Deuteronomy is not only a conclusion of the Pentateuch; it is also a concluding word of the law.
What is the law in its nature? The law is God's breathing. I do not say that the law is God's breath, but I do say that it is God's breathing. When God was giving the law, He was breathing out the law. This was the reason Paul said, "All Scripture is God-breathed" (2 Tim. 3:16a). Here Paul does not say merely that all Scripture is inspired by God—he says that all Scripture is God-breathed. The law, therefore, is God's breathing.
In Deuteronomy 8:3 Moses, speaking for God, said that man lives not by bread alone but by "everything proceeding from Jehovah's mouth." Notice that this verse does not speak of every word but of everything. The words written in the Pentateuch, of which Deuteronomy is the conclusion, are things which have proceeded out of the mouth of God. These things are God's breathing. While Moses was with God on Mount Sinai, many things were breathed out by God. The Ten Commandments, for example, are items of the basic law. Nevertheless, even the Ten Commandments are God's breathing. If we read these commandments with an open heart and with a seeking and exercised spirit, we will sense that the commandments are not merely legalities but also something living, something full of life to supply us and full of light to enlighten us.
The psalmists, who appraised the law very highly, had this kind of experience in relation to the law. Thus the writer of Psalm 119 could say, "How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth" (v. 103). For the psalmist, whatever came out of God's mouth was not only something legal but something sweet to his taste.
Because all Scripture is God-breathed, even verses such as Genesis 3:1 and Revelation 20:2 and 3 can supply, nourish, strengthen, and enlighten us. Genesis 3:1 says that the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field, and Revelation 20:2 and 3 speak of the devil's being bound and cast into the abyss. These verses are God's breathing, and if we pray-read them, we will be nourished by them. From this we see that we can be nourished and enlightened by any verse in the Bible, including the genealogy in Matthew 1. The point we would emphasize here is that Deuteronomy, the concluding word of the law, considers the law as the living word of God, as the breathing of God.