Moses has finished giving the “statutes and judgments” of the LORD to the people. The significance of all this is emphasized in Deut. 27. First, the people were to write these laws on large, white-washed stones on top of Mt. Ebal. They were also to build an altar on Mt. Ebal and offer burnt offerings and a peace offering. Then Moses and the priests and Levites were to declare, “This day you have become the people of the LORD your God.” Again, we see that there was a strong renewal of the covenant with the generation living at that time. The record of Israel doing this is in Joshua 8:30-32.
Then Moses instructed the people that they
were to divide themselves according to tribes, six in front of Mt. Gerizim and
six in front of Mt. Ebal. They were to
pronounce a loud “Amen!” as the Levites recited several curses taken from the
law. Again, this was to emphasize the significance
of what had been done in affirming the law of the LORD. This was done, and the record is in Josh. 8:33-35.
These two mountains are on either side of
Shechem, Mt. Ebal on the north and Mt. Gerizim on the south. We have been to Mt. Gerizim; Mt. Ebal has not
been open for us to see. What you see on
Mt. Gerizim today, among other things, is a pile of boulders on which the law
had been written. You will note that
this is wrong. This was supposed to
happen on Mt. Ebal. The explanation from
the Samaritans is that the Jewish Pentateuch is filled with errors. Samaritans have their own Pentateuch which
they claim is ancient, though they have never submitted it to scrutiny. Their version has a totally different view of
things. They believe Shechem was to have
been Israel’s capital, not Jerusalem.
They believe Abraham brought Isaac to Mt. Gerizim to sacrifice to the
LORD and not to Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem.
About half the remaining Samaritans live in the town of Qiryat Luza on
Mt. Gerizim (the other half live down around Tel-Aviv).
What are we to think of this challenge to the
Scriptures? The basic solution for
Christians is to note that our Lord Jesus Christ, in His conversation with the
Samaritan woman at the well, made it clear that Samaritans worship what you
do not know and that salvation is of the Jews (and not the
Samaritans, John 4:22). We also know
that Jesus accepted the Jewish Scriptures as true, as did other NT
writers. We also know, from the book of
Joshua, that Joshua did not consider Shechem to be the capital but made Shiloh
the political and religious center (Josh. 18:1).
Now, let us come back to Deut. 27. What a powerful chapter this is in terms of
the exaltation of the word of God! Shechem
was an important city in Israel, being the first place Abraham came to when he
entered the land (Gen. 12:6). There God
had repeated His promise to Abraham and Abraham built his first altar to the
LORD there (Gen. 12:7).
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| Mts. Gerizim (l) and Ebal with Shechem (modern Nablus in between. You can see how the people could be on both mountains, facing each other, and shouting Amen! |
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| The altar of Isaac on Mt. Gerizim. But the Bible says Isaac was bound on the alter on Mt. Moriah. |
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| The stones on which the law was written, on Mt. Gerizim. Again, the Bible says they were on Ebal. |
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| Taken from Gerizim, looking toward Ebal, with Nablus/Shechem between. |
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