Deuteronomychapter 27
26 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow. And all the people shall say, Amen.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Deuteronomy Overview.
This chapter is a set of orders for a ceremony, given by Moses with the elders and the priests before the nation crosses the Jordan. It stands where the law code ends and the book turns to the covenant's sanctions. Everything in it is to happen on the far side of the river, in the land, at two mountains. Listen for the plain materials the ceremony uses, and for the single word the whole people is told to answer. Notice also what kind of wrongs the list of curses names, and ask who could have seen them done.
Context
- Who
- A nation that would cross the river within months and had to know what to do on the first day in the land
- What
- The orders for writing the law on plastered stones, building an altar on Mount Ebal, and a ceremony of twelve curses answered by the people.
- Where
- The plains of Moab, looking ahead to Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, the two mountains facing each other at Shechem
- When
- The fortieth year after the Exodus, about 1406 BC on the early date of the Exodus, a date inferred from 1 Kings 6:1 since the chapter names no year.
- Why
- To have the nation ratify the covenant on its own soil and take its sanctions on itself by a spoken Amen.
Historical context
The charge comes from the whole leadership rather than from Moses alone. He commands with the elders of Israel at verse 1, and at verse 9 the Levitical priests stand with him. It falls in the fortieth year after the exodus, on the plains of Moab, and the ceremony it orders is to be held after the crossing at the two mountains above Shechem. The occasion is the close of the law code that began at 4:44, so the nation now has to ratify what it has heard. A first hearer knew that large stones coated with plaster were a normal way to publish a text. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown point to Egyptian inscriptions laid in paint or plaster that have survived three thousand years, and observe that Moses was raised where that craft was practised. He also knew the altar rule being applied here, whole stones with no iron tool lifted on them, which Exodus 20:25 had already given. Adam Clarke observes that every act in the list of twelve curses was forbidden long before this chapter, so what the ceremony adds is the sentence hanging over each one.
Significance
Saying Amen aloud made every person present a party to the agreement rather than a spectator at it. The content of the curses told them what God watches, since most of the twelve name acts done where no witness stands. The covenant therefore reached past anything the elders at the gate could try. The stones were to go up on the land itself before any city was taken, so the law was published on the ground before the ground was held.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
This chapter records a ceremony, and the classical sources set it out as a staged event. Rashi counts three sets of stones rather than one, twelve raised in the Jordan, twelve at Gilgal and twelve on Mount Ebal (Rashi on Deuteronomy 27:2:1, citing Sotah 35b). The law written on them was written plainly. The rabbis took that to mean in seventy languages, so that any nation could read it (Rashi on Deuteronomy 27:8:1, citing Sotah 32a).
Rashi then describes the blessing and the curse as it was carried out. Six tribes went up Mount Gerizim and six up Mount Ebal. The priests, the Levites and the Ark stood below in the valley between the two. The Levites turned towards Gerizim and said the blessing, and both halves of the people answered amen. They turned towards Ebal and said the curse, and the people answered again, and so through every curse to the last (Rashi on Deuteronomy 27:12:1, citing Sotah 32a). Sforno reads the command to rejoice there as joy over entering a covenant with God at the two mountains (Sforno on Deuteronomy 27:7:1, Munk translation, CC-BY).
How it is read
The twelve curses are read as naming sins done where nobody can see them. The readings Rashi gives are narrower than an English reader expects. Making light of a father or mother is read from the same root as the word used of a man made despicable by lashes (Rashi on Deuteronomy 27:16:1). Moving a landmark means pushing it back into a neighbour's field to steal ground (Rashi on Deuteronomy 27:17:1). Making the blind go astray means giving bad advice to a man inexperienced in the matter (Rashi on Deuteronomy 27:18:1). Smiting a fellow in secret is read as slander (Rashi on Deuteronomy 27:24:1, citing Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 53).
Ramban explains the wording of the curse on the man who uncovers his father's skirt as a deliberate courtesy. The Torah uses the blunter word where the punishment is death or extinction, and the gentler word here where the penalty is a curse (Ramban on Deuteronomy 27:20:1, Chavel translation, CC-BY).
