CRITICAL NOTES.—
Joshua 8:30. Then Joshua built an altar] Those who regard this section of the chapter as misplaced in the book have surely not sufficiently considered the command given in Deuteronomy 27:2-8. The Israelites were there solemnly charged to seize the first available opportunity for this work, after crossing the Jordan.
Joshua 8:31. An altar of whole stones] Cf. Exodus 20:24-25. The reason for this command is not given, either here or elsewhere in Scripture.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Joshua 8:30-31
THE MARCH TO EBAL AND GERIZIM
Two omissions in the history of the events which must have immediately succeeded the fall of Ai make the introduction of the narrative which closes this chapter appear unusually abrupt. No account is given of the march of the people who captured Ai to the neighbourhood of Shechem, and nothing is said of the removal of the camp from the Gilgal near Jericho to that other Gilgal which was evidently situated near the mountains Ebal and Gerizim. (Cf. Deuteronomy 11:30; Genesis 12:6.) These omissions are not a sufficient reason for treating the passage before us as misplaced, much less for regarding it as an interpolation by a later hand. It would be as reasonable to treat the order of the first chapter of Genesis as incorrect, because of the long space of time and series of events probably passed over between its several paragraphs. Omissions are not, essentially, proofs of contradictions. Keil and Kitto have shewn with much care that the Gilgal mentioned in chapter Joshua 9:6, should be taken as identical with the Gilgal named in Deuteronomy 11:30. The author of Lange’s commentary on the text, after speaking much too flippantly on what he terms “Keil’s prejudiced opposition to all which is called criticism,” makes the somewhat reckless remark: If the Gilgal of chapter Joshua 9:6 were another place of that name in the region of Shechem, “the author would certainly in some way have given an intimation of the fact. As he omits this, the whole connection points to Gilgal near Jericho, and Joshua is in the southern part, not in central Palestine.” Keil, at least, has respected his readers sufficiently to give weighty reasons for his opinion, while his critic has done little more than give a vehement opinion for his reasons. With the passages referred to in Deuteronomy and Genesis before us, and with several other parts of Scripture, in the historical books, which suppose a second Gilgal somewhere in this locality, the omission notwithstanding, we can only conclude that the entire camp had, at this time, removed from Gilgal near Jericho to Gilgal, “beside the plains of Moreh,” near Shechem.
At the lowest estimate, two or three days must have intervened between the fall of Ai and the gathering at Ebal. Keil, who thinks that Ai must be sought as far north as where Turmus Aya now stands, makes the distance from Ai to Shechem only about thirteen miles; Hävernick states it at twenty miles; while others, who conclude that Ai was farther south, reckon that the thirty thousand men employed to destroy this city must have marched more than thirty miles ere they came to the place where Moses had commanded them to celebrate this solemn religious service. At least two or three days must have passed, then, ere even this part of the host of Israel could have arrived at their destination; nearly a week might have elapsed ere the entire camp was removed from the plains of Jericho, and pitched in the Gilgal which was not far from Shechem. Of these intervening days the history gives no account. The record does not claim to be a diary; it is merely the story of the more conspicuous events, and as such, an occasional abruptness of transition is no sufficient reason for impugning the correctness of the narrative. True manliness judges books as it judges men; it holds them to be innocent till they are proved guilty, and does not, under the plea of superior discernment, hasten to proclaim falsity merely on the ground of obscurity. The Bible, of all books, might be supposed to have established its claim to this fairness of criticism, especially at the hands of its avowedly Christian interpreters.
THE ALTAR ON MOUNT EBAL.— Joshua 8:30-31
The erection of this altar was the commencement of a service in which the covenant was once more renewed. This may be gathered from such passages as Deuteronomy 29, where the blessings and the curses to be pronounced at Shechem are repeatedly spoken of as words of the Divine covenant.
1. The renewal of the covenant by Israel was very varied inform. At Gilgal, near Jericho, it was renewed by the rite of circumcision, and also by the celebration of the passover; at Mount Ebal the ceremony of renewal was entirely different. In Exodus 31:16, the observance of the sabbath is spoken of as a perpetual covenant. Every act of sincere worship should be regarded as a renewal of covenant with God. Every true act of worship now is a fresh acceptance of Jesus Christ.
2. Whatever outward variation there might be in services designed to renew the covenant, sincerity was an absolute essential. Nothing short of a sincere heart would enable the Israelites to keep the terms of the covenant, and without keeping these, all rites would be useless. Circumcision and the passover might be observed, as at Gilgal, near Jericho; blessings and curses might be solemnly repeated, as at Shechem; all rites would be fruitless to prevent ruin, if obedience were wanting, and no man could be truly obedient who lacked sincerity.
