CRITICAL NOTES.—
Joshua 8:32. Wrote there upon the stones] Upon the plaster with which the stones were to be covered. These were not the stones of the altar itself, but rude pillars of stone reared near to the altar (cf. Deuteronomy 27:2-4). A copy of the law of Moses] Lit. = a double, or duplicate of the law. It seems natural to suppose that only the commandments which Moses commanded them on that day, i.e., the blessings and cursings ordered to be pronounced, were thus written. Compare Deuteronomy 27:3; Deuteronomy 27:8, with Joshua 8:1; Joshua 8:26 of the same chapter, and with Joshua 8:34.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Joshua 8:32-35
THE PROCLAMATION OF THE WORD OF GOD
No sooner had the altar been erected, than Joshua proceeded to set up other stones close by, plastering them over with cement, and then, ere the cement dried, “he wrote there” upon it, and thus “upon the stones, a copy of the law of Moses.” Judging by Joshua 8:34, by the natural meaning of Deuteronomy 27:3; Deuteronomy 27:8, and by the improbability that all of “the second law” would be written in this manner, it seems likely that only the blessings and the cursings were written on the plaster. The portion of Scripture which has been called the second law— Deuteronomy 4:44 to Deuteronomy 26:19 -contains no less than 538 verses, most of them being of unusual length. The law was to be written upon the stones “very plainly.” It is obvious that the preparation of a sufficient number of superficial feet of stone to receive a record of such length must in itself be a work of considerable time. It is not likely that many of the Israelites could take part in the work of inscription, which would be much more tedious. There is no evidence that this visit to Ebal was prolonged beyond a few days; indeed, the history supposes the contrary. We therefore conclude that the law written on the stones was simply that epitome of its principles and spirit contained in the blessings and curses.
I. The altar of the Lord and the word of the Lord go together. Neither is sufficient without the other.
1. The cross of Christ would be insufficient without the Scriptures. We need the Scriptures to assure us that He who died upon Calvary is indeed the Christ of God and the Saviour of the world. Some people speak lightly of doctrine. It has been said, “Give us facts; if the facts are against the doctrines, so much the worse for the doctrines; let the doctrines take care of themselves.” As if the facts of Scripture could be more than other facts without the doctrines which illuminate the facts, and which make them admissible. Take the fact of the three crosses on Calvary, and what is one cross more than another, without the doctrine which tells us that He who hangs between the thieves is none other than the Son of God? Faith in Him cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
2. The Scriptures would be insufficient without the cross. They would but reveal the surrounding darkness. They would but tell us of sin from which there would be no escape. The Bible, to be faithful, must still say, “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight;” but without the sacrifice of Christ, it could never enable us to read, “There is therefore now no condemnation.”
3. Standing together, the cross and the Scriptures reveal salvation clearly. Taken separately, the one is incomprehensible, and the other a revelation which leads to despair; taken together, they blend to shed forth a light by which every repentant man and woman may see the King in His beauty, and behold, as his own ultimate home and country, the land which is very far off.
II. The word of the Lord is not only recorded, but recorded in a plain and an enduring manner.
1. These words were to be written so that there should be no difficulty in reading them. Moses commanded Joshua to write all the words “very plainly” (Deuteronomy 27:8). Such, also, was the command of the Lord to Habakkuk: “Write the vision, and make it plain upon the tables, that he may run that readeth it.” Such is the character of the Bible as a whole. Its message is so clear that he who reads, whether of wrath or mercy, may well run from the one and to the other.
2. These words were to be written in a manner which would preserve them for a long period. (Cf the quotation from ‘The Land and the Book,’ following this outline.) In a marvellous way, God has likewise preserved to us the records of the life of Christ and the epistles of the apostles. Owing to the long-continued dominance of the Greek power after the conquests of Alexander, the Greek language, at the time of Christ, was known almost throughout the civilised world. The Hebrew language had been the granary in which the seed of Divine truth had hitherto been carefully preserved; in the days of Christ, the Greek tongue became the machine by which the good seed was distributed, in many thousand furrows, to the very ends of the civilised earth. The Gospel for the Gentiles being ready, the language suited to spread it abroad was ready also. The Gospel for all nations was set down in a language so rich in literature that it would never die,—a language so necessary to the learned of all countries in the future, that the foremost men of every land throughout time would be certain to learn and know the tongue in which the truths of salvation were written. But while this language was so suitable for the spread of the Gospel, it was no less fitted to preserve the Gospel free from corruption. The Greek power had long ceased to be dominant. The Greek language was fast becoming what we call a “dead language.” If it had been a language spoken as widely as the Latin, and having as much vitality, the truths of the Gospel might have been varied by the changes which are always insensibly taking place in a living and spoken tongue. Thus Divine wisdom took this Greek language just where it was living and plastic enough to receive this great addition to its literature, and just where it was dead enough for the use and meaning of words not to be much changed. And what is the consequence? Like the rain-drift of ages ago, which stands written so plainly in the tablets of the stones, that we can tell even the direction of the shower; like the extinct animals, whose footprints, just as they left them, are set down in what is now hard rock; so these words of life from the lips of Jesus and His apostles became fossilised in a language just plastic enough to receive them, and just unused and dead enough to petrify into the unalterable word of truth. It was God’s way of lithographing the New Covenant, which no less than the Old was “written and engraven in stones.” In Old Testament times, God had the Scriptures laid up in the Ark, or written, as here at Ebal, on stones; in New Testament times, He laid up the Gospel unalterably in a widely known but dying language.