The last curse is the one a Christian reader should mark. Rashi says that with it Moses brought the whole Torah under a curse, and that the people took it on themselves by an oath (Rashi on Deuteronomy 27:26:1). Paul quotes that same verse at Galatians 3:10 and builds an argument about the law from it. The classical Jewish reading keeps the verse inside the covenant ceremony, as the seal on the oath the people swore. This site sets the two readings side by side without ruling between them. The corpus also holds Ibn Ezra on Deuteronomy 27:3:1, 27:10:1, 27:14:1, 27:15:1, 27:19:1, 27:21:1 and 27:25:1 without an English text. It holds Malbim on Deuteronomy 27:4:1, 27:5:1, 27:6:1, 27:22:1 and 27:23:1 the same way. All are cited without quotation.
What the rabbis say
The rabbis counted the curses and found a gap. Rashi reports, from the work of Rabbi Moses the Preacher, that the eleven verses beginning with the word cursed answer to eleven tribes rather than twelve. Simeon is the tribe left out. The reason offered is that Moses did not mean to bless Simeon before his death, and so chose not to curse him either (Rashi on Deuteronomy 27:24:1). That reading also accounts for the absence of Simeon from the blessing of the tribes in chapter 33. This site reports it as the teaching of the rabbis rather than as the plain sense of the chapter.
The corpus carries more locators on this chapter, given for a reader to follow. Jerusalem Talmud Sotah 7:5:3 stands at 27:2. Menachot 34a:12 and Ein Yaakov, Sotah 7:18 stand at 27:3. Avodah Zarah 52b:10 and Bamidbar Rabbah 14:1 stand at 27:5. Chagigah 4b:7 and Chullin 31a:12 stand at 27:7. Berakhot 15b:15 and Berakhot 16a:10 stand at 27:9. Jerusalem Talmud Sotah 7:3:1 stands across 27:11 to 27:26. Bamidbar Rabbah 11:4 and Bamidbar Rabbah 20:19 stand at 27:12, Avodah Zarah 52a:11 at 27:15. Chullin 110b and Bamidbar Rabbah 20:14 stand at 27:16, Midrash Tehillim 146:4 at 27:18. Bereshit Rabbah 98:4 stands at 27:20, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 53:1 at 27:24. Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 31:6 and Bamidbar Rabbah 14:6 stand at 27:26.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Deuteronomy 27:1 to 27:26, Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, public domain, 1929-1934; Ramban, Ramban on Deuteronomy 27:20:1, Chavel translation, Shilo Pub. House, CC-BY, 1971-1976; Sforno, Sforno on Deuteronomy 27:7:1, Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash, CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Deuteronomy 27:3:1, 27:10:1, 27:14:1, 27:15:1, 27:19:1, 27:21:1 and 27:25:1, cited without text; Malbim, Malbim on Deuteronomy 27:4:1, 27:5:1, 27:6:1, 27:22:1 and 27:23:1, cited without text; The Sefaria corpus on disk, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/deuteronomy/27.json, fetched 2026-09-19, 2026.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Great stones, plaster, and an unhewn altar
Deuteronomy 27:1-3
Moses commands with the elders here and with the Levitical priests at verse 9, so the charge comes from the whole leadership of the nation. The first work ordered beyond the Jordan is a writing, large stones coated with plaster carrying “all the words of this law”. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown point to Egyptian inscriptions in plaster that have lasted three thousand years, a craft Moses grew up among.
Deuteronomy 27:1
“Moses in a third discourse Deut. 27–30, proceeds more specifically to dwell upon the sanctions of the Law. In these chapters he sets before Israel in striking and elaborate detail the blessings which would ensue upon faithfulness to the covenant, and the curses which disobedience would involve.”
The day of the crossing stands for its time, and the stones were set up some days after the people crossed the Jordan, as Wesley notes. Joshua 8:32 records the writing after the fall of Ai. Clarke observes that the number of large stones is left unstated.
Deuteronomy 27:2
“Thou shalt set thee up great stones - How many is not specified, possibly twelve, and possibly only a sufficient number to make a surface large enough to write the blessings and the curses on. Plaster them with plaster - Perhaps the original ושדת אתם בשיד vesadta otham bassid should be translated, Thou shalt cement them with cement, because this was intended to be a durable monument.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 27:2
“Stones and even rocks are seen in Egypt and the peninsula of Sinai, containing inscriptions made three thousand years ago, in paint or plaister. By some similar method those stones may have been inscribed, and it is most probable that Moses learned the art from the Egyptians.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The writing is tied to entering the land, and Wesley and Henry read the law on the stones as the terms on which Israel would enter. The land was given by promise and held by obedience.