In this erection of the altar unto the Lord God in Mount Ebal, four things invite consideration.
I. The time of building the altar. To offer this service to the Lord, the people had to break away from their military pursuits at a time which seemed to imperatively require their presence in the field. The lesson of waiting on the Lord, taught so significantly at Jericho, is even more significantly repeated here. Good generalship would have led Joshua to say, “Let us follow up our successes;” his piety helped him to determine that the duties owing to the Lord were of much more importance than the pursuit of his disheartened enemies.
1. The spirit of true worship places God before all else. Old Testament or New Testament, it matters not; he who serves God indeed is ever ready to say, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all other things shall be added unto you.” A child, who has really a child’s heart, can place nothing on earth before his father and mother. He who is a child of God indeed, and who to filial love adds holy reverence, will need no teaching from without to enable him to exalt the name of the Lord above every other name which is named among men.
2. The spirit of true worship is also a spirit of obedience. Moses had commanded the elders of Israel to attend to this service on Ebal as soon as they should enter into the land (Deuteronomy 27:2). Moses had spoken in the name of Jehovah, and at the earliest possible moment Joshua hastens to perform the word of the Lord. True fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, does not consist in the use of irreverent and amatory phrases. One unctuous man may catch all these from another; he may even multiply the terms and sweeten the tones, and yet be little more than a kind of religious parrot. In some men, ardent love naturally chooses terms of endearment, even when approaching God; when it does so lawfully, it ever chooses them out of the heart, and not from the memory. Such a spirit is above criticism to every hearer who also loves God. Yet it should be remembered that only he who is devoutly obedient gives sufficient evidence of ardent love. Love that is really sincere is never so much in earnest as when it cries, “I will run in the way of Thy commandments, when Thou shalt enlarge my heart.” He whose fellowship with God was absolutely perfect, made that perfect communion manifest in the obedience which said, “Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart.”
3. The spirit of true worship has regard to the necessity of sacrifice. Breaking away from their warfare to worship God, these men began by building an altar, (a) He who worships in spirit and in truth must recognise both the need and the fact of forgiveness. (b) He who worships in spirit and in truth rejoices not only in the sacrifice through which he is forgiven, but in the self-sacrifice which proclaims his own love and gratitude. The Israelites in this act of worship seemed sacrificing their own worldly interest by not following up their victories promptly. The really devout will gladly forego and forget worldly gain, when called upon to render homage to the name of Him from whom they receive all that is worth possessing. Christ’s cross, seen aright, will provoke us to take up ours.
4. The spirit of true worship not only adores God, but trusts Him. There seemed some danger in advancing, like this, for twenty or thirty miles northward, into a part of the country which had not yet submitted, and in encamping there for some days to offer solemn religious service to Jehovah. But “The people that do know the Lord shall be strong, and do exploits.” The Israelites, during the last forty years, had learned to know that they had no reason to fear anything which God commanded. The way from the Red Sea to Ai was one continued reiteration of their absolute safety in doing the will of God. To follow the Divine leading even through the sea was to have a wall on either hand, standing sufficiently long to shield, them, and falling soon enough to destroy their enemies; to disobey the Divine command was to be in danger and to suffer defeat, even before the insignificant forces of the king of Ai. Thus, the spirit of trust must still enter into the spirit of worship. He only can praise aright who rests in the Lord.
