Joshua 8:32

32. He wrote there upon the stones Whether these stones were the same as those of which the altar was built, or others, erected solely for the purpose of inscription, is not positively determined either by this passage or that of Deuteronomy 27:2-8. But the more probable opinion, and the one adopted by most expositors, is that it was a separate monument of stones on which the law was written. According to the original command, (Deuteronomy 27:4,) the stones were to be smeared with cement, and the words to be written upon it. At first thought this would seem to lack the chief quality of a memorial, durability. But travelers in the east assert that such inscriptions are as lasting as those cut in the rock. Says Dr. Thomson: “A careful examination of Deuteronomy 27:4; Deuteronomy 27:8, and Joshua 8:30-32, will lead to the opinion that the law was written upon, or in, the plaster with which these pillars were coated. This could be done, and such writing was common in ancient times. I have seen numerous specimens of it certainly two thousand years old, and still as distinct as when they were first inscribed on the plaster. In this hot climate, where there is no frost to dissolve the cement, it will continue hard and unbroken for thousands of years, which is certainly long enough. The cement on Solomon’s pools remains in admirable preservation, though exposed to all the vicissitudes of climate, and with no protection. The cement in the tombs about Sidon is still perfect, and the writing entire, though acted upon for perhaps two thousand years by the moist damp air always found in caverns.” Respecting the mode of writing on the cement, he says: “What Joshua did, therefore, when he erected these great stones at Mount Ebal, was merely to write in the still soft cement with a stile, or, more likely, on the polished surface, when dry, with red paint, as in ancient tombs.”

A copy of the law of Moses The chief difficulty which critics have here is in the size of the work, if the whole of the Torah, or Mosaic law, is to be deemed as thus inscribed. The Hebrew word for copy is mishneh, ( משׁנה ,) and signifies a repetition, a duplicate, “an apograph next to the original.” The Septuagint and the Vulgate translate it by the word Deuteronomy, which, though literally meaning a repetition of the law, had already acquired a narrower signification. Several Rabbins make the incredible statement that the whole law, word for word, was written on the monuments, in seventy different languages, that all the people of the earth might be able to read it! Clarke and Bush suppose ‘“that only a copy of the blessings and curses, recorded in Deuteronomy 27, 28, was written.” But Keil well says, “To limit ‘the law’ to the blessings and curses is out of the question, for these are not ‘the law.’ but motives added to impel, or rather adjure, the people to keep the law inviolate.” [The opinion of Grotius seems at first very plausible, that the Decalogue is meant, for it contains the essence of the whole law, all else being accessory to it. But against it is the insuperable objection, that to call” the words of the covenant” “the ten words,” (Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 4:13,) which are ever associated with “the two tables of the testimony” to call these a copy of the law of Moses would be inexplicably strange. In the absence of any specific statement it is impossible to decide the question positively, but we incline to the view of Hengstenberg, Keil, and others, that the so-called “second law” is meant, which is embodied in Deuteronomy, between Deuteronomy 4:44, and Deuteronomy 26:19, omitting, of course; the exhortations and historical incidents with which it is now associated in the Book of Deuteronomy. This would be the essence of all the law of Moses.]