III. The word of the Lord is recorded not only in blessings, but also in cursings. The word ‘curse’ is not often used in the New Testament, but it is used; the threatenings of the New Testament, however, are certainly as severe as those of the first dispensation.
1. God’s promises of blessing are very precious. (Cf. Deuteronomy 28:3-14.) (a.) They cover our entire life. (b.) They are neither few nor small.
2. If the blessings are precious, the threatenings are not less necessary, (a.) The noblest motive for serving God is love of Him and of the things which He commands. Too few, it is to be feared, serve in this spirit, (b.) God, who “knoweth our frame,” permits us to serve Him in view of promised mercies. He plies us with the thought of reward to be gathered both here and hereafter, (c.) Divine wisdom has no less recognised the necessity of threatening. Those who will not serve Him in love, or from expectation of reward, His love seeks to awaken by fear. After knowing something of the blessedness of His truth, they may do His will from higher motives; but with many, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” How grateful we should be for this love which thus surrounds us on every side, and which prompts us in every possible manner to seek the way of life and joy.
IV. The word of the Lord is not only impartially written, but should be impartially proclaimed. When God Himself directs the public service in which the people are to approach Him, He will have the cursings uttered as well as the blessings.
1. The preaching and reading of God’s word is often partial, and one-sided. Chapter s are read because they are pleasant and soothing. Themes are chosen which are inspiring and comforting. Thus, too often, the words of the Lord are subject to an irreverent selection. This is often done almost unconsciously. There may be no desire on the part of a minister to avoid any particular truths, and no consciousness of being unfaithful. Men get perverted by their sympathies. This evil is not merely the error of the pulpit, but also of the pew; for while it is true that a minister will do much to make a congregation what they are, the congregation will generally do much more to make a minister what he is. Time, and freedom from a public position in the service, are always on the side of the congregation. These perverted sympathies should be guarded against. Our strongest sympathies should always be in doing the will of our heavenly Father. Infinite love and wisdom have arranged, far better than we can, the desirable proportion of threatening and promise.
2. Experience shews that the threatenings of Divine truth have often awakened men to seek Christ, where words of mercy have failed. President Edwards never uttered kinder words than when he preached his truly awful discourse from the text, “Their feet shall slide in due time.” Many in glory now, know how to thank him, and God for him, because of the loving earnestness which moved him to risk even utterances like those, if by any means he might save some. It has been affirmed that this sermon has never been preached without conversions, although spoken several times by the author, and sometimes by others, on account of the remarkable blessing by which it had invariably been followed.
V. The word of the Lord thus written and proclaimed, was written and proclaimed for all the people. It was read “before all the congregation of Israel.” The women were there, for the Bible has no words of help for men, which are not addressed to them also. The little ones were there. They were not too young to hear the word of the Lord, and in the event of the fathers’ backsliding, their very children might rise up to reprove them. The strangers were there: proselytes, it may be, like Rahab and her family. How this proclamation of the word of the Lord to everybody rebukes the practice of the Romish Church in withholding, as far as possible, the Bible from the people. The elders and the little ones, the princes and the poor, the judges and the judged, were all to listen to, and might all read, these words of the Lord God.
VI. The word of the Lord to all the people was a word to which all the people bore witness, and which, if broken, would, in its turn, witness against them.
1. The people testified that this word must be either a blessing or a curse. Every word of God comes under this description. To the unfaithful God has said, “I will curse your blessings” (Malachi 2:2), while from all the obedient He removes the curse for ever. The word of the Lord to every hearer now is “a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death.”
