Deuteronomy 27

The Covenant Stipulations, Covenant Making at Shechem, Blessings and Cursings (Deuteronomy 12:1 to Deuteronomy 29:1 ).

In this section of Deuteronomy we first have a description of specific requirements that Yahweh laid down for His people. These make up the second part of the covenant stipulations for the covenant expressed in Deuteronomy 4:45 to Deuteronomy 29:1 and also for the covenant which makes up the whole book. They are found in chapters 12-26. As we have seen Deuteronomy 1:1 to Deuteronomy 4:44 provide the preamble and historical prologue for the overall covenant, followed by the general stipulations in chapters 5-11. There now, therefore, in 12-26 follow the detailed stipulations which complete the main body of the covenant. These also continue the second speech of Moses which began in Deuteronomy 5:1.

Overall in this speech Moses is concerned to connect with the people. It is to the people that his words are spoken rather than the priests so that much of the priestly legislation is simply assumed. Indeed it is remarkably absent in Deuteronomy except where it directly touches on the people. Anyone who read Deuteronomy on its own would wonder at the lack of cultic material it contained, and at how much the people were involved. It concentrates on their interests, and not those of the priests and Levites, while acknowledging the responsibility that they had towards both priests and Levites.

And even where the cultic legislation more specifically connects with the people, necessary detail is not given, simply because he was aware that they already had it in writing elsewhere. Their knowledge of it is assumed. Deuteronomy is building on a foundation already laid. In it Moses was more concerned to get over special aspects of the legislation as it was specifically affected by entry into the land, with the interests of the people especially in mind. The suggestion that it was later written in order to bring home a new law connected with the Temple does not fit in with the facts. Without the remainder of the covenant legislation in Exodus/Leviticus/Numbers to back it up, its presentation often does not make sense from a cultic point of view.

This is especially brought home by the fact that when he refers to their approach to God he speaks of it in terms of where they themselves stood or will stand when they do approach Him. They stand not on Sinai but in Horeb. They stand not in the Sanctuary but in ‘the place’, the site of the Sanctuary. That is why he emphasises Horeb, which included the area before the Mount, and not just Sinai itself (which he does not mention). And why he speaks of ‘the place’ which Yahweh chose, which includes where the Tabernacle is sited and where they gather together around the Tabernacle, and not of the Sanctuary itself. He wants them to feel that they have their full part in the whole.

These detailed stipulations in chapters 12-26 will then be followed by the details of the covenant ceremony to take place at the place which Yahweh has chosen at Shechem (Deuteronomy 27:0), followed by blessings and cursings to do with the observance or breach of the covenant (Deuteronomy 28:0).

Chapter 27 The Future Recording and Sealing of the Covenant and The Twelvefold Cursings.

The declaration of the covenant and its stipulations now being completed, a ceremony is described in two parts, one which will be public acceptance of the covenant at the present time, and the other which would be a confirmation of it once they were in the land.

First the secular leaders of the people were to step forward to call on the people to obey Yahweh’s commandments, and demand its subsequent recording in the land, and then the religious leaders of the people were to step forward to inform Israel of its religious significance as revealing them as the people of Yahweh. The secular leaders would confirm the covenant by declaring their agreement along with Moses, and that once they entered Canaan this covenant was to be recorded on stones in the land. The religious leaders would do so by declaring that even at this point in time the covenant stood and renewed their position as the people of God. Moses then went on to proclaim the blessing and cursing which would accompany the covenant.

But why does this chapter come in before the blessing and cursings? The reason for it could only have been in order to indicate that Deuteronomy 27:11 to Deuteronomy 28:68 were not to be written down as a part of those stipulations which were to be recorded, but were to be received as a verbal warning on top of them. This is the simple explanation of why this chapter is included here.

It should be noted that Deuteronomy 27:0 is pivotal. It brings everything together. It caps chapters 12-26, arranging for a record of them to be written down, it connects up to Deuteronomy 11:26-32, demonstrating that Deuteronomy 5:1 to Deuteronomy 11:32 are also within its remit, and it connects up with Deuteronomy 12:5-6 illustrating the place which Yahweh has chosen, and it feeds on into Deuteronomy 28:0 where the blessings and cursing are pronounced in order to complete the covenant pattern. It is the cornerstone that holds all together.

