Deuteronomychapter 12
32 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Key verse
Instead, you must seek the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to establish as a dwelling for His Name, and there you must go.
It stands in One place he chooses to put his name, verses 1 to 14.
The chapter
Chapter summary
One place of worship. ‘Destroy utterly’ the altars and pillars and groves of the nations; do not worship the LORD in their manner. He will choose a place to set his name there. Thither thou shalt come, thither shalt thou bring thy burnt offerings and sacrifices and tithes and vows and freewill offerings and the firstlings of thy herds and flocks. Eat of them before the LORD and rejoice. Blood not eaten; poured on the earth as water. ‘Take heed … that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods?’ The religion of Israel is worship at the LORD's altar, not imitation of the surrounding altars.
Context
Law · Moses · Deuteronomy overview
The world behind this chapter
Deuteronomy 12The history
The speech is Moses in the first person, and this chapter opens the body of the law. Chapters 5 to 11 charged in general, and chapters 12 to 26 work through the particulars.
The setting is the plain east of the Jordan in the fortieth year, at about 1406 BC on the frame this site keeps.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The worship described belongs to the land across the river. Canaanite shrines stood on high ground, on the hills and under spreading trees, and the books of Kings later use that same description of shrines Israel built.
The occasion is the change from a camp to a country. While the camp moved, everyone did what was right in his own eyes, and Albert Barnes reads verse 8 as saying plainly that the prescribed order could not be kept on the march.
A first hearer knew what stood at a local shrine. An altar of stone, a standing pillar and a wooden pole for the goddess Asherah were the furniture of the places verse 3 orders destroyed.
He knew that meat was rare and that killing an animal was normally a sacrifice. Leviticus 17:3-4 had required an ox, a lamb or a goat killed for the table to be brought to the tabernacle door, so the permission at verse 15 changed his kitchen.
He knew that blood was handled with care across the region, and the rule at verse 23 gave him the reason, that the blood is the life.
What it meant to them
The chapter told a farming people that worship would happen at one place they would have to travel to, and it never said where that place was.
It also told them their ordinary meals were their own. A household far from the sanctuary could kill and eat at home, and the clean and the unclean could eat together, because the meal was common.
The warning at verse 30 named the danger that later undid the kingdom, which was curiosity about how the nations served their gods.
Sources cited
- The site's published exposition of Deuteronomy 12, in the store
- Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament
- The site's dossier for Deuteronomy, src/components/book/dossier-content/deuteronomy.ts
Where the chapter sits
Deuteronomy 12 falls in Second sermon, the law restated (chapters 5–26). The Decalogue repeated; the Shema; laws for the land, for worship, for kingship, for war, for the poor. The covenant's central exposition.
Before it: First sermon, retrospective, chapters 1–4. After it: Third sermon, blessings and curses, chapters 27–30.
The whole shape of Deuteronomy→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. One place he chooses to put his name
1. (vv. 1-3)
Deuteronomy 12:1
“Moses now passes on to apply Deut. 12–26 the leading principles of the Decalogue to the ecclesiastical, civil, and social life of the people. Particulars will be noticed which are unique to the Law as given in Deuteronomy; and even in laws repeated from the earlier books various new circumstances and details are introduced. This is only natural. The Sinaitic legislation was nearly 40 years old and had been given under conditions of time, place, and circumstance different and distant from those now present.”
Deuteronomy 12:2
“Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods,....”
Deuteronomy 12:3
“Ye shall overthrow their altars - Where unholy sacrifices have been offered; and break their pillars, probably meaning statues and representations of their gods cut out of stone; and burn their groves, such as those about the temple of Ashtaroth, the Canaanitish Venus, whose impure rites were practiced in different parts of the enclosures or groves round her temples; and ye shall hew down the graven images, probably implying all images carved out of wood; and destroy the names of them, which were no doubt at first graven on the stones, and carved on the trees, and then applied to the surrounding districts.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 12:3
“And ye shall overthrow their altars--piles of turf or small stones. and break their pillars--Before the art of sculpture was known, the statues of idols were only rude blocks of colored stones.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
This verse opens the body of the covenant, and chapters 12 to 26 work through the particulars that chapters 5 to 11 charged in general. The first command is demolition, with altars overthrown, pillars broken, groves burnt, images hewn down and the names of the gods destroyed out of the place. Upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree becomes the standing description of Canaanite worship, and the books of Kings use that formula to report Israel building the same shrines anyway, at 1 Kings 14:23 and 2 Kings 17:10.
