Deuteronomy 27

Chap. XXVII. Ver. 1—26. The law to be written on stones. —Inscriptions on pillars are the most ancient and durable monuments of history; and the stones here placed together are ordered to be plastered with plaster—not only to cement them, but to form a smooth surface for the inscription; as it is highly probable they were rough stones like those used for the altar (ver. 6.) on which it was not permitted to employ an iron tool; it seems also likely that the inscription was to be on the plaster; but whether the letters were raised or indented is very doubtful, as both are of very ancient use. The grand question, however, is, What are we to understand by “this law,”

which was to be inscribed upon these stones? Certainly not all the Books of Moses, nor even this book of Deuteronomy; but the “Ten Words,” or Commandments given at Sinai, and already inscribed on “tables of stone,” deposited within the ark; with, possibly, the addition of the curses here following against transgressors. The two hills here mentioned, were both in Samaria, (the territory of Ephraim,) and near Shechem, with a valley of only two hundred paces between them, so that the blessings and curses might be heard from one hill to the other, as well as by the people in the valley between; for it should seem that the heads only of the tribes were upon the tops of the hills with certain Levites (singers) with loud voices, to read the law and pronounce the curses which form the rest of this chapter; and which observably correspond with the Ten Commandments.

The object of these curses (Scott thinks) was to operate as a restraint from secret crimes, which the temporal penalties of the law could not reach; and the Amen appended to each curse, was intended, not to fix it upon their neighbours, but to bring it home to their own consciences; as much as to say, “God forbid that I should commit this sin!” or, if guilty, “God be merciful to me a sinner!”