Are the books known as the "Book of the Covenant" and the "Book of the Law" the same book or two separate books?

Question

Exodus 24:7 (verse-A)

Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”

That event is before God give the stone-tablets to Moses. (I think it's the early years of the Exodus ??) and before 40 days Moses in Mt. Sinai.

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Deuteronomy 29:21 (verse-B)

And the LORD will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.

That event is after 40 years of the exodus.

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It seems to me that the Book of the Covenant (BoC) is different than the Book of the Law (BoL), because in the verse-A leads me to think that BoC already done/finish/complete that time when Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

On the other hand, BoL is still being written - it's the book where Moses is writing verse-B. So then there are two books, the BoC and the BoL.

But since I'm not sure of my own conclusion, that's why I ask here. Thank you.

Answer 1

According to Jeffrey Tigay, Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania, Book of the Covenant refers specifically to what was given in Exodus 20:19-23:33, which begins The Lord said to Moses: Thus shall you say to the Israelites ....¹

The word translated in the ESV as "Law" in Deuteronomy 29:21 is "torah", which also means "teaching". The Jewish Publication Society Tanakh version of Deuteronomy translates this verse as:

The LORD will single them out from all the tribes of Israel for misfortune, in accordance with all the sanctions of the covenant recorded in this book of Teaching.

As such, it would refer to all the books that Moses was in the process of writing (i.e. the Pentateuch) and which today are referred to collectively as the "Torah" by Jews.

So in a sense I think you are right, although the Book of the Covenant is not really a separate book, but rather a subsection of the greater Torah (Book of Law/Teaching).

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^{1 The Oxford Jewish Study Bible (1st ed.), p.162n}