2. (vv. 4-5)
Deuteronomy 12:4
“Ye shall not do so unto the Lord your God.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 12:4
“22 Even as the roebuck and the hart is eaten, so thou shalt eat them: the unclean and the clean shall eat of them alike. 23 Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 12:5
“But unto the place which the Lord your God,.... The Targum of Jonathan is, that the Word of the Lord your God: shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there; to place his tabernacle, set up his worship, take up his residence, and cause the Shechinah, or his divine Majesty, to dwell there, as the next clause explains it; out of what tribe it should be chosen, and where it should be, is not said.”
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 12:5
“To put his name there” means to manifest to men His divine presence. The Targumists rightly refer to the Shechinah; but the expression comprehends all the various modes in which God vouchsafed to reveal Himself and His attributes to men. The purpose of the command of the text is to secure the unity, and through unity the purity of the worship of God. That there should be one national center for the religion of the people was obviously essential to the great ends of the whole dispensation.
Deuteronomy 12:5
“It was admirably calculated to prevent the corruption which would otherwise have crept in from their frequenting groves and high hills--to preserve uniformity of worship and keep alive their faith in Him to whom all their sacrifices pointed. The place was successively Mizpeh, Shiloh, and especially Jerusalem.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Verse 4 turns the demolition into a rule about method, since Israel's God is not to be served the way the nations served theirs. Verse 5 gives the alternative, and the phrase the place which the Lord your God shall choose falls fifteen times in chapters 12 to 26, five of them in this chapter, at verses 5, 11, 14, 18 and 26. It never names the place, and the naming happens later, at 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Kings 8:16. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads the phrase as a place already chosen and identifies it with Gerizim, which is the textual root behind the question the woman puts to Jesus at John 4:20.
3. (vv. 6-7)
Deuteronomy 12:6
“Some have objected that this command cannot possibly have been ever carried out, at all events until in later (lays the territory which owned obedience to it was narrowed to the little kingdom of Judah. But in these and in other precepts Moses doubtless takes much for granted. He is here, as elsewhere, regulating and defining more precisely institutions which had long been in existence, as to many details of which custom superseded the necessity of specific enactment.”
Deuteronomy 12:7
“And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God,....”
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 12:7
“An injunction that the feasts which accompanied certain offerings (not specified) were to be also held in the same place.”
Deuteronomy 12:7
“And this holy pious joy in God and his goodness, with which we are to rejoice evermore, would be the best preservative against the sin and snare of vain and carnal mirth and a relief against the sorrows of the world. They are commanded to be kind to the Levites.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The list of what goes up to the chosen place covers nearly everything a household could give, with burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, heave offerings, vows, freewill offerings and firstlings all named. Verse 7 says what happens once they arrive, that they eat before the Lord and rejoice, so the central sanctuary is a place of meals as well as of slaughter. Rejoice falls three times in this chapter, at verses 7, 12 and 18, and every time the household is named alongside the man.
4. (vv. 8-9)
Deuteronomy 12:8
“Moses points out that heretofore they had not observed the prescribed order in their worship, because during their migratory life in the wilderness it had been impossible to do so. During their wanderings there were doubtless times when the tabernacle was not set up for days together, and when the daily sacrifice Num 28:3, together with many other ordinances, were necessarily omitted (compare Jos 5:5). This consideration must be carefully borne in mind throughout Deuteronomy.”
Deuteronomy 12:9
“For ye are not yet come to the rest,....”