2. The people gave their “Amen” to the threatenings as well as to the promises. Thus even the Old Testament reveals God as preparing to say, “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant.” No man who provokes the curse will find room to complain of its penalty as unjust. The heart of every hearer of God’s word now inwardly utters its “Amen” to the truth as it is in Jesus.
3. The people who thus accepted the word of God, necessarily made the acts of their after life a petition to God The “Amens” which they had so solemnly uttered were so many interpretations which they themselves agreed should be put to their daily deeds. Henceforth, when a man made or worshipped idols, he was virtually saying to God, “Let the curse be upon me.” When he removed his neighbour’s landmark, set light by his parents, misled the blind, or perverted judgment, he rendered himself liable to the curse pronounced on Ebal, and his guilty act, read in the light of his “Amen” then, still invoked the curse. The after generations who know what their fathers had done, and who could not but recognise the justice of the law to which their ancestors had given so solemn a consent, stood in exactly the same position. To know the covenant to which their fathers had agreed, was to become parties to its terms. Thus, all through the dispensation, the daily life of each Israelite was a prayer for blessing, or a prayer for the curse. It is equally so with men now. Every heart hearing the word of God acknowledges its purity, authority, and justice; and for a man to know the word and do it not, “to him it is sin.” and each sin invokes the penalty to which the conscience has given its solemn assent.
“The deed ye do is the prayer ye pray:
‘Lead us not into temptation, Lord;
Withhold the bread from our babes this day,
To evil we turn us, give evil’s reward.’
Over to-day to-morrow bends,
With an answer for each acted prayer;
And woe to him who makes not friends
With the pale hereafter hovering there!”
—G. S. Burleigh.
4. The people who solemnly assented to the word of the Lord, gave a no less solemn witness to its unfailing truth. The after history of the nation reads like an echo of these utterances on Ebal and Gerizim. That history is the seal and testimony of Time that the Scriptures are what they claim to be,—“a sure word of prophecy.”
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Joshua 8:30-35.—THE SOLEMN SERVICE AT MOUNT EBAL.
I. The erection of an altar to the Lord. “History repeats itself.” Abraham’s altar (Genesis 12:6). Jacob’s altar (Genesis 33:18-20).
II. The writing of the word of the Lord. This was:
1. By the altar.
2. On the stones.
3. In the centre of the land. The Scriptures are to be accessible to all the people.
III. The proclamation of the word of the Lord. This should be:
1. Impartial.
2. Reiterated.
3. Continuous.
IV. The hearers of the word of the Lord. These should embrace men:
1. Irrespective of rank and occupation.
2. Irrespective of age.
3. Irrespective of nationality.
Joshua 8:33.—THE DIVINE IDEA OF PRECEDENCE AND HONOUR AMONG MEN.
The tribes were to stand “half of them over against Mount Gerizim, and half of them over against Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded.” In Deuteronomy 27, the arrangement of the tribes is specified, and is declared to be not merely the word of Moses, but the command of Jehovah. The enunciation of the blessings could hardly fail to be esteemed the more honourable work. The very selection of the tribes recognises the blessing as the more, and the cursing as the less honourable part of the service. In this Divine recognition of precedence and honour among men, certain principles of interest and importance are more or less clearly marked:—
1. Nothing preventing, the elder children are preferred before the younger. The list of the tribes chosen to bless begins with Simeon.
2. The youngest of the children take precedence of the man who has forfeited his character. Reuben, although the firstborn, gives place even to Joseph and Benjamin. His lost character was reckoned as a lost birthright (cf. Genesis 35:22; Genesis 49:4; 1 Chronicles 5:1).
3. The children of the legitimate wives are placed before the children of Zilpha and Bilha. Reuben and Zebulun are the only two children of Jacob’s wives who are passed by; the former for the reason stated, and the latter as the youngest son of Leah. Dan and Naphtali are probably named before Zebulun, on the ground of seniority. Joseph and Benjamin seem to be chosen for the work of blessing, because, although they were younger than Zebulun, they were the first and second children of the second wife, whereas Zebulun was the sixth child of the first wife.
EBAL AND GERIZIM
“Imagine that the range of mountains running north and south was cleft open to its base by some tremendous convulsion of nature, at right angles to its own line of extension, and the broad fissure thus made is the vale of Nablûs as it appears to one coming up the plain of Mukhna from Jerusalem. Mount Ebal is on the north, Gerizim on the south, and the city between. Near the eastern end, the vale is not more than sixty rods wide; and just there, I suppose, the tribes