Deuteronomy 27:1

_AND MOSES WITH THE ELDERS OF ISRAEL COMMANDED THE PEOPLE, SAYING, KEEP ALL THE COMMANDMENTS WHICH I COMMAND YOU THIS DAY._ Keep all the commandments which I command you this day. This chapter should have commenced at Deuteronomy 26:16, for there Moses enters on the concluding part of the discourse which he pronounced on the plains of Moab; and having put the people in remembrance of the national covenant which had been mutually established between the Lord and Israel, by which He chose them for His people and they engaged to serve Him as their God, he proceeds to found on that solemn transaction a general but earnest exhortation to obedience. Moses was surrounded, while giving his address, by the elders, or principal authorities in Israel, who by their presence, gestures, or audible declaration, not only approved of its strain, but united with him in enforc

1._And Moses, with the elders. _This precept is of the same character as those that have preceded it; for, as God would have His precepts written on the door-posts, and on the borders of their garments, so that they might constantly meet their eyes, so also would He have a monument existing at the very entrance of their land, from which the people might learn that they dwelt in it, in order that they might worship God purely. Wherefore, lest by the people’s carelessness the knowledge of the Law should be obscured, or in any way obliterated, God would have its sum inscribed in a conspicuous place. Hence may be gathered the similarity I have adverted to between the private houses of individuals and the whole land. When the precepts were written on the doors, every one was admonished that his house was sacred to God, and the same was the case with the whole land, so that whosoever entered i...

1-10 As soon as they were come into Canaan, they must set up a monument, on which they must write the words of this law. They must set up an altar. The word and prayer must go together. Though they might not, of their own heads, set up any altar besides that at the tabernacle; yet, by the appointment of God, they might, upon special occasion. This altar must be made of unhewn stones, such as they found upon the field. Christ, our Altar, is a stone cut out of the mountain without hands, refused by the builders, as having no form or comeliness, but accepted of God the Father, and made the Head of the corner. In the Old Testament the words of the law are written, with the curse annexed; which would overcome us with horror, if we had not, in the New Testament, an altar erected close by, which gives consolation. Blessed be God, the printed copies of the Scriptures among us, do away the neces...

CHAPTER XXVII _Moses commands the people to write the law upon stones, when_ _they shall come to the promised land_, 1-3. _And to set up these stones on Mount_ Ebal, 4; _and to build an altar of unhewn stones, and to offer on it_ _burnt-offerings and peace-offerings_, 5-7. _The words to be written plainly, and the people to be exhorted_ _to obedience_, 8-10. _The six tribes which should stand on Mount_ Gerizim _to bless the_ _people_, 11, 12. _Those who are to stand upon Mount_ Ebal _to curse the_...

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. Deuteronomy 27 introduces this portion of the book by enjoining the erection of a stone monument on which the Law should be inscribed as soon as the people took possession of the promised inheritance Deuteronomy 27:1; and by next prescribing the liturgical form after which the blessings and cursings should be pronounced Deuteronomy 27:11....

PART III.—THIRD DISCOURSE OF MOSES. THE COVENANT RENEWED. CHAPTERS 27-30. EXPOSITION Deuteronomy 27:1. INSTRUCTIONS AS TO THE PUBLISHING OF THE LAW IN CANAAN. HAVING set forth the laws and rights of Israel with special reference to the settlement of the people in Canaan, Hoses proceeds to dwell more particularly on the sanctions by which obedience to the Divine institute was enforced. Before entering on these, however, he gives some instructions regarding the setting up and proclamation of the Law when the

AND MOSES, WITH THE ELDERS OF ISRAEL, COMMANDED THE PEOPLE, SAYING,.... The seventy elders, at the head of whom was Moses, which made the great sanhedrim, or council of the nation; Moses having recited all the laws of God to the people, these joined with him in an exhortation to them to observe and obey them: KEEP ALL THE COMMANDMENTS WHICH I COMMAND YOU THIS DAY; not in his own name, as being the supreme legislator, but in the name of the Lord, whom they had avouched to be their God and King, from whom he had received them....

23. THE MEMORIAL OF THE LAW AT MOUNT EBAL; GERIZIM AND EBAL CHAPTER 27 _ 1. The memorial to be set up in the land (Deuteronomy 27:1)_ 2. Gerizim and Ebal (Deuteronomy 27:9) Little comment is needed on this chapter. The memorial stones were to be set up on Mount Ebal. Upon that mountain the curses of the law were to be uttered. The blessings were to be pronounced upon Mount Gerizim. However, on Gerizim were no stones with the law written upon it. How strikingly this illustrates the true ministration of the law! It cannot give blessing, but it must curse man. “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” ...

AND MOSES. This is the beginning of the fifth address. See note on Deuteronomy 1:1. THIS DAY. See note on Deuteronomy 4:26....

Note the re-appearance of the narrative form. _And Moses and the elders … commanded the people_ The association of the elders with Moses in giving this charge is singular, especially in view of the following, -which _I command you_." The LXX (except in a few cursive MSS) omits _the people_. Therefore some read, _And Moses commanded the elders_. More probably we have here the fusion of the introductions to the two different forms of the law, _Moses commanded the elders_and _Moses commanded the people_(so also Marti; cp. Berth.). _Keep all the commandment_, etc.] Heb. _Miṣwah_viii. 1; cp. Deuteronomy 5:12 (_observe_), 31, Deuteronomy 6:1. In Sam., LXX _keep_is PL....