It seems obvious that the song referred to in God’s speech in Deuteronomy 31 is Ha’azinu, though some verses in this chapter imply that it might be the Torah itself. A redaction critical look at God’s speech suggests that neither of these was the original referent.On the one hand, I tend to be skeptical of redaction-critical reconstructions, since they generally involve a good bit of circular reasoning. Sometimes they are persuasive, but more often they just seem possible – at least to me.
On the other hand, most of the songs in the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History do seem to me to have been written earlier than their prose contexts and not necessarily for the purpose given in those contexts.
I like to think of the prose context of a biblical song as the music video that goes with the song. Often the video gives the song a new frame and imposes a meaning quite different from what seems to be intended in the song itself. Likewise with the prose framings of the biblical songs.
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