Every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes describes the wilderness years as Moses looks back on them, and Judges 17:6 and 21:25 use the same sentence for the years after Joshua. Albert Barnes reads verse 8 as a plain statement that the prescribed order of worship could not be kept while the camp was moving, and he says that consideration governs the reading of the whole book. Verse 9 gives the reason the arrangement is about to change, that they are not yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, and Hebrews 3 and 4 take up that word rest and press it further.
5. (vv. 10-12)
Deuteronomy 12:10
“But when ye go over Jordan,....”
Deuteronomy 12:11
“Then there shall be a place,....”
Deuteronomy 12:12
“And ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 12:12
“Those that sacrifice to God are welcome to eat before him, and to feast upon their sacrifices: he sups with us, and we with him, Rev. iii. If we glorify God, we edify ourselves, and cultivate our own minds, through the grace of God, by the increase of our knowledge and faith, the enlivening of devout affections, and the confirming of gracious habits and resolutions: thus is the soul nourished.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Rest is defined here by what it removes, rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety, and only then does the place appear. Verse 12 lists who rejoices, and the list runs sons, daughters, menservants, maidservants and the Levite that is within your gates, which puts the household's servants inside the celebration. The reason attached to the Levite is that he hath no part nor inheritance with you, the arrangement set at Numbers 18:20-24, and the chapter returns to him at verses 18 and 19.
6. (vv. 13-14)
Deuteronomy 12:13
“Take heed to thyself, that thou offer not thy burnt offerings,.... And so any other, this is put for all the rest: in every place that thou seest; which might take with their fancy, seem pleasant, and so a proper and suitable place to sacrifice in, as on high places, and under green trees; but they were not to indulge their own fancies and imaginations, or follow the customs of others, but keep to the rules prescribed them by the Lord, and to the place fixed by him for his worship.”
Deuteronomy 12:14
“But in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes,.... Which tribe is not named, nor what place in that tribe; See Gill on Deu 12:5, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings; on the altar of burnt offering there placed: and there shalt thou do all that I command thee; respecting sanctuary service, and particularly those things observed in Deu 12:6.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 12:14
“The place which the Lord shall choose - To prevent idolatry and bring about a perfect uniformity in the Divine worship, which at that time was essentially necessary; because every rite and ceremony had a determinate meaning, and pointed out the good things which were to come, therefore one place must be established where those rites and ceremonies should be carefully and punctually observed.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The command is restated as a warning to the individual, and take heed to thyself falls three times in this chapter, at verses 13, 19 and 30. Every place that thou seest is what gets ruled out, since a man could pick a hill that suited him and call it holy. Verse 14 answers with in one of thy tribes and still declines to say which, and John Gill notes that neither the tribe nor the town is named anywhere in the law.
B. Eat freely, but pour out the blood
1. (vv. 15-16)
Deuteronomy 12:15
“While a stringent injunction is laid down that the old rule (compare Lev 17:3, etc.) must be adhered to as regards animals slain in sacrifice, yet permission is now given to slaughter at home what was necessary for the table. The ceremonial distinctions did not apply in such cases, anymore than to “the roebuck” (or gazelle) “and hart,” animals allowed for food but not for sacrifice.”
Deuteronomy 12:16
“Only ye shall not eat the blood,.... All manner of blood being forbidden, of fowl or of beasts, whether slain for sacrifice or for common food: ye shall pour it out upon the earth as water; which cannot be gathered up again for use, but is swallowed up in the earth.”
Notwithstanding opens a concession, and it is a real change from what stood before. Leviticus 17:3-4 required that an ox, lamb or goat killed for the table be brought to the door of the tabernacle as a peace offering, and here a man may kill and eat in all thy gates. Distance is the reason, stated outright at verse 21, and the unclean and the clean may both eat because the meal is common rather than holy. Verse 16 holds one thing back from the concession, the blood, poured on the earth as water.