Deuteronomy 27:3
“And thou shall write upon them all the words of this law,.... Not the whole book of Deuteronomy, as some think, at least not the historical part of it, only what concerns the laws of God; and it may be only a summary or abstract of them, and perhaps only the ten commandments.”
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 27:3
“All the words of this law - i. e. all the laws revealed from God to the people by Moses, regarded by the Jews as 613 (compare Num 15:38 note). The exhibition of laws in this manner on stones, pillars, or tables, was familiar to the ancients. The laws were probably graven in the stone (“very plainly,” Deu 27:8 is by some rendered “scoop it out well”), as are for the most part the Egyptian hieroglyphics, the “plaister” being afterward added to protect the inscription from the weather.”
Deuteronomy 27:3
“Others think that the whole book of Deuteronomy was written upon this monument, or at least the statutes and judgments from ch. xii. to the end of ch. xxvi.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ebal is the mountain of the curse at verse 13, and the stones bearing the law stand there. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads Gerizim in this verse, and Clarke reports Benjamin Kennicott defending that reading and Parry defending the Hebrew, deciding for neither. The difference lies behind the question the woman at the well raises at John 4:20 about the mountain where the fathers worshiped.
Deuteronomy 27:4
“And therefore it shall be, when ye be gone over Jordan,.... Some time after they had passed that river: that ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, in Mount Ebal; a mountain near Shechem in Samaria, and was, as Benjamin of Tudela says (r), dry as stones and rocks itself, and perhaps had its name, as some think (s), from the root in the Arabic language which signifies to strip a tree of its leaves, and a derivative from it, white stones and a mountain in which such are found.”
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 27:4
“Set up these stones - in Mount Ebal - So the present Hebrew text, but the Samaritan has Mount Gerizim. Dr. Kennicott has largely defended the reading of the Samaritan in his second dissertation on the present state of the Hebrew text, and Dr. Parry has defended the Hebrew against the Samaritan in his Case between Gerizim and Ebal fairly stated. So has J. H. Verschuir, in his Dissert. Critica. Many still think Dr. Kennicott’s arguments unanswerable, and have no doubt that the Jews have here corrupted the text through their enmity to the Samaritans.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 27:4
“Here the sacrifices are to be offered, to shew that there is no way to be delivered from this curse, but by the blood of Christ, which all these sacrifices did typify, and by Christ's being made a curse for us.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 27:5-7
The altar rule is the one at Exodus 20:25, uncut stones with no iron tool, since a tool used on the stone defiles it. Burnt offerings come first and peace offerings after, and the peace offerings are eaten with rejoicing, as the covenant meal at Exodus 24:11 was. Joshua 8:30-31 records this altar on Ebal, and Henry reads it beside the written law as sacrifice set next to the curse.
Deuteronomy 27:5
“And there shall thou build an altar to the Lord thy God,.... On the same mountain, though not of the same stones. Jarchi's note is,"after that (the setting up of the plastered stones) thou shalt bring from thence (from Jordan) others, and build of them an altar on Mount Ebal;''but Josephus (t) places this altar not on Mount Ebal, but between that and Gerizim.”
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 27:5
“It was once counted a glory for the altar that no axe had been lifted upon it, no stonecutter's tool seen or heard. The higher meaning was that whatever was consecrated to God should be natural and free from artifice.”
Gregory of Nazianzus · written before 390 · ORATION 18.10patristic
Deuteronomy 27:5
“Christ, our altar, is a stone cut out of the mountain without hands ( Dan. ii. 34, 35 ), and therefore refused by the builders, as having no form or comeliness, but accepted of God the Father, and made the head of the corner.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Calvin reads the uncut stones as a sign that the altar was for this one time, since a lasting altar would have drawn Israel away from the one sanctuary. Joshua 22 records the tribes nearly going to war over an altar by the Jordan for that reason. In Wesley's reading, the law spoke and the altar answered.
