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Blessings and the Curses
315
A monument of very large stones was set up on Mount Ebal. On
these stones, previously prepared by a covering of plaster, Joshua
inscribed the law—not only the ten commandments spoken from Mt.
Sinai and engraved on tables of stone, but the law communicated to
Moses and written in a book. Beside this monument he built an altar
[249]
of unfinished stone and offered sacrifices to the Lord on it. Because
of their sins against God’s law, Israel justly deserved His wrath,
and they would have felt it immediately if not for the atonement of
Christ, represented by the altar of sacrifice.
Six tribes were positioned on Mount Gerizim, the others on
Ebal, and the priests with the ark were in the valley between. In
the presence of this vast assembly, Joshua read the blessings that
follow obedience to God’s law. All the tribes on Gerizim responded,
“Amen.” He then read the curses, and the tribes on Ebal gave their
agreement in the same way, with thousands upon thousands of voices
uniting in the solemn response. The reading of the law of God came
after this, together with the statutes and judgments that Moses had
delivered.
At Sinai Israel had received the law from the mouth of God, and
its sacred commandments, written by His own hand, were preserved
in the ark. Now it had been written again, where all could read for
themselves the conditions of the covenant that was to prevail while
they possessed Canaan. It had only been a few weeks since Moses
gave the whole book of Deuteronomy in speeches to the people, yet
Joshua read the law again at this time.
Not only the men of Israel, but all the women and the little ones
listened to the reading of the law, for it was important that they also
should know and do their duty. Moses commanded: “At the end of
every seven years, ... when all Israel comes to appear before the
Lord your God in the place which He chooses, you shall read this
law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together,
men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your
gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord
your God and carefully observe all the words of this law, and that
their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the
Lord your God as long as you live in the land which you cross the
Jordan to possess” (
Deuteronomy 31:10-13
).