TEXT [Commentary]

3.   Covenant renewal at Mount Ebal (8:30-35)

30 Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal. 31 He followed the commands that Moses the LORD’s servant had written in the Book of Instruction: “Make me an altar from stones that are uncut and have not been shaped with iron tools.”[*] Then on the altar they presented burnt offerings and peace offerings to the LORD. 32 And as the Israelites watched, Joshua copied onto the stones of the altar[*] the instructions Moses had given them.

33 Then all the Israelites—foreigners and native-born alike—along with the elders, officers, and judges, were divided into two groups. One group stood in front of Mount Gerizim, the other in front of Mount Ebal. Each group faced the other, and between them stood the Levitical priests carrying the Ark of the LORD’s Covenant. This was all done according to the commands that Moses, the servant of the LORD, had previously given for blessing the people of Israel.

34 Joshua then read to them all the blessings and curses Moses had written in the Book of Instruction. 35 Every word of every command that Moses had ever given was read to the entire assembly of Israel, including the women and children and the foreigners who lived among them.

NOTES

8:30 Mount Ebal. This mountain defined the north side of the pass of Shechem, about 20 miles north of Bethel and Ai.

8:32 onto the stones of the altar. Lit., “onto stones.” The object is presumed to be a stone altar.

8:33 Mount Gerizim. This mountain defined the south side of the pass of Shechem, about 20 miles north of Bethel and Ai (see note on 8:30). The pass carried the most important interior road in the central hill country, making it of great symbolic and theological, as well as strategic, importance.

the commands that Moses . . . had previously given. See Deut 11:29; 27:11-13.

COMMENTARY [Text]

The ceremony of covenant renewal recounted in this passage began with the building of “an altar to the LORD” on Mount Ebal (8:30). Recently, an altar of uncut stones, on which no iron tool had been used (8:31), was discovered on the ridge of Mount Ebal. No inscription was found with it, but some think it may be the altar built by Joshua (Zertal 1985).

The “burnt offerings and peace offerings” (8:31) were two of the sacrifices prescribed (Lev 1 and 3, respectively) in the laws of sacrifice God gave Moses while Israel still was at Mount Sinai. We probably should assume that the prescribed daily sacrifices (Num 28:3-8) were already being carried out regularly, but this is the first time sacrifices are mentioned in Joshua, except for the Passover (5:10).

The text then tells us that “Joshua copied . . . the instructions Moses had given” (8:32), to fulfill the command recorded in Deuteronomy 27:2-8. There Moses had told some Israelites to set up stones and coat them with plaster. Woudstra calls them “whitewashed stones” and notes this is an Egyptian technique (Woudstra 1981:147, citing Craigie). This would suggest that the lettering of the laws on the stones was done in a colored ink or paint. (The colored monumental and tomb paintings of Egypt are famous down to the present.) Thus the laws, or a representative sampling, were placed permanently on display in a public place revered as the first location of Israel’s formal worship of Yahweh after entering the land God had given them. Such a public display of laws was done in other places by other rulers; the best-known example is the famous Code of Hammurabi, which is preserved for us on an inscribed stela that Hammurabi set up in Babylon, his capital.

Still carrying out Moses’s instructions, recorded first in Deuteronomy 11:26-32, and then in more detail in Deuteronomy 27–28, Joshua read “all the blessings and curses” (8:34). Half of Israel stood on the lower slopes of the north side of Mount Gerizim; the other half stood on the lower slopes of the south side of Mount Ebal, with Shechem guarding the mouth of the pass between them. Deuteronomy 27:12-13 even lists the tribes that were to comprise the two groups for Gerizim and Ebal, respectively.

With every person in Israel involved, and the Ark positioned in the valley between the two groups standing “in front of” the two mountains, this ceremony was a physical enactment of Israel’s promise to keep the covenant God had made with them at Sinai. The blessings enumerated all the good things God would do for them as they remained faithful to him. The curses described the disasters that would befall them if they forsook the covenant and rebelled against God.

It is important to note that “the entire assembly of Israel, including the women and children and the foreigners who lived among them,” were present (8:35). The casual reader sometimes infers that religious participation was reserved for men in ancient Israel. This reference, together with many others, corrects that mistaken notion. Women were active participants in Israel’s worship, and even children were allowed to be present on many occasions. The “foreigners” were all those people, not Israelite by birth, who had accepted Yahweh as their God and had joined Israel when they saw the great things God had done for Israel. These included those who had come out of Egypt with Israel in the Exodus (Exod 12:38, 48-49), and probably now included Rahab and her family, as well (6:25).

This occasion marked a sense of taking possession of the land, though the campaigns against the Canaanite coalitions were still to come. By a ritual of sacrifice and reading of the law, the event brought to Israel’s memory, individually and collectively, the promises and obligations of the covenant that had been mediated to them through Moses. As a ritual of anticipated possession, it demonstrated their faith in God’s promise, whose fulfillment was beginning to unfold before them. The solemnity and inclusiveness of the occasion is emphasized throughout this short account.