2. (vv. 17-19)
Deuteronomy 12:17
“Thou mayest not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy oil,....”
Deuteronomy 12:18
“But thou must eat them before the Lord thy God, in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose,....”
Deuteronomy 12:19
“Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite,.... By withholding from him the tithes appointed for his maintenance; or rather by neglecting to take him with him in order to partake of the feast or entertainment before spoken of: as long as thou livest upon the earth; so that it was not one time only, but always; whenever he ate these holy things before the Lord, as long as he lived, he was to be careful he had the Levite with him, for a reason given, Deu 12:12.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 12:19
“Forsake not the Levite - These had no inheritance, and were to live by the sanctuary: if therefore the offerings were withheld by which the Levites were supported, they of course must perish. Those who have devoted themselves to the service of God in ministering to the salvation of the souls of men, should certainly be furnished at least with all the necessaries of life. Those who withhold this from them sin against their own mercies, and that ordinance of God by which a ministry is established for the salvation of souls.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
What the concession does not cover is then listed, since the tithe of corn, wine and oil, the firstlings, the vows, the freewill offerings and the heave offering all keep their old destination. Verse 18 repeats the guest list of verse 12 and again names the Levite within thy gates. Verse 19 makes it a standing obligation, that thou forsake not the Levite as long as thou livest upon the earth, which is the same span of time verse 1 put on the statutes themselves. Nehemiah 13:10-12 records the season when the portions were not given and the Levites went back to their fields.
3. (vv. 20-22)
Deuteronomy 12:20
“When the Lord thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he hath promised thee,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 12:20
“To prevent a revolt to false gods, we are forbidden to worship the true God in such a way and manner as the false gods were worshipped in, and are commanded to observe the instituted ordinances of worship that we may adhere to the proper object of worship. For this reason Moses is very large in his exposition of the second commandment.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 12:21
“If the place ... - Rather, “Because, or since, the place will be too far from thee.” The permission given in Deu 12:15-16 is repeated, and the reason of it assigned.”
Deuteronomy 12:22
“Even as the roebuck and the hart is eaten, so shalt thou eat them, &c.--Game when procured in the wilderness had not been required to be brought to the door of the tabernacle.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Enlarging the border is promised at Exodus 34:24 and again at Deuteronomy 19:8, and here it is the setting for a wider permission. The text lets a man say I will eat flesh, because thy soul longeth to eat flesh, and grants it, where Numbers 11:4-33 meets the same craving with quails and a plague. The earlier passage turns on a complaint against the manna and against God, and this one attaches no fault to the appetite at all.
4. (vv. 23-25)
Deuteronomy 12:23
“For the blood is the life - And the life being offered as an atonement, consequently the blood should not be eaten. See the notes on Lev 17:11, where the subject of the vitality of the blood is largely considered.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 12:24
“Thou shalt not eat it,.... Neither with the flesh, nor separately: thou shall pour it upon the earth as water; as the blood of sacrifices was poured upon the altar, the blood of common flesh was to be poured upon the earth, signifying it was not to be used, and no account to be made of it; See Gill on Deu 12:16.”
Deuteronomy 12:25
“Bishop Patrick thinks one reason why they were forbidden thus strictly the eating of blood was to prevent the superstitions of the old idolaters about the blood of their sacrifices, which they thought their demons delighted in, and by eating of which they imagined that they had communion with them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The blood rule is repeated with its reason attached, for the blood is the life, which is the sentence of Leviticus 17:11 where the life of the flesh is in the blood and the blood is given upon the altar to make atonement. Genesis 9:4 laid the same restriction on Noah long before Israel existed, so it does not begin at Sinai. Acts 15:20 and 15:29 keep abstaining from blood in the short list the Jerusalem council sends to Gentile believers, and readers have differed since over whether that ruling was permanent or fitted to a particular moment.
