Deuteronomy27chapter 27

Deuteronomy 27:1-3

Moses commands with the elders of Israel at verse 1, and at verse 9 the priests the Levites stand with him, so the charge comes from the whole leadership of the nation rather than from one voice. The first work ordered for the far side of Jordan is a writing, great stones plaistered with plaister and carrying all the words of this law. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown point to Egyptian inscriptions laid in paint or plaister that have survived three thousand years, and observe that Moses was raised where that craft was practised.

Deuteronomy 27:4

Ebal is the mountain of the curse at verse 13, and the stones bearing the law are set up there rather than on the mountain of blessing. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads Gerizim in this verse instead, and the difference is old and contested. Adam Clarke reports that Benjamin Kennicott defended the Samaritan reading in his dissertations on the state of the Hebrew text and that Parry defended the Hebrew in The Case Between Gerizim and Ebal Fairly Stated, and Clarke gives both without deciding. This is the textual ground of the question the woman at the well raises at John 4:20, that our fathers worshipped in this mountain.

Deuteronomy 27:5-7

The altar rule given here is the one at Exodus 20:25, whole stones with no iron tool lifted upon them, on the ground that a tool laid to the stone pollutes it. Burnt offerings come first and peace offerings after, and the peace offering is eaten, so the ceremony closes in a meal and rejoicing before the Lord, as the covenant at Exodus 24:11 did. Joshua 8:30-31 records this altar built on Ebal of unhewn stones, and Matthew Henry reads the altar standing beside the written law as the pattern of the two testaments bound together, the words with their curse attached and a place of sacrifice next to them.

Deuteronomy 27:8

Very plainly renders a phrase others give as scoop it out well, and Albert Barnes takes the letters to have been graven into the stone with plaister laid over afterward to guard the inscription from weather. How much was written has been disputed for as long as the verse has been read. John Gill allows that it may have been a summary of the laws, or only the ten commandments, while Matthew Henry reports readers who took it for the whole book of Deuteronomy or for the statutes and judgments of chapters 12 to 26. Barnes counts all the laws delivered through Moses, which the Jewish reckoning puts at 613.

Deuteronomy 27:9-10

Israel came out of Egypt forty years before this speech, and Moses tells the men in front of him that this day thou art become the people of the Lord thy God. The covenant is put in the present tense to the generation standing there, and this day falls seventy times in the book for that reason. Verse 10 draws the consequence in the same breath, that they are to obey the voice of the Lord because of what they have this day become.

Deuteronomy 27:11-13

Six tribes stand on Gerizim to bless and six on Ebal to curse, and Albert Barnes points out that the division follows the mothers. Every tribe on the blessing side descends from Leah or Rachel, and all four tribes born to the handmaids Bilhah and Zilpah stand on the cursing side, joined by Reuben and Zebulun. Adam Clarke reads the preposition as by rather than upon, since Joshua 8:33, where the ceremony is carried out, has the people standing over against the two mountains. Matthew Henry marks what the chapter does next, that twelve curses are written out in full and the blessings are left unwritten.

Deuteronomy 27:14-15

Levi stands on Gerizim at verse 12 and the Levites speak the curses at verse 14, and John Gill reads the speakers as the priests of that tribe placed in the valley between the mountains, which is where Joshua 8:33 puts the men who bore the ark. The first curse falls on an image put in a secret place, and that sets the key of the whole list, since most of what follows is done where no witness stands. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown render the formula as a declaration rather than a wish, cursed is he rather than cursed be he. The people answer Amen twelve times, a word first spoken in Scripture by one woman at Numbers 5:22 and here said by a nation.

Deuteronomy 27:16-19

These four curses name people who cannot see what is done to them or cannot answer it. The landmark is already protected at Deuteronomy 19:14, the blind at Leviticus 19:14, and the stranger, the fatherless and the widow are the three the book keeps returning to at 10:18, 14:29 and 24:17. Setting light by father or mother is the fifth commandment stated as a curse, and Adam Clarke observes that every act in this list was forbidden long before, so what the ceremony adds is the sentence hanging over it.

Deuteronomy 27:20-23

All four stand in the list at Leviticus 18, the father's wife at 18:8, the beast at 18:23, the sister at 18:9 and the mother in law at 18:17. What they share with the curses on either side of them is a closed door, since each names an offence committed inside a household where no outside witness would be present. Paul finds the first of them in a Corinthian church at 1 Corinthians 5:1 and says that even the Gentiles do not name such a thing. Verse 22 covers a half sister on either side, which is the exact distinction Abraham drew about Sarah at Genesis 20:12.

Deuteronomy 27:24-25

Both of these are killings and both are hidden. Smiting a neighbour secretly is murder with no witness, and taking reward to slay an innocent person is murder bought at a distance, forbidden already at Exodus 23:8 and Deuteronomy 16:19 on the ground that a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise. Judas is paid for this at Matthew 26:15, and at Matthew 27:4 he states the charge in the words of verse 25, that he has betrayed the innocent blood.

Deuteronomy 27:26

The twelfth curse gathers the eleven and reaches past them, since it falls on the man who confirmeth not all the words of this law, and the people say Amen to that as well. Paul quotes this verse at Galatians 3:10 to say that as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, and his wording follows the Greek of the Septuagint, which reads every man that continueth not, a phrase the Hebrew does not carry. Three verses later he sets Deuteronomy 21:23 beside it, that he which is hanged is accursed of God, and reads Christ as taking the curse of the law in that manner. Matthew Henry notes that the blessings promised on Gerizim are never written down here, and points to the sermon on the mount at Matthew 5:3 for a hill from which blessings alone are spoken.