Deuteronomy 27:6
“Thou shall build the altar of the Lord thy God of whole stones,.... And of such Joshua did build it, Jos 8:31, and thou shalt offer burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord thy God; and very likely sin offerings too; for these frequently went together, the one to make atonement for sin, and the other as a gift, and by way of thankfulness for the acceptance of the former; and both typical of Christ, the true sacrifice, and the antitype of all the legal sacrifices.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 27:6
“Whole stones - Rough, not hewed or polished. By the law written on the stones, God spake to them: by the altar and sacrifices upon it, they spake to God: and thus was communion kept up between them and God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Henry reads the peace offerings eaten at the altar as Israel's consent to the covenant, since parties to a covenant sealed it by eating together. Jacob and Laban ate at their heap of stones at Genesis 31:46 in the same way. Israel ate before the LORD as His tenants.
Deuteronomy 27:7
“This signified, [1.] The consent they gave to the covenant; for the parties to a covenant ratified the covenant by feasting together.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Barnes takes the letters as cut into the stone with plaster laid over them to guard them from weather. How much was written is an old question. Gill allows a summary of the laws or only the Ten Commandments, Henry reports readers who took it for Deuteronomy or for chapters 12 to 26, and Barnes counts all the laws given through Moses.
Deuteronomy 27:8
“Some understand it only of the covenant between God and Israel, mentioned ch. xxvi. Let this help be set up for a witness, like that memorial of the covenant between Laban and Jacob, which was nothing but a heap of stones thrown hastily together, upon which they did eat together in token of friendship ( Gen. xxxi.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
This day you have become a people
Deuteronomy 27:9-10
Israel left Egypt forty years before this speech, yet Moses tells the men before him that “This day you have become the people of the LORD your God”. The covenant is put in the present tense to the generation standing there. Verse 10 draws the consequence at once, that they are to obey because of what they have become.
Deuteronomy 27:9
“It was to be done but once, and at their entrance into the land of promise, in token of their taking possession of it under the several provisos and conditions contained in this law. There was a solemn ratification of the covenant between God and Israel at Mount Sinai, when an altar was erected, with twelve pillars, and the book of the covenant was produced, Exod. xxiv.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
obey the voice of the Lord: Henry sets the verse beside Genesis 17:7-8, where the LORD promised to be God to Abraham's offspring and to give them the land they were about to cross into. Henry adds Hebrews 11:16, where God is unashamed to be called their God. Obeying His voice answers a promise kept.
Deuteronomy 27:10
“Thou shalt therefore obey the voice of the Lord thy God,.... In whatsoever he directs in his word, and by his prophets, and especially by his Son, eminently called the Word of the Lord: and do his commandments and his statutes, which I command thee this day; See Gill on Deu 27:1.”
Six tribes to bless, six to curse
Deuteronomy 27:11-13
Six tribes stand on Gerizim to bless and six on Ebal to curse, and Barnes shows that the division follows the mothers. Every tribe on the blessing side comes from Leah or Rachel, while the four sons of the handmaids Bilhah and Zilpah stand on Ebal with Reuben and Zebulun. Clarke reads the tribes as standing by the mountains, since Joshua 8:33 places the people facing them.
Deuteronomy 27:11
These curses attendant on disobedience to the divine will, which had been revealed as a law from heaven, be it observed, are given in the form of a declaration, not a wish, as the words should be rendered, "Cursed is he," and not, "Cursed be he."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Levi is counted among the tribes here, so Joseph stands as one tribe, and Wesley notes that where Levi is left out, as in the dividing of the land, Ephraim and Manasseh count as two. Gerizim and Ebal stand near Shechem, about 800 feet high above a valley some 500 yards wide. The priests' voices carried across it.
Deuteronomy 27:12
“These shall stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people - Instead of upon Mount, etc., we may translate by, as the particle על al is sometimes used; for we do not find that the tribes did stand on either mount, for in Jos 8:33, when this direction was reduced to practice, we find the people did not stand on the mountains, but over against them on the plain. See the observations at the end of this chapter, Deu 27:26 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 27:12
“Joseph is here put for both his sons and tribes Manasseh and Ephraim, which are reckoned as one tribe, because Levi is here numbered; but when Levi is omitted, as it is where the division of the land is made, there Manasseh and Ephraim pass for two tribes.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The blessing tribes stand to bless the people, and the cursing tribes stand only to deliver the curse, with no people named, which Henry and Wesley read as reluctance to place any Israelite under it. Reuben stands here as the son who lost his birthright. Zebulun, Leah's youngest, evens the sides at six, as Wesley notes.
