Joshua 8:30-35

THE MEMORIAL ALTAR AND SERVICE ON MOUNT EBAL, Joshua 8:30-35.

[This passage is one of those peculiarly interesting narratives of sacred history which serve to bind the Bible to the hearts of devout believers. But the whole account has been hastily pronounced by some critics an interpolation by a later hand, the main argument being that Joshua had not yet carried his conquests as far north as Mount Ebal. It is possible, indeed, that the narrative may have been inserted here out of its proper place, (for chronological order seems not to have been sought after by our author,) and to a critic’s eye it might appear more appropriate, as some suggest, at the close of chap. 11. But the criticisms which make the passage an interpolation, or hold it to be out of place here, are based on uncertain and unwarrantable assumptions, and there are several considerations which make it more probable that the narrative is in its proper chronological order. Joshua improved the first possible opportunity to obey the commandment of Moses, which required Israel, “on the day when they passed over Jordan,” (Deuteronomy 27:2,) to do what is here recorded. Of course the commandment, literally understood, imposed an impossibility, for Mount Ebal could not be reached by the Israelitish camp on the very day they crossed the Jordan. The spirit and import of the commandment were that the first possible opportunity be taken for it. Jericho and Ai were the centers of two powerful kingdoms that lay directly in the way from the Jordan to Mount Ebal, and these must first be conquered. Then, as the miraculous passage of the Jordan had so awed the Canaanites that Joshua could circumcise the people and celebrate the passover unmolested in the plains of Jericho, so the destruction of Ai enabled him to proceed at once to Mount Ebal, and without opposition erect the memorial altar there. Keil supposes that after this the camp of Israel was pitched at the Gilgal which lies about half way between Bethel and Mount Ebal. But see note on Joshua 9:6. Keil’s hypothesis is unnecessary, especially as no account at all is given of the march of Israel either to or from Mount Ebal, and it is therefore as easy to suppose they marched back to the Jordan Gilgal as to the mountains of Ephraim.]