Chapter 31

This chapter returns to their immediate future, rather than the distant future.  Moses is about to die, and Joshua to take over, and they are about to invade Canaan.

Moses tells the people that he is 120, and cannot lead them anymore.  He tells them Joshua will lead them.

The law was to be read to the people every seven years, at the year of release, at the Feast of Booths.

When God commissions Joshua, as he and Moses stand at the door of the tabernacle, God tells Moses that He knows Israel will go "whoring after other gods" once they have conquered Canaan and grow fat and lazy in the land:

16 And the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them. [Deu 31:16 ESV]

There are more verses after this one, that talk about further sin they will commit, and God foretells that He will hide his face from them in His anger. 

Moses is to write a song, and all Israel is to learn it and the children will learn it.  All will remember it.  The children will learn the song, and so it will continue through the generations.  And this song will be a witness against the people, that God knew how they would behave:

19 "Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel. [Deu 31:16, 19 ESV]

This partial verse:

21 ...For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give." [Deu 31:21 ESV]

A good verse for debating whether or not God's foreknowledge is determinative.  Is there really only one "timeline" running into the future that cannot be changed, or do our choices present many possibilities...

I'm in the "one line" camp, but am open to the idea that God can make all the possibilities eventually converge at prophesied events, however those events are brought about.

Moses finishes his writing - both the Book of the Law, and the Pentateuch I believe are in view here.  This verse:

26 "Take this Book of the Law and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against you. [Deu 31:26 ESV]

I wonder if this is the book that is found in Hezekiah's day?  This very book, or a copy?

The actual song is in the next chapter...