Deuteronomy 27:13
“But the curses come in, only as exceptions to the general rule: "Israel is a blessed people: but if there be any even among them, that do such and such things, they have no part or lot in this matter, but are under a curse." This shews how ready God is to bestow the blessing: if any fall under the curse, they bring it on their own head.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 27:14-15
Levi stands on Gerizim at verse 12, so Gill reads the speakers as the priests of that tribe in the valley between, where Joshua 8:33 puts the bearers of the ark. The first curse falls on an idol set up “in secret”, and most of what follows is done where no witness stands. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the formula as a declaration, and the people answer Amen twelve times.
Deuteronomy 27:14
“And the Levites shall speak, and say unto all the men of Israel,.... Rather, "answer (e) and say"; not the whole tribe of Levi, for that stood on Mount Gerizim to bless, Deu 27:12; but the priests of that tribe who were placed in the valley, between the two mountains, and pronounced both the blessings and the curses in the hearing of all the tribes of Israel, to which they were to answer Amen; and that they might plainly hear, they expressed their words with a loud voice, clearly and distinctly, as follow. (e) ענו "respondebunt", Montanus.”
Twelve curses, and all the people say Amen
All the people answer Amen to a curse, and Wesley and Henry read it as two admissions, that the curse is certain and that it is just. Each man who said Amen cursed himself if he ever made an idol or did what the curses name. Nehemiah 10:29 records such an oath.
Deuteronomy 27:15
“Whether it be a graven image or a molten image, it comes all to one, it is an abomination to the Lord, even though it be not set up in public, but in a secret place,--though it be not actually worshipped, nor is it said to be designed for worship, but reserved there with respect and a constant temptation.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 27:15
“Cursed be the man, etc. - Other laws, previously made, had prohibited all these things; and penal sanctions were necessarily understood; but here God more openly declares that he who breaks them is cursed - falls under the wrath and indignation of his Maker and Judge. See the note on Exo 20:4.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 27:15
“But how could they say it to the curses? It was both a profession of their faith in the truth of it, and an acknowledgment of the equity of these curses. So that when they said Amen, they did in effect Say, not only, it is certain it shall be so, but it is just it should be so.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 27:16-19
These four curses protect people who cannot see what is done to them or cannot answer it. The boundary stone is guarded at 19:14, the blind at Leviticus 19:14, and the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow at 10:18, 14:29 and 24:17. Clarke observes that every act here was forbidden long before, so the ceremony adds the sentence that hangs over it.
Gill cites Jarchi, that the boundary stone was moved back into the neighbor's field, stealing the land itself. Henry files the curse under the eighth commandment, against theft. The stone was moved in secret, Gill adds.
Deuteronomy 27:17
“Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark,.... Removes it backward, and steals ground, as Jarchi explains it; this is commonly done secretly; see Deu 19:14, and all the people shall say Amen; See Gill on Deu 27:15; See Gill on Deu 27:16.”
Gill cites a Targum that reads the blind man as any traveller who knows the road no better than the blind. Henry and Wesley extend the curse to counsel that lets a man wander. Jesus speaks of the blind leading the blind at Matthew 15:14.
Deuteronomy 27:18
“Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way,.... By directing him wrong knowingly, or laying a stumbling block in his way, Lev 19:14. The Targum of Jonathan is,"that maketh a traveller wander out of the way, who like a blind man;''who knows his way no more than a blind man does.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 27:18
“Such [a line of conduct] belongs not to those who heal, or who give life: it is rather that of those bringing on diseases, and increasing ignorance; and much more true than these men shall the law be found, which pronounces every one accursed who sends the blind man astray in the way. For the apostles, who were commissioned to find out the wanderers, and to be for sight to those who saw not, and medicine to the weak, certainly did not address them in accordance with their opinion at the time, but according to revealed truth.”
Irenaeus · written before 202 · AGAINST HERESIES 3.5.2patristic
The curse falls on the judge who withholds justice. Henry observes that nothing could be gained by favouring the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow and nothing lost by wronging them, and Gill adds that God stands as their patron and avenger.
Deuteronomy 27:19
“Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow,.... Who have none to assist them, and take their part, and therefore judges may be tempted to do an unjust thing; but God is the patron of them, and takes notice of every injury done them, and is the avenger of all such: and all the people shall say Amen; See Gill on Deu 27:15; See Gill on Deu 27:16.”
