The title of this book in the Hebrew Bible was its first two words, elleh haddebarim, which translate into English as "these are the words"(1:1). Ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties began with exactly the same words.1So the Jewish title gives a strong clue to the literary character of Deuteronomy.
The English title comes from the Septuagint (Greek) translation. "Deuteronomy"means "second law"in Greek. We might suppose that this title arose from the idea that Deuteronomy records the law as Moses repeated it to the new generation of Israelites who were preparing to enter the land. This is not the case. It came from a mistranslation of a phrase in 17:18. There God commanded Israel's kings to prepare "a copy of this law"for themselves. The Septuagint translators mistakenly rendered this phrase "this second [repeated] law."The Vulgate (Latin) translation, influenced by the Septuagint, translated the phrase "second law"as deuteronomiumfrom which Deuteronomy is a transliteration. Deuteronomy is to some extent, however, a repetition to the new generation of the Law God gave at Mt. Sinai. Thus God overruled the translators' error and gave us a title for the book in English that is appropriate in view of the contents of the book.
