Deuteronomy 27:2

And it shall be, on the day when you shall pass over Jordan,.... Not the precise day exactly, but about that time, a little after they passed that river, as soon as they conveniently could; for it

And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaister them with plaister: It shall be on

On that day, i.e. about that time, for it was not done till some days after their passing over. Day is oft put for time, as hath been noted before. Plaister them with plaister, for conveniency of writing upon them.

Deuteronomy 27:2 And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaister them with plaister:Ver. 2. And plaster them with plaster.] That they might have it in white and black.

XXVII. THE LAW TO BE IN CANAAN AS THE LAW OF THE LAND.(1) Moses with the elders.—Here joined in exhortation for the first time in this book. Keep.—Literally, to keep. Possibly we are intended to connect the two verses. In order to keep them, ye shall write them. Deuteronomy 27:2-4 THE TO BE WRITTEN ON MOUNT EBAL.(2) Set . . . up great stones, and plaister them with plaister.—The idea is to make a smooth surface, on which the Law could be inscribed. “Plaister” only here and in Isaiah 33:12; Amos 2:2. In both those places it is rendered “lime.” (3) Thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law, when thou art passed over, that thou mayest go in.—Again it is evident that the “going in” to the land and the “passing over” Jordan are not identical. The “Law of God” was to be set up in the heart of the country, as soon as Israel had entered it, in order that they might complete the conquest of it. It is abundantly clear that Israel’s title to Canaan was dependent upon their maintaining the Law of Jehovah as the law of the land. For the fulfilment of this precept, see Joshua 8:32-35. The words of this verse are an additional reason for the view taken in the Note on that passage, that the Law was set up on Ebal immediately after the capture of Ai, without waiting for the completion of the conquest (as some suppose).

Verse 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. In similar cases it was customary to set up a single stone, or a heap, rudely put together, where no cement or mortar appears to have been used; and because this was common, it was necessary to give particular directions when the usual method was not to be followed. Some suppose that the writing was to be in relievo, and that the spaces between the letters were filled up by the mortar or cement. This is quite a possible case, as the Eastern inscriptions are frequently done in this way. There is now before me a large slab of basaltes, two feet long by sixteen inches wide, on which there is an inscription in Persian, Arabic, and Tamul; in the two former the letters are all raised, the surface of the stone being dug out, but the Tamul is indented. A kind of reddish paint had been smeared over the letters to make them more apparent. Two Arabic marbles in the University of Oxford have the inscriptions in relievo, like those on the slab of basalt in my possession. In the opinion of some even this case may cast light upon the subject in question.

2. on the day on which ye shall pass over Jordan] The Heb. idiom (cp. 2 Samuel 19:20, Esther 9:1) implies the very day on which they were crossing, and not (vaguely) the time when they crossed; and this is confirmed by 3b which indicates that the stones were to be set up when Israel crossed Jordan but before they entered upon their occupation of the land, in order that thou mayest go in (similarly Dillm. and Dri.). and plaister them with plaister] A whitewash of lime or chalk, as a background for the writing in black or another colour. The practice was Egyptian, and in Egypt the climate was not hostile to the result. But such writing would not survive the winters of Palestine, where not even inscriptions engraved in limestone, but only those in basalt have endured. It is possible therefore that we have here a very ancient fragment incorporated in D. Cp. E, Exodus 24:4-7 where the writing of the words of the Lord by Moses is associated with the erection of twelve maṣ ?ṣ ?ebτth. all the word; of this law] Heb. Tτrah (see on Deuteronomy 1:5, Deuteronomy 31:9, etc.). How much is comprised in this phrase we cannot say, for we are not sure of the exact size of the original code of D. It was a widespread custom in antiquity to engrave laws upon stone pillars. The Code of Ḫ ?ammurabi is engraved on a pillar of black diorite in ‘about 49 columns, 4000 lines and 8000 words’ (Johns, Hastings’ D.B., Extra Vol.). The local tariff of Palmyra contains about 260 lines in Greek and 163 in Aramaic (Cooke, N. Semit. Inscr. 313 ff.). The regulations for sacrifices at Carthage (CIS. i. i. 166 ff.) were graven on stone. For Greece cp. Apollodorus in the Schol. to l. 447 of the Clouds of Aristophanes: οἱἀρχαῖοιλίθουςἱστάντεςεἰώθεσαντὰδόξανταἐναὐτοῖςἀναγράφειν. These pillars were called στῆλαι and the phrase παραβῆναιτὰςστήλας (Polyb. xxvi. 1, 4) = to transgress the laws (Knobel). when thou art passed over] LXX, ye are. that thou mayest go in, etc.] Cp. Deuteronomy 4:40, Deuteronomy 6:3, Deuteronomy 7:1, etc. LXX B, etc., read that ye may go in, but most MSS have Sg.

The stones here named are not those of which the altar Deuteronomy 27:5 was to be built, but are to serve as a separate monument witnessing to the fact that the people took possession of the land by

2. The day when ye shall pass over Jordan — Day is used here, as elsewhere, to denote the time when. After you have passed over Jordan, thou shalt set thee up great stones, etc.