Deuteronomy 27:20-23
All four stand in Leviticus 18, the father's wife at 18:8, the animal at 18:23, the sister at 18:9 and the mother-in-law at 18:17. Like the curses around them, each is done inside a household where no outside witness would be present. Paul finds the first of them in the church at Corinth at 1 Corinthians 5:1.
Deuteronomy 27:20
“Cursed be he that lieth with his father's wife,.... As Reuben did, and which is forbidden Lev 18:8, because he uncovereth his father's skirt; see Deu 22:30, and all the people shall say Amen; the tribe of Reuben said this as well as the rest.”
Leviticus 20:15-16 had already put both the offender and the animal to death, whether the offender was a man or a woman. The curse adds God's wrath to the judge's sword, Henry notes.
Deuteronomy 27:21
“Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast,.... See Lev 18:23, and all the people shall say Amen; as being shocking and abhorrent to human nature.”
the daughter of his father: Leviticus 20:17 had already ordered that a man who takes his sister be cut off in the sight of the people. Henry files this curse under the seventh commandment. Amnon's crime against Tamar, his father's daughter, at 2 Samuel 13 is a case Israel's history records.
Deuteronomy 27:22
“Cursed be he that lieth with his sister,.... Which is forbid, Lev 18:9, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother; whether his sister by father or mother's side: and all the people shall say Amen; detesting such uncleanness.”
A mother-in-law is kin by marriage only. Henry still names this incest, with the sister and the father's wife of verses 20 and 22. Leviticus 20:14 set burning as the penalty where a man took both a wife and her mother.
Deuteronomy 27:23
“Cursed be he that lieth with his mother in law,.... See Lev 18:7. All these incestuous or brutal copulations may well be supposed to be done in secret: and all the people shall say Amen; as abhorring such incest.”
Deuteronomy 27:24-25
Both curses fall on killings, and both are hidden. Striking a neighbor “in secret” is murder with no witness, and taking a bribe to kill is murder bought at a distance, already forbidden at Exodus 23:8 and Deuteronomy 16:19. Judas is paid at Matthew 26:15, and at Matthew 27:4 he confesses that he has betrayed innocent blood.
Deuteronomy 27:24
“Cursed be he that smiteth his neighbour secretly,.... And kills him, and the murder is not known; the curse of God follows such, and overtakes them sooner or later. Some interpret this of smiting with the tongue, of secret backbiting and slander; so the Targum of Jonathan,"that smiteth with the third tongue;''or false accusation: and all the people shall say Amen; as disapproving of and condemning such a practice, even slander, and especially murder.”
Gill reads the man who accepts a bribe to kill as a hired killer, a judge bribed to condemn, or with Aben Ezra a false witness. Henry calls killing an innocent person by law the worst affront to God. Psalm 15:5 blesses the man who takes no bribe against the innocent.
Deuteronomy 27:25
“Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person,.... As an assassin, to murder him privately; or as a judge, that takes a bribe to condemn to death an innocent person: so Aben Ezra observes, that according to the sense of some a judge is meant; but, says he, in my opinion a false witness; one that swears a man's life away for the sake of a reward given him: and all the people shall say Amen; at so detestable a crime.”
The twelfth curse gathers the eleven and reaches past them, falling on anyone who does not keep the words of this law. Paul quotes it at Galatians 3:10, following the Greek of the Septuagint with its added word all, which the Hebrew lacks. At Galatians 3:13 he sets Deuteronomy 21:23 beside it and reads Christ as bearing the curse of the law.
Deuteronomy 27:26
“That confirmeth not all the words of this law - The word כל col, All, is not found in any printed copy of the Hebrew text; but the Samaritan preserves it, and so do six MSS. in the collections of Kennicott and De Rossi, besides several copies of the Chaldee Targum. The Septuagint also, and St. Paul in his quotation of this place, Gal 3:10. St. Jerome says that the Jews suppressed the word, that it might not appear that they were bound to fulfill All the precepts in the law of Moses.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 27:26
“Confirmeth not - Or, performeth not. To this we must all say, Amen! Owning ourselves to be under the curse, and that we must have perished forever, if Christ had not redeemed us from the curse of the law, by being made a curse for us.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 27:26
Moses was the writer of a great part of the law. Did he not add to it a threat against the transgressor or the negligent? He presents a general malediction upon all violators. This is seen in his introduction to the announcement of this most frightful penalty: "Cursed be every man that abides not in all that is written in the book of this law"; and elsewhere, "Cursed be he that does the work of the Lord negligently."
