The book of Deuteronomy plays a prominent role in Paul’s argument in his letter to the church at Rome. In fact, it is the most referenced OT text in the book of Romans after only Isaiah and the Psalter. In frequently returning to Deuteronomy, Paul follows a similar pattern found in the rest of the NT.1 As demonstrated in table 12 below,2 Paul quotes or alludes to the book of Deuteronomy in every major section in his letter to the Romans to pursue his thesis: the apocalypse of the righteousness of God in the gospel he proclaims (Rom 1:16–17).3
Not only is the book of Deuteronomy integral to Paul’s argument in Romans, but the passage under consideration in this study, Deuteronomy 30:11–14, lies at the very heart of Paul’s argument in the book of Romans. According to Mark Seifrid, Romans
1As stated in the introduction to Deuteronomy in the New Testament, “It is well known that in the early Christian writings that have been collected in the New Testament, the Psalms, Isaiah and
Deuteronomy are the most widely used Old Testament books, to judge from quotations, allusions, and other references.” M. J. J. Menken and Steve. Moyise, eds., Deuteronomy in the New Testament, LNTS 358 (London: T & T Clark, 2007), 1.
2Table 12 is adapted with modifications from David Lincicum, Paul and the Early Jewish Encounter with Deuteronomy (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 119. Lincicum rightly rejects the inclusion of what Hays would call an “echo,” but he inexplicably labels the allusions he examines “echoes” and the echoes he rejects “allusion.” I have changed the table to better reflect the definitions of allusion and echo Hays offers, which he quotes partly from Hollander. “The concept of allusion depends both on the notion of authorial intention and on the assumption that the reader will share with the author the requisite ‘portable library’ to recognize the source of the allusion; the notion of echo, however, finesses such questions: ‘echo is a metaphor of, and for, alluding, and does not depend on conscious intention.’” Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 29; John Hollander, The Figure of Echo: A Mode of Allusion in Milton and After (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 64. With Lincicum I am excluding the allusion proposed by some to Deut 4:7–8 in Rom 3:1–2. Contra Lincicum, I am also excluding the allusion to Deut 10:17 in Rom 2:11.
3Schreiner notes that “[v]irtually all scholars acknowledge that these verses [Rom 1:16–17] are decisive for the interpretation of Romans.” Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 58. Hamilton is representative in summarizing these verses as the “theme of the letter—the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel.” James M. Hamilton, God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 449.
10:5–13, which contains Paul’s citation of Deuteronomy 30:12–14, is “hermeneutically the most significant of the entire letter.”4
Table 12. Citations and allusions to Deuteronomy in Romans
Rom 2:28–29 Deut 30:6 Allusion; cf. also Deut 29:28(29) Rom 7:7 Deut 5:21 Explicit quotation, cf. also Exod 20:17 Rom 10:6 Deut 8:17/9:4 Allusion, mixed citation
Rom 10:6–8 Deut 30:12–14 Explicit quotation Rom 10:19 Deut 32:21 Explicit quotation
Rom 11:8 Deut 29:3(4) Explicit quotation; cf. also Isa 29:10 Rom 12:19 Deut 32:35 Explicit quotation
Rom 13:9 Deut 5:17–19, 21 Explicit quotation Rom 15:10 Deut 32:43 Explicit quotation
N. T. Wright calls Romans 10:5–13 “structurally the heart” of chapters 9–11,5 chapters that interpreters increasingly are recognizing to be central in Paul’s letter to the Romans as a whole.6 Wright suggests that the structure of Romans 9–11 is chiastic, which would place Paul’s citation of Deuteronomy 30:12–14 in Romans 10:6–8 at the vital center of the chiasm:7
What is it that Paul finds in Deuteronomy that compels him to return again and again to this book to make his argument, especially at the apex of his argument in
4Mark A. Seifrid, “Romans,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 652.
5N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 1163.
6For a defense of the centrality of Rom 9–11, see Ferdinand Christian Baur, Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ: His Life and Works, His Epistles and Teachings (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 315–41;
Krister Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles, and Other Essays (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 4;
Johan Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 87.
7Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 1163. Wright refers to the “remarkably careful, almost artistic, structure of [Rom 9–11]. The closest thing I know to this elsewhere in Paul might be 1 Corinthians 15, but that was only fifty-eight verses, and this is ninety.” Wright, 1161.
