Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The second law, or second statement of the law: the name given to the fifth book of the Pentateuch, consisting chiefly of three addresses purporting to have been made by Moses to Israel shortly before his death.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bibl.) The fifth book of the Pentateuch, containing the second giving of the law by Moses.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun The fifth of the Books of Moses in the Old Testament of the Bible, the fifth book in the Torah.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the fifth book of the Old Testament; contains a second statement of Mosaic law

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin deuteronomium, from Greek deuteronomion, a second law (from (to) deuteronomion (touto), Septuagint mistranslation of Hebrew mišnê hattôrâ hazzō’t, a copy of this law) : deuteros, second; see deu- in Indo-European roots + nomos, law; see nem- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the name which the book bears in the Septuagint (Ancient Greek Δευτερονόμιον (Deuteronomion) and in the Vulgate Latin Deuteronomium). This is based upon the erroneous Septuagint rendering of משנה התורה הזאת (mishnah ha-torah ha-zot) (xvii. 18), which grammatically can mean only "a repetition [that is, a copy] of this law," but which is rendered by the Septuagint τὸ Δευτερουόμιου τοῦτο, as though the expression meant "this repetition of the law."

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