on them. Then God tells Moses that Israel “will forsake me, and break my covenant” (31:16), and that his answer will be “I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them” (31:17).

“Forsake” is the same Hebrew word all four times. God says he will not walk away; Israel walks away first; God then walks away. That sequence is the chapter, and it is what gives verse 6 its weight. God made the promise to people he already knew would break theirs.

The charge to be strong is given three times, and God gives it last (31:6, 31:7, 31:23)

Moses says “Be strong and of a good courage” to the whole nation in verse 6, then to Joshua by name in verse 7, and the speaker in verse 23 is God: verse 14 has him saying “that I may give him a charge,” and verse 23 ends “and I will be with thee.”

The wording moves as it goes. Moses tells Joshua “thou must go with this people” (31:7), meaning Joshua will enter the land alongside them. God tells him “thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land” (31:23), which makes him the one who gets them in.

David Guzik counts this charge seven times over in Deuteronomy and Joshua. The last of those, Joshua 10:25, has Joshua saying it to other people. The encouragement he was handed here is the encouragement he passed on.

Three witnesses are left behind (31:19, 31:26, 31:28)

The song is “a witness for me against the children of Israel” (31:19). The book of the law goes beside the ark “for a witness against thee” (31:26). Then Moses calls “heaven and earth to record against them” (31:28), which summons creation itself as a third observer.

Deuteronomy’s own courtroom rule is that a matter is settled “at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses” (Deuteronomy 19:15). Israel’s own law required more than one voice before anything could be established. Deuteronomy 31 never names that rule, but the count matches it: three witnesses are on file before a single charge is ever brought.

The one assembly everyone had to attend (31:12)

Three times a year the men of Israel were required to appear before the LORD at the place he chose (Deuteronomy 16:16). The seven-year reading of the law was different. Moses lists “men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates” (31:12), which puts the whole household and the foreigner living beside them in the same crowd.

What the record shows afterwards is thin. Joshua read the law to the nation (Joshua 8:34-35). The next time Scripture records the law being carried to the whole nation is under Jehoshaphat, roughly five centuries later (2 Chronicles 17:9), then Josiah reading it aloud in the temple, then Ezra in Nehemiah 8. David Guzik takes that gap to mean the recorded readings were unusual rather than routine.

The chapter addresses the same three groups twice, once in public and once in the tent

In verses 1 to 13 Moses speaks to the nation, then to Joshua, then to the priests and elders as he hands over the book. All of it is assurance. In verses 14 to 30 God speaks about the nation, then to Joshua, then Moses turns again to the Levites and the elders with the book. All of that is warning.

Pett’s commentary sets the two halves side by side, with the audiences unchanged and the mood reversed. Both halves are true at once. Israel really was going in, and Israel really would turn.

Difficult Verses Explained

Did Moses Lose His Strength or Not?

Moses says “I can no more go out and come in” (31:2), yet Deuteronomy 34:7 says that when he died “his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.” Elsewhere in Scripture that phrase describes holding active public and military command rather than physical decline. It is used that way of Joshua in Numbers 27:17, of Caleb in Joshua 14:11, and of Solomon in 1 Kings 3:7, so most read 31:2 the same way.

Moses is saying his command is finished, and the second half of the verse says who finished it: “also the LORD hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan.” Keil and Delitzsch add that a man can keep his eyesight and his strength and still feel his death coming.

Why Does God Still Hide His Face After Israel Admits Why?

In verse 17 Israel works out the diagnosis themselves: “Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?” In verse 18 God says he will hide his face anyway. Keil and Delitzsch answer that missing God falls short of repenting. Israel notices the blessing has stopped, which is a long way from turning back to the one who gave it.

The chapter still leaves Israel a way home. Deuteronomy has already told this same nation that “the LORD thy God is a merciful God; he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers” (Deuteronomy 4:31). God stays merciful and keeps the promise he swore to their ancestors. What he withdraws is his open favour, and the song exists so that Israel will have the reason in their own mouths when that day comes (31:21).