II. The situation of the altar. Joshua built it “in Mount Ebal.” It was built there by the Divine commandment.
1. Geographically, the site of this altar was very significant. Crosby has said of Ebal and Gerizim: “If you draw a line from the latitude of Sidon to the latitude of the supposed Kadesh-barnea, these mountains are exactly at the half-way point. If you draw another line from the Mediterranean Sea to the top of the Gilead range, again these mountains are at the half-way point. Thus the spot taken for this grand ceremony was exactly in the centre of the new country of the tribes.” By God’s commandment, therefore, this altar was to be erected in the very centre of the land. As far as possible, it was to be accessible to all the people. This neighbourhood became a chief place for the worship of the people during several succeeding centuries. It was probably at the Gilgal near to Ebal, and subsequently at Shiloh, also in the neighbourhood, that the Ark of the covenant was so long deposited. Hosea and Amos make repeated references to the sacrifices offered at Gilgal, even after the nation had lapsed into a general idolatry. The woman of Samaria said, as late as the time of our Lord, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain.” The erection of this altar on Ebal, the inscription of the law on the stones there, and the subsequent religious history of the neighbourhood all point to these mountains in the middle of Palestine as the centre of worship during several centuries. In the minds of one section of the people, at least, even after the return from Babylon, the strength of the traditions which gathered about Gerizim successfully competed with the later glories of Jerusalem. Designedly, God made the centre of Israel’s early worship in the very midst of the land, (a) God has placed the cross within the reach of all men, It is accessible to the remotest of the nations. Christ said, “The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.” This very altar of Ebal seems to suggest coming days, when, although the name of the Lord should be made known through all the earth, to draw near to Him should still be within the power of every worshipper. (b) The cross is equally within the reach of all classes. Sick or dying, rich or poor, with a character or without, somewhat moral or very sinful, the grace which built for men the world’s altar on Calvary built it well within reach of them all. (c) The one cross of Jesus Christ is enough for all the world. This one altar on Mount Ebal, for a long time, was deemed sufficient for the millions of Israel, and the anger of the home tribes when, six or seven years later, the two and a half tribes seemed to have erected a second altar for sacrifices (chap. 22) is not a little significant. Some people often talk of the sufficiency of the atonement in a very commercial way. Figures which the Holy Spirit has used to represent Christ’s work as precious, and the provisions of the Gospel as a rich banquet, are made to apply, not to intrinsic excellence, as they were intended, but to a definite purchasing or feasting power. Christ’s blood is “a price,” and forthwith we are given to understand that it will redeem a given number; or the Gospel is “a feast,” and its provisions are straightway contemplated as affording a sufficiency for believers. The Saviour’s death, in its extent, has, from the very nature of the case, absolutely no relation to numbers. A price may represent the preciousness of His shed blood, but not its definite purchasing power; a feast may faintly illustrate the richness of the provisions of the Gospel, but it is not meant to signify that the Gospel will feed so many, and no more. In a large and lofty room, lighted by what is termed a sunlight, placed near the ceiling, it would be foolish to say, “When the room is full, and two hundred men are seated within it, reading, the gas must be turned on full, but when only one person is so engaged in the room, the light may be reduced in the proportion of two hundred to one.” To see clearly, one man would need as much light as a room full. If fifty millions of people were suddenly to die, and pass away from the earth in one day, God would not turn the sun down to correspond with the world’s reduced number of inhabitants. Adam needed as much sunlight when he was on earth alone, as all the teeming millions of his descendants need now. Light which is not very local, is irrespective of numbers. The cross is not only light, it is light from heaven; and in order to see the way to heaven one sinner needs as much light as all the world. Men want to see clearly enough to be able to hope and to believe. They want light on God’s mercy, on His love, and on His willingness to pardon sin. In response to that want, Christ answers, “I am the light of the world.” Any single man needs all of Christ’s light in order to believe firmly, and all men together need no more. One sinner could have done with nothing less than Calvary; all the world combined would find this one altar sufficient for the wants of its thronging multitudes.
2. Historically, the site of this altar on Ebal was interesting and stimulating. It was here that Abraham received the first promise of Canaan, and just at the foot of the mountain he built his first altar in the land. Here the hope of possessing this inheritance had first dawned. It was well that the children who were taking possession should build their altar where their father Abraham had built his, and where he at first received and believed the promise. The cross of Christ should be dear to us in a similar light, (a) Our fathers were saved here, (b) Here hope first dawned on us. (c) When we go to take possession of the inheritance in which we now believe, we shall still, in spirit, gather round the cross.
3. Symbolically, the place where this altar was built was very suggestive. It was built on Ebal, not on Gerizim. On the place where the Israelites were bidden to put the curse, there God commanded them to erect the altar (cf. Deuteronomy 11:29). However strongly modern criticism may reject any spiritual meaning in this arrangement, such a meaning could hardly escape the attention of a people to whom God was revealing His will systematically through types and symbols. Where the curse was put on account of sin, there must the altar be placed in view of forgiveness.
III. The materials of the altar. These were to be “of whole stones,” over which no man hath lift up any iron (cf. Exodus 20:25). The leading idea in this command seems to be, not “that the altar might retain both the appearance and nature of earth,” but that men must not presume to attempt to finish God’s work, and to perfect for themselves a way of approach to His presence. The unhewn stones of the altar were to stand there as fashioned by nature, and were to “cry out against” every offerer who thought that he could do anything to make his own offering worthy of God, or that he could adorn by his own works anything which must, after all, depend entirely upon God’s grace.