Romans 9–11? And what is it about Deuteronomy 30:11–14 particularly that attracts Paul to cite it at such a crucial place in his argument? I am convinced, in line with what I argued in the previous chapters, that what Paul finds in Deuteronomy, specifically in the concluding chapters 29–32—precisely 30:1–14—is the announcement of a new
redemptive act of God which anticipated the very gospel he was entrusted to proclaim throughout the world—an act that Paul has come to realize was initiated in the
redemptive mission of Christ, the new covenant.
Figure 8. N. T. Wright’s chiastic structure of Romans 9–11
9:1–5 11:33–36
9:6–29 11:1–32
9:30–33 10:18–21
10:1–4 10:14–17 10:5–13
10:9
The End of Deuteronomy and the Heart of Romans
In Romans 9–11, Paul is essentially responding to the question, Has God’s word failed in spite of his promises to Israel?8 In response, Paul rehearses Israel’s story in order to demonstrate that neither God nor his word has changed. Yahweh can be trusted to keep his promises. Paul’s burden is to show that the OT bears witness to—albeit at
8Schreiner summarizes the question Paul is answering in Rom 9–11: “If the Jews and Gentiles are both equally indicted in sin and have equal access to salvation through Christ, and if the blessings of the OT people of God are in the possession of the church (righteousness, reconciliation, sonship, the gift of the Spirit, the ability to keep the law, the promise of future salvation), then what does one make of the OT promises made to Israel qua Israel? Have the promises simply been transferred to the church and is ethnic Israel left outside? If God’s promises to Israel have not come to fruition, then how can one be sure that the great promises made to the church in Rom. 8 will be fulfilled? How could a righteous God transfer his promises from Israel to the church? The fundamental issue in Rom. 9–11, then, is not the place of Israel, though that is a crucial issue. The primary question relates to the faithfulness and righteousness of God. Is the God who made these saving promises to Israel faithful to his pledges?” Schreiner, Romans, 470–71. So E. Elizabeth Johnson, “The Faithfulness and Impartiality of God,” in Pauline Theology, ed. David M. Hay and E. Elizabeth Johnson, vol. 3 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 215.
times in ways hard to discern apart from the light of Christ—the very gospel Paul
proclaims and the gospel fruit Paul’s ministry has produced. Thus, in rehearsing “Israel’s story”9 in Romans 9–11, Paul can do no better than to turn to Deuteronomy 30 (and 32), which foretells of a promised hope in spite of Israel’s failure. Wright explains the significance of these chapters in Deuteronomy for Paul’s argument:
Some of the prophets had spoken of a coming great reversal, when the story would come back with a bang, the world would be turned the right way up, God would reveal his currently well-hidden faithfulness. Maybe, even, the Messiah would appear. Sometimes those prophecies spoke of covenant renewal, with the heart being softened and Torah at last obeyed in a new way. Sometimes they included the remarkable passages in Isaiah about the servant who would be a light to the nations.
Sometimes they offered explanations—often cryptic, often powerful—for why the present Israel was in such dire straits. Sometimes all these lines of thought ran back to the Pentateuch: to the great single (if complex) story of Abraham, of the Exodus, of Moses, of Moses’ own prophecies at the end of Deuteronomy.10
As I will argue below, Paul turns to “Moses’ own prophecies at the end of Deuteronomy” at a pivotal point in his letter because he understands the latter days (םימיה תירחא, Deut 4:30) to have dawned in his day, ushering in the fulfillment of
Deuteronomy 30. With Wright, I suggest that Paul’s pivot to Deuteronomy 30 in Romans 10 is
about the fulfillment of Deuteronomy 30: in other words—though this is almost always missed by the commentators!—covenant renewal and the end of exile. It is all about God’s righteousness revealed in the good news of the Messiah for the benefit of all who believe.11
To pursue Paul’s understanding of the book of Deuteronomy in this chapter, and specifically his citation and interaction with Deuteronomy 30:11–14, I begin at the center of the chiasm suggested by Wright in Romans 9–11. I then zoom out the lens to see how the book of Deuteronomy functions in Paul’s argument in Romans 9–11, and
9Wright argues convincingly that Rom 9–11 is Paul’s retelling of Israel’s story in a new way.
Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 1159.
10Wright, 1159.
11Wright, 1164.
then zoom out once more to view the deuteronomic shape of the letter as a whole. This complete, I attempt to reconstruct how Paul read the message of Deuteronomy in light of the revelation of God’s righteousness in the gospel, “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16).