Does God Cause the Sin He Says He Already Knows About?

God says “I know their imagination which they go about, even now” (31:21). The word behind “imagination” is the same one used of the human heart before the flood, where “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). Ellicott renders the phrase as the nature they are already forming in themselves.

God is describing what Israel is, not manufacturing it. He then brings them into the land with his eyes open, which is the opposite of cruelty. Paul says the same thing about God’s side of the arrangement: “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).

Common Misunderstandings

• The Song of Moses is Deuteronomy 32, not Deuteronomy 31. Chapter 31 commands the song, records that Moses wrote it, and says he began to speak it (31:19, 31:22, 31:30). The song itself fills the next chapter.
• The book of the law went beside the ark, not inside it. Moses says to put it “in the side of the ark” (31:26), which means alongside it. 1 Kings 8:9 says there was nothing in the ark but the two stone tablets.
• Deuteronomy 31:6 promises God’s presence in a fight, not an easy road. Deuteronomy uses the same language elsewhere and finishes the thought: God “goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you” (Deuteronomy 20:4). Moses is sending a nation into a war, not into comfort.
• Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim belong to Deuteronomy 27, not to this chapter. Neither mountain is named anywhere in Deuteronomy 31, though at least one published chapter summary places that ceremony here by mistake.
• The year of release is not the jubilee. Debts were cancelled every seventh year (Deuteronomy 15:1); the jubilee came every fiftieth (Leviticus 25:10). Deuteronomy 31:10 sets the reading in the seventh year.

Christ Connection

The forsaking that runs through this chapter has a fourth movement, and the chapter itself never reaches it. Centuries later a man hung outside Jerusalem and cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Jesus was quoting Psalm 22:1, and he was bearing the abandonment that sin has earned. God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

God treated his innocent Son as guilty so that guilty people could be counted right with him. The writer to the Hebrews then hands that promise straight to the church and attaches no condition to it, because the condition was met at the cross: “for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5), words most read as a quotation of Deuteronomy 31:6. The verse people put on their walls cost the Son of God the thing it promises them.

Three more lines run from this chapter to Christ.

• The book that testified against them. The law was placed beside the ark “for a witness against thee” (31:26). Paul writes that God has been “blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross” (Colossians 2:14). The kind of document Moses filed as evidence in Deuteronomy 31 points toward what Paul says Christ took out of the way.
• Joshua and Jesus share a name. The Hebrew name is Yehoshua, and the Greek form of it is the name we say as Jesus. The King James makes that plain in one verse, where it translates the Greek name as “Jesus” while talking about Joshua: “For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day” (Hebrews 4:8). Moses brought Israel to the edge of the land; Joshua brought them in. The next verse says a rest still remains for the people of God.
• A law nobody could keep needed a better answer than a better scroll. God’s remedy was not a stronger copy beside a stronger box. He promised to write his law somewhere else entirely: “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts” (Hebrews 8:10), which echoes what Moses had already reached for one chapter earlier when he said God would circumcise Israel’s heart (Deuteronomy 30:6).

When, Where, and Why

• When: the last days of Moses’ life, at the close of Israel’s forty years in the wilderness, approximately 1406 BC on the chronology most commonly held. Moses says “this day” in verse 2 and writes and teaches the song “the same day” he is given it (31:22), which puts most of the chapter in a very short span.
• Where: the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan and across from Jericho, and then inside the tent of meeting. Deuteronomy names that tent only here, in verses 14 and 15, which makes the scene it holds unique in the book.
• Why: Moses is about to die, and the covenant has to survive him. The chapter exists to put the leadership, the written law and the sung warning into other hands before the man who carried all three is gone.

Key Verses

“Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”

Deuteronomy 31:6

Take courage and stop being afraid of them, because God himself is going with you and will neither let go of you nor walk away. This is the promise the whole chapter is measured against, and Moses gives it to the entire nation before he gives it to their new leader.

“And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.”