IV. The offerings of the altar.
1. The burnt-offerings were offered on account of sin. Sin must be put away before any other service can be acceptable to God.
2. The peace-offerings were expressive of thanksgiving and fellowship. Keil says, “By the repast associated with the thank-offering (Deuteronomy 27:7), the communion of life with God, a communion both of house and table, was once more restored.” Thus does this ancient altar of the Old Testament teach us the same principles and truths as are set before us in the Gospel. “Coming events cast their shadows before,” said Campbell, and thus did this service at Mount Ebal project before men a spiritual outline of the coming cross.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Joshua 8:31.—THE ALTAR OF WHOLE STONES.
I. The materials connected with sacrifice to God were all prepared by God. Everything which had to do with offerings for sin, must be of Divine origin and formation. Men could only take of God’s own, and render it back to God again.
1. The stones of which the altar was built must be of Divine workmanship. The very altar on which the offerings were consumed, was to have its stones fashioned by the hand of Jehovah.
2. Not only the altar, but the sacrifices also, were to be of the workmanship of the Lord. Only that which had possessed life, could be presented as an offering for man’s transgression. “Without shedding of blood is no remission.” No man could create life; therefore, in part, living things were to be killed for sacrifices. Human hands must not hew into shape the stones of the altar, and they could not make the necessary offering. This is no accidental concurrence which thus points out mystically, and yet so clearly, that the way to the forgiveness of sins could be opened only by Jehovah. It is God’s Old Testament way of saying of Himself: “Neither is there salvation in any other.”
II. The altar of sacrifice, erected to the Lord, could not in anything be perfected or beautified by men. Any tool lifted up upon it, even by the most skilful artificer, would pollute it. We are not to presume to work after God, in order that the thing on which we labour shall be more acceptable in His sight. Ruskin, in his “Modern Painters,” has admirably expounded this, from the artist’s point of view. He says: “Our best finishing is but coarse and blundering work after all. We may smooth and soften and sharpen till we are sick at heart; but take a good magnifying glass to our miracle of skill, and the invisible edge is a jagged saw, and the silky thread a rugged cable, and the soft surface a granite desert. Let all the ingenuity and all the art of the human race be brought to bear upon the attainment of the utmost possible finish, and they could not do what is done in the foot of a fly, or the film of a bubble. God alone can finish; and the more intelligent the human mind becomes, the more the infiniteness of interval is felt between human and Divine work in this respect.… But more than this: the fact is, that in multitudes of instances, instead of gaining greater fineness of finish by our work, we are only destroying the fine finish of Nature, and substituting coarseness and imperfection. For instance, when a rock of any kind has lain for some time exposed to the weather, Nature finishes it in her own way; first, she takes wonderful pains about its forms, sculpturing it into exquisite variety of dint and dimple, and rounding or hollowing it into contours, which for fineness no human hand can follow; then she colours it; and every one of her touches of colour, instead of being a powder mixed with oil, is a minute forest of living trees, glorious in strength and beauty, and concealing wonders of structure, which in all probability are mysteries even to the eyes of angels. Man comes and digs up this finished and marvellous piece of work, which in his ignorance he calls a ‘rough stone.’ He proceeds to finish it in his fashion, that is to split it in two, rend it into ragged blocks, and, finally, to chisel its surface into a large number of lumps and knots, all equally shapeless, colourless, deathful, and frightful. And the block, thus disfigured, he calls ‘finished,’ and proceeds to build therewith, and thinks himself great, forsooth, and an intelligent animal. Whereas, all that he has really done is, to destroy with utter ravage a piece of Divine art, which, under the laws appointed by the Deity to regulate His work in this world, it must take good twenty years to produce the like again.… I do not say that stone must not be cut; it needs to be cut for certain uses; only I say that the catting is not ‘finishing,’ but unfinishing it; and that so far as the mere fact of chiselling goes, the stone is ruined by the human touch. It is with it as with the stones of the Jewish altar: ‘If thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.’ In like manner, a tree is a finished thing. But a plank, though ever so polished, is not. We need stones and planks as we need food; but we no more bestow an additional admirableness upon stone in hewing it, or upon a tree in sawing it, than upon an animal in killing it.” (Vol. iii., pp. 117–8.) The more educated a man’s sight becomes, to perceive artistic beauty, the more will he feel the truth of these statements. That truth must have infinitely more grace to Him who made the world, and who beholds clearly the most minute forms of beauty which His hand has fashioned, which lie utterly hidden from our grosser perception. To Him, indeed, our finishing must seem but poor rough work. But this is only half the truth, and the least valuable half, which God would have us read in His command touching the stones of the altar. If there were nothing more to be considered, God would bear to look upon our poor misshapen work in material things: in His fatherly pity He might even be interested in our uncouth forms, even as we are interested in the awkward letters in our child’s first copies, or in the result of his early attempts to fashion a toy. This command to the Jews was not merely to prevent uncouth material work, but to keep them from unsightly and harmful spiritual work. God would have men see, from the first, that the way of approach to His presence could never be through human working. The moral embellishments would fail even more grotesquely than the material. Even the perfect work of a heart and a life could only make an obedient servant, who had done that which it was his duty to do; to make a son, human work must give place to Divine work, to Divine gifts, and to Divine grace. If they were such, what, in the light of this commandment, are we to think of the so-called altars of some modern worshippers? What becomes of the ornate forms and the gaudy embellishments in the light of this Divine revelation of God’s will? Still worse, What is to be said of the principle which accepts all this as affording some easier access to His presence who said, “If thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it”? We have but one altar, and that is the cross; we have but one sacrifice, and that is Jesus Christ, who was offered once for all: henceforth, “there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.” To erect any other altar is to ignore Calvary; to bring any other sacrifice is to reject the Saviour as insufficient.
III. The altar which was so jealously guarded by God’s commandments, was thus guarded to preserve a pure conception of human worship. The Divine thought was not concerned with human architecture, but with men’s hearts. The stones were of small account to God, hewn or unhewn; it was of infinite importance that in coming to Him men should not be led astray. Jesus Christ, also, took this same care to preserve pure the way of human worship. Once at the beginning, and again at the end of His ministry, He swept from the temple the pollutions of men. He made a scourge of small cords, and with scathing words, and, it may be, sharp blows, He drove out the men who were corrupting the idea of worship in its fundamental principles. Christ was angry; and some weak-minded sceptics have sneered at the anger. Divine love had no alternative but to be divinely angry at a scene like that. What if some demon in human form, moved by the thought of gain, were to go about a large city, breaking fire escapes, or cutting holes in the hose of fire engines? What if he should secretly unnail boards in ships’ boats, damage anchor chains, file nearly through the wire rope holding the cage in which the miners descend to their work, and out of the death of many human victims seek to make his own fortune? Who with any manhood could be other than angry at work like this? Very degraded beings might contemplate with little feeling the purpose of the wretched man who lately proposed to blow a passenger ship to pieces with dynamite, which was to be exploded by clockwork when the vessel had been eight days at sea, in order that he might secure a sum of money on a false insurance; every one with common humanity was horrified and indignant at the tidings which revealed a brutality so dreadful and devilish. Goodness cannot but be moved to wrath at some things which this world shews. It was Christ’s dear pity which burst out into such blessed anger in the temple. He was indignant for us. Men were corrupting the streams of life. They were destroying the one way of salvation. They were polluting the idea of worship, and making the very temple of God an occasion for scorn and contempt. Similarly, the seething woes which are recorded in Matthew 23, were uttered by Christ against the Pharisees because they “shut up the kingdom of heaven against men.” So this altar, to these ancient people, was the divinely appointed way to the presence and mercy of God. God would have the way kept open. It was of little moment to Him what forms or finish might be presented by the stones of the altar; but the conception which His people had of worshipping Him was of profound importance. It was because of this that the Divine word laid so strong an emphasis on what, taken in an external sense, might seem comparatively trivial. The one way of salvation was by sacrifice, and men’s thoughts of that sacrifice must be kept free from pollution.
EBAL, GERIZIM, AND SHECHEM
“Mount Ebal, where Joshua erected the altar, was situated on the north of Sichem, opposite to Mount Gerizim, which was on the south side of the same town. These mountains rise with rocky cliffs almost perpendicularly to the height of about 800 feet on every side, from a broad valley of 3000 paces long, and from 500 to 1000 in width, in which the city of Sichem (Nabulus) is built. Most of the early travellers describe Gerizim as fruitful and picturesque, Ebal, on the contrary, as a rugged and barren mass of rock; but according to Robinson the sides of both, as seen from the valley, are equally bleak and barren, the only difference being that there is a small cleft in the side of Gerizim, towards the western end of the city of Nabulus, which is certainly full of springs and trees. With this exception the mountains are both barren, having only two or three olive trees scattered about.”—[Keil.]