Basil of Caesarea · written before 379 · CONCERNING BAPTISM 5patristic
Deuteronomy 27:26
“By our obedience to the law we set our seal to it, and so confirm it, as by our disobedience we do what lies in us to disannul it, Ps. cxix. The apostle, following all the ancient versions, reads it, Cursed is every one that continues not, Gal. iii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Cross references
Deuteronomy 27:26
- Quoted inGalatians 3:10All who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”
'Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things' ('it is written')
How this psalm is built
The form: A covenant ratification ceremony, ordered in advance and carried out after the crossing, as Keil and Delitzsch classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Twelve curses, each answered Amen | Verses 15 to 26 run twelve curses, and after every one the people say Amen. The formula reads as a declaration rather than a wish, cursed is he rather than cursed be he, which Jamieson, Fausset and Brown set out on verse 15. Amen is first spoken in Scripture by one woman at Numbers 5:22, and here a nation says it twelve times.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Deuteronomy 27:15. | Deuteronomy 27:15, Deuteronomy 27:16, Deuteronomy 27:20, Deuteronomy 27:24, Deuteronomy 27:26 |
| Offences done where no witness stands | The first curse falls on an image set up in secret at verse 15, and that sets the key of the list. The four at verses 16 to 19 name people who cannot see what is done to them or cannot answer it, and the four at verses 20 to 23 name offences committed inside a household. Verses 24 and 25 are two killings, one struck in secret and one bought at a distance.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Deuteronomy 27:16. | Deuteronomy 27:15, Deuteronomy 27:18, Deuteronomy 27:19, Deuteronomy 27:24, Deuteronomy 27:25 |
| Six tribes on Gerizim, six on Ebal | Verses 12 and 13 divide the tribes between the two mountains, and Albert Barnes points out that the division follows the mothers. Every tribe on the blessing side descends from Leah or Rachel, and the four born to Bilhah and Zilpah stand on the cursing side with Reuben and Zebulun.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, on Deuteronomy 27:12. | Deuteronomy 27:12, Deuteronomy 27:13 |
| Moses, the elders, the priests, the Levites | Four speaking arrangements stand in one chapter. Moses commands with the elders at verse 1, Moses and the Levitical priests speak at verse 9, Moses charges the people at verse 11, and the Levites proclaim the curses at verse 14. John Gill reads the speakers of verse 14 as the priests of that tribe standing in the valley between the mountains, which is where Joshua 8:33 puts the men who bore the ark.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, on Deuteronomy 27:14. | Deuteronomy 27:1, Deuteronomy 27:9, Deuteronomy 27:11, Deuteronomy 27:14 |
The stones and the craft behind them
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown point to Egyptian inscriptions laid in paint or plaster that have survived three thousand years, and observe that Moses was raised where that craft was practised. Albert Barnes takes the letters to have been graven into the stone with plaster laid over afterward to guard the inscription from weather. Verse 8 asks for the writing to be done very plainly, a phrase others render as scoop it out well.
How much was written
The extent of the inscription 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. Matthew Henry reports readers who took it for the whole book of Deuteronomy, and others for the statutes and judgments of chapters 12 to 26. Albert Barnes counts all the laws delivered through Moses, which the Jewish reckoning puts at 613.
The altar rule
The altar of verses 5 and 6 follows the rule given 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.
Ebal or Gerizim in verse 4
The Masoretic Text names Ebal as the mountain where the stones are set up, and the Samaritan Pentateuch reads Gerizim in the same verse. Adam Clarke reports that Benjamin Kennicott defended the Samaritan reading in his dissertations on the state of the Hebrew text. 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.
What the ceremony added
Adam Clarke observes that every act in the list of curses was forbidden long before this chapter. The landmark is protected at Deuteronomy 19:14, the blind at Leviticus 19:14, and the four offences of verses 20 to 23 all stand in the list at Leviticus 18. What the ceremony adds is the sentence hanging over each one, spoken aloud and agreed to by the whole nation.
Keep studying
Places1
Words12
Subjects1
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Deuteronomy 27:1; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, on Deuteronomy 27 and Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King: The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy, 1963.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.