Deuteronomy 31:8

God is the one going out ahead of you, and he will stay with you and keep his grip on you, so take heart and put your fear down. The same promise now comes to one man by name, with something added: God is not only walking alongside Joshua but going in front of him.

“Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel.”

Deuteronomy 31:19

Write this song, teach it to Israel and get it onto their lips, so that it can testify on God’s behalf against them. God gives the reason for the song in the same sentence he commands it, which settles what the song in the next chapter is for.

“Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.”

Deuteronomy 31:26

Put this law book beside the ark, where it will stand as evidence against you. Matthew Henry thought it probable that this was the very book later found in the temple in Josiah’s day (2 Chronicles 34:14), when the king “rent his clothes” at what he heard read out of it (2 Chronicles 34:19).

Key Lessons from Deuteronomy 31

• God’s presence belongs to his people rather than to their leader, so it did not leave when Moses did (31:3, 31:6).
• Courage here rests on who goes along, not on what the people could see ahead of them (31:6, 31:8).
• Moses gave Joshua his charge in front of the whole nation, which handed him the standing he would need later (31:7).
• God arranged for his word to be heard by the whole household at once, and not only read alone (31:12-13).
• God entered an agreement with people he already knew would fail him, and he told them so rather than pretending otherwise (31:16, 31:21).
• A warning written down is a mercy, because it is still there on the day it is needed (31:19, 31:26).
• In his last warning Moses named their rebellion against the LORD and said nothing about the times they had rebelled against him (31:27).

For how this chapter fits into the book as a whole, see The Book of Deuteronomy Summary by Chapter. To go deeper into the lessons from this chapter, read our full study: Lessons from Deuteronomy 31.

Bible Study Questions

1. What three things does Moses hand over before he dies, and who receives each of them (31:9, 31:19, 31:22)?
2. Who was required at the seven-year reading of the law, and how does that list compare with the three annual feasts in Deuteronomy 16:16?
3. God says in 31:6 that he will not forsake Israel and in 31:17 that he will forsake them. What happens in the verses between the two that accounts for the difference?
4. Why does God tell Joshua about Israel’s coming rebellion at the very moment he is commissioning him (31:14-23)?
5. Moses spent his last days preparing people he would never lead again. What is one thing you are responsible for handing on well?
6. Verse 12 puts four things in order: hear, learn, fear, and then do. Where does that sequence tend to break down for you?
7. How does Jesus being forsaken at the cross change the way you read Deuteronomy 31:6?
8. The book of the law was filed beside the ark as evidence against Israel. What does it mean for you that Colossians 2:14 says that document was nailed to the cross?

Once you have worked through the chapter, test what you remember with our Deuteronomy 31 quiz.

Frequently Asked Questions

Deuteronomy 31, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 And Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel.

2 And he said unto them, I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in: also the LORD hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan.

3 The LORD thy God, he will go over before thee, and he will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess them: and Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the LORD hath said.

4 And the LORD shall do unto them as he did to Sihon and to Og, kings of the Amorites, and unto the land of them, whom he destroyed.

5 And the LORD shall give them up before your face, that ye may do unto them according unto all the commandments which I have commanded you.

6 Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

7 And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou must go with this people unto the land which the LORD hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it.

8 And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.

9 And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and unto all the elders of Israel.

10 And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles,

11 When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.

12 Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law:

13 And that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.

14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thy days approach that thou must die: call Joshua, and present yourselves in the tabernacle of the congregation, that I may give him a charge. And Moses and Joshua went, and presented themselves in the tabernacle of the congregation.

15 And the LORD appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud: and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle.

16 And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.

17 Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?

18 And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.

19 Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel.

20 For when I shall have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey; and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat; then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break my covenant.

21 And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen them, that this song shall testify against them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware.

22 Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.

23 And he gave Joshua the son of Nun a charge, and said, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I sware unto them: and I will be with thee.

24 And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished,

25 That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying,

26 Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.

27 For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the LORD; and how much more after my death?

28 Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them.

29 For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.

30 And Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song, until they were ended.