Chapter 1 constructs the balance sheet of the typical Deuteronomic farmer on the basis of the transactions mentioned or presupposed in Deuteronomy 12–26: expenses (tithes, firstlings, priestly dues, first-fruits, loses resulting from different weight systems and silver exchange, remission of debts, end of contract gifts, wages, interests), savings (self-consumption of yearly tithes, absence of taxes and fees for palace, temple, judge, diviner, the sale of carrion and interest free loans) and non-agricultural sources of income (interest-bearing loans to foreigners, booty, runaway slaves, self-indentured pledges, war captives and social capital).

Chapter 2 identifies the economic actors: siblings, fellow Israelites, Edomite partners, brothers in arms, Levites, immigrants, widows, orphans, slaves, Hebrews and foreigners.

Chapter 3 identifies three institutions: gates, maqom, and qehal-YHWH and discusses their specific functions.

Chapter 4 focuses on Deuteronomy’s unique tithing system and the challenge it presents to present scholarship.

Chapter 5 identifies secondary material in Deuteronomy 12–26.

Chapter 6 identifies the specificities of the pre-Torah Deuteronomic legal collection as market regulation, capital acquisition and preservation, and a Mensch ethos.

Chapter 7 considers alternative dates and scenarii for the formation of the Deuteronomic Code, its relation to the Covenant Code and the Holiness Code and builds upon Philip Davies’ proposal that the early Deuteronomic core reflected the situation in Samerina after the Assyrian conquest of Samaria and the integration of new immigrants to construct a new Israelite identity.

An academic study for a post-graduate readership and research level, The Economy of Deuteronomy’s Core contributes to the current debate over the date and purpose of the biblical book of Deuteronomy to advance the discussion beyond the Josianic hypothesis of Wilhelm M. L. de Wette that has dominated the field for the last two centuries. No comprehensive analysis and synthesis of the economic issues that the laws of Deuteronomy 12-26 discuss have yet been produced. It provides the basis for the identification of the functions of the three institutions upon which a new Israelite identity is to build: the local autonomous settlement (“your gates”), the yearly gathering of all Israel to eat and drink joyfully in front of YHWH (“the Place”), and a guild-like brotherhood involving Israelite, Edomite and third generation Egyptian associates (“qehal-YHWH”). Grounded in the text itself, The Economy of Deuteronomy’s Core reads Deuteronomy 12–26 in light of what we know about Ancient Near Eastern economies. The results open new horizons regarding the origins of the Deuteronomic laws.