For while it undoubtedly caps chapter 12-26 there can be no doubt that it also clearly takes up and expands on the thought in Deuteronomy 11:26-32. There are a number of connections between them, so much so that Deuteronomy 27:1 b could almost literally continue on from Deuteronomy 11:31-32 if what was between dropped out. But it is constructed in such a way as to make clear that this continuation is a taking up of Deuteronomy 11:26-32 rather than a direct continuation of it. For Deuteronomy 27:1-2 a are basically the same thoughts in reverse as Deuteronomy 11:31-32, deliberately reintroducing the ideas in that section having first of all expounded what lay between. Add to this that the last reference to a place in Deuteronomy 11:29 was to the setting up of the curse on Mount Ebal, and that this is now, in Deuteronomy 27:0, taken up in the setting up of stones on Mount Ebal to contain ‘the words of this Instruction’ (Deuteronomy 27:4), on a Mount Ebal which is ‘for the curse’ (Deuteronomy 27:13), and the connection is clear and emphatic. Consider also that in Deuteronomy 11:29 the mention of Mount Ebal on which was the cursing, was preceded by the blessing on Mount Gerizim, while here in Deuteronomy 27:0 the covenant is to be written down on Mount Ebal (Deuteronomy 27:8) and the cursing pronounced (Deuteronomy 27:13; Deuteronomy 27:15-26), and again it is to be preceded by the blessing on Mount Gerizim (Deuteronomy 27:12).

For verbal connections between the two consider for example the following. Israel are to ‘keep all the commandment which I command you this day’ (Deuteronomy 27:1). Compare for this Deuteronomy 11:22, ‘this commandment which I command you’; along with Deuteronomy 11:32, ‘all the statutes and the judgments which I set before you this day’, while Deuteronomy 11:28 refers to ‘the curse if you will not listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God --- which I command you this day’. They are to ‘pass over the Jordan’ (Deuteronomy 27:2), compare this with Deuteronomy 11:31, ‘pass over the Jordan’. In Deuteronomy 11:20 Moses’ words were to be written on their doorposts and gates, here they are to be written initially on great stones (Deuteronomy 27:2-3) as a perpetual reminder. In Deuteronomy 11:32 reference is made to ‘all the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day’ which compares with ‘all the commandment which I command you this day’ (Deuteronomy 27:1). For the fact that ‘the commandment’ is the equivalent of ‘the statutes and judgments’ see Deuteronomy 6:1.

There can therefore be no doubt that Deuteronomy 27:0 is a taking up and expanding of Deuteronomy 11:22-32.

That having been said Deuteronomy 12:1 also connects directly with Deuteronomy 11:32. It is not therefore to be seen as an interpolation. It is rather that we are to see two strands coming from the one source, placed one after the other. Deuteronomy 11:26-32 is first of all continued in 12-26 as far as explaining what the statutes and judgments are, and then expanded on in Deuteronomy 27:0 in order to complete the picture of the covenant ceremony. For Deuteronomy 11:26-32 is incomplete by itself. The observant listener would be waiting for the fuller explanation and expansion of what Deuteronomy 11:26-32 was all about, and it is found in this chapter.

But Deuteronomy 12:5-6 is also be seen as in mind in Deuteronomy 27:5-7. In Deuteronomy 12:5-6 reference is made to ‘the place (maqom) which Yahweh your God shall choose’ (compare ‘the place’ (maqom) of Shechem (Genesis 12:6)), which was where they were to ‘bring your whole burnt offerings and your sacrifices -- and there you shall eat before Yahweh your God ’, while here in Deuteronomy 27:5-7 they are to ‘build an altar to Yahweh -- and offer whole burnt offerings on it to Yahweh your God -- and shall sacrifice peace offerings and shall eat there’. Shechem is clearly one place which Yahweh their God has chosen. And the fact that the altar in Deuteronomy 27:5-6 is spoken of in terms that remind us of Exodus 20:24-25 (‘of hewn stones’ on which no tool has been lifted) which was to be built ‘in every place where I record my name’, in other words in every place which Yahweh chose, and was where He would bless them, can only confirm the connection with Deuteronomy 12:0 where offerings and sacrifices were to be made at the place where He ‘put His name there’ and ‘caused His name to dwell there’ (Deuteronomy 12:11) and which He had chosen.

There can therefore be little real doubt that Deuteronomy 27:1 is coming back in thought to, and amplifying on, Deuteronomy 11:26-29, and Deuteronomy 12:5-6, once the regulations have been expounded. For chapters 12-26 have certainly been necessary in order to amplify Deuteronomy 11:32.

Deuteronomy 27:0 Parallels Exodus 24:0 : The Confirming of the Sinai Covenant .

Deuteronomy 27:0 also parallels features of Exodus 24:0, and is thus an essential part of completing the covenant, which would not be complete without it. Once they were in the land the record of this covenant was to be written down, as it was written down in Exodus 24:4, but this time they would enter it on the very rocks of the land, in Mount Ebal near Shechem. The land itself was to be the material on which the covenant was written. The covenant of Sinai was to be sealed in the land. And here they were to build an altar like the one described in Exodus 20:24-25, and offer on it peace offerings, and feast before Yahweh as their elders had done in Exodus 24:11. So the same general covenant pattern is being followed. At Sinai the ceremony had been the initial receiving of them as His holy people. Here at Shechem it is to be a receiving of them as His own people within the land that He has given them. It is a confirmation and renewal of the covenant of Sinai which had been clearly laid out in chapter 5. So Deuteronomy 27:0 is vital to the completing of the whole picture, and Deuteronomy 5-27 is an expansion on Exodus 20-24.