5. (vv. 26-28)
Deuteronomy 12:26
“Only thy holy things which thou hast,.... Which the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan interpret of the tithe of their holy things, and Aben Ezra of their burnt offerings and peace offerings; they seem to include all in Deu 12:17. and thy vows thou shalt take, and go unto the place which the Lord shall choose; so often referred to, but not named; see Deu 12:5.”
Deuteronomy 12:27
“And thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord thy God,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 12:27
“But this signified the obligation we Christians are under to offer up all our spiritual sacrifices to God in the name of Jesus Christ, hoping for acceptance only upon the score of his mediation, 1 Pet. ii. They are commanded to feast upon their hallowed things before the Lord, with holy joy.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 12:28
“For it is you, Master, the heavenly "King of eternity," who gives the sons of men glory and honor and authority over the earth's people. Direct their plans, O Lord, in accord with "what is good and pleasing to you" so that they may administer the authority you have given them with peace, consideration and reverence, and so win your mercy.”
Clement of Rome· written before 99· LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS 61.2patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 12:28
“Observe and hear all these words which I command thee,....”
Holy things and vows go up to the chosen place, and verse 27 says what happens to the blood there, poured out upon the altar rather than on the ground. The same substance is handled two ways within ten verses and the altar is the whole difference. Verse 28 closes the section with the formula that runs through the book, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, which verse 25 has already used of the blood rule alone.
C. Never ask how they served their gods
1. (vv. 29-31)
Deuteronomy 12:29
“When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee,.... The seven nations of the land of Canaan, Deu 7:1, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; or to inherit them, and thou dost inherit them, by dwelling in their land.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 12:29
“They must not so much as enquire into the modes and forms of idolatrous worship. What good would it do to them to know those depths of Satan? It is best to be ignorant of that which there is danger of being infected by.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 12:30
“For this is the origin of idolatry, when the genuine simplicity of God's worship is known, that people begin to be dissatisfied with it, and curiously to inquire whether there is anything worthy of belief in the figments of men; for men's minds are soon attracted by the snares of novelty, so as to pollute, with various kinds of leaven, what has been delivered in God's word.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 12:30
“This caution is based upon the notion generally entertained in the ancient pagan world, that each country had its own tutelary deities whom it would be perilous to neglect; compare 1Ki 20:23; 2Ki 17:26. Israel was to shun such superstitions as unworthy of the elect people of God.”
Deuteronomy 12:31
“Their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire - Almost all the nations in the world agreed in offering human victims to their gods on extraordinary occasions, by which it is evident that none of those nations had any right notion of the Divine nature. How necessary, then, was the volume of revelation, to teach men what that religion is with which God can be well pleased!”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The danger named here is curiosity rather than force, a man asking how these nations served their gods and deciding to do the same. Snared is the word the text uses, and the same warning stands at Exodus 23:33 and at Deuteronomy 7:16. Verse 31 gives the practice that makes their worship abominable, their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods, and 2 Kings 16:3, 2 Kings 21:6 and Jeremiah 7:31 record Israelite kings and Israelite parents doing that very thing in the valley of the son of Hinnom.
2. (v. 32)
Deuteronomy 12:32
“Thou shalt hate all hypocrisy and everything which is not pleasing to the Lord. Do thou in no wise forsake the commandments of the Lord; but thou shalt keep what thou hast received, neither adding thereto nor taking away therefrom. In the church thou shalt acknowledge thy transgressions, and thou shalt not come near for thy prayer with an evil conscience.”
Didache· written before 100· The Didache, Chapter 4patristic
The verse repeats 4:2 almost word for word, add not and diminish not, and in the Hebrew Bible it is numbered 13:1, opening the next chapter rather than closing this one. Proverbs 30:6 and Revelation 22:18-19 carry the same formula about the words of God. A clause forbidding alteration is a standard feature of second-millennium treaty documents, and Meredith Kline in Treaty of the Great King and Kenneth Kitchen in On the Reliability of the Old Testament both set that pattern beside the shape of Deuteronomy as a whole, which bears on the dating of the book and does not settle it.
This page carries no textual note on Deuteronomy 12. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
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