Shechem Was To Be The First ‘Place (Maqom) Which Yahweh Shall Choose’.

Whatever would follow in the future Shechem was at this stage to be the centre of their thinking. It was to ‘the place (maqom) of Shechem’ by ‘the oak of Moreh’ that Abraham had come when he first entered the land, and were he had received his first revelation in the land, and built his first altar to Yahweh (Genesis 12:6-7), and had received the first promise of the land (Genesis 12:7), and it was to Shechem that Jacob had come when he left Paddan-aram, and where he had purchased his first piece of land as a dwelling place, and had built an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel (Genesis 33:18-20). Shechem and the oak of Moreh thus had holy associations with possession of the land and a place which Yahweh had chosen.

As we have seen Moses had already taken up this idea in Deuteronomy 11:29-30, for it was to be in the very mountains ‘beside the oaks of Moreh’ that Israel were to re-establish the covenant (the reference to blessing and cursing could only refer to a covenant ceremony). And now, the regulations of 12-26 having been proclaimed, Deuteronomy 27:2-4 takes up where Deuteronomy 11:32 left off. The cursing on Mount Ebal had been the last thing mentioned there (Deuteronomy 11:29) and that is now taken up here. In Deuteronomy 11:0 it had been a preliminary preparation, here it is a description of its more detailed fulfilment.

The centrality of the environs of Shechem to the making of the covenant had already been made clear in Deuteronomy 11:26-32, having already been emphasised in Deuteronomy 11:29-30, for Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal were two mountains either side of the plain where Shechem is situated. And it is confirmed by their being described as ‘beside the oaks of Moreh’ (Deuteronomy 11:30; compare Genesis 12:6), even though Shechem is not specifically mentioned. Add to this that the stress on keeping ‘all this commandment’ (Deuteronomy 11:22) in order to obtain blessing is stressed in Deuteronomy 11:26-27 in connection with the Mountains, and it is very difficult to see Shechem and its environs as any other than a place which Yahweh has chosen to set His name there. And this is confirmed by the comparison between Deuteronomy 12:5-6 and Deuteronomy 27:5-7.

So in the last analysis Deuteronomy 27:1 to Deuteronomy 28:68 must be seen as intended to be the great finale to Deuteronomy 4:44 to Deuteronomy 28:68. Standing in the conquered territory of the two Amorite kings, which was evidence of Yahweh’s initial triumph on their behalf, Moses has declared ‘the Instruction that Moses set before the children of Israel (Deuteronomy 4:44)’ to ‘all Israel’ (Deuteronomy 5:1). Now he calls on the leaders of the nation to add their backing to what he has said, and they confirm together to all the people that they must keep these commandments and what must take place with regard to them once they enter the land. It is giving the whole people a focus point within the land, a focus point which will be achieved in Joshua 8:30-35.

So following Moses’ great speech, first the elders of the people came forward, and standing with Moses gave their backing to Moses’ final words as he, or their appointed leader at his behest, with due ceremony, commanded the recording of the covenant on stones of the land once they were in the land (Deuteronomy 27:1-8). It was thus made quite clear that what Moses had declared had the full backing of all the leaders of Israel. It was not just he but they as a whole who were demanding the keeping and recording of the covenant.

Compare how the fathers of these same leaders had in Deuteronomy 5:23-27 commissioned Moses to receive the word of Yahweh on their behalf with the promise that when he brought it they would hear it and do it. Here they were now keeping that promise and receiving that word from Moses and commending it to their people.

Then the Levitical priests stepped forward with ‘the Priest’ at their head and stood with Moses as he (or possibly Eliezer) proclaimed that Israel had that day, through the covenant, become the people of Yahweh their God in a renewed way and that they must therefore obey His voice and do all that He has commanded (Deuteronomy 27:9-11). It was thus made quite clear that these men, who were representatives of the people before Yahweh, all with one accord backed the covenant and required its fulfilment.

Then Moses finally declared ‘on that same day’, that on the day when the covenant was recorded at Shechem the people were to be divided up, six tribes to Mount Gerizim and six to Mount Ebal. At this point ‘the Levites’, probably to be seen as standing with the Ark in the valley, would then declare to them the twelve curses on secret sins, in order to bring home the seriousness of the covenant and exonerate the people as a whole from those secret sins. The number twelve connects these curses directly with the twelve tribes of Israel.

After this he goes on in Deuteronomy 28:1 to Deuteronomy 29:1 to expand on the ‘cursings’ of Deuteronomy 27:15-26, (which would be for secret sins with the purpose of exonerating the people from those secret sins by their adding their ‘Amen’), by applying them to future open sins. He does this by explaining the choice for them all as a nation between blessing and cursing as given in detail in Deuteronomy 28:1 to Deuteronomy 29:1, which will be dependent on their open obedience or their open sins. This caps off the whole. The close connection between Deuteronomy 4:44 to Deuteronomy 26:19 and what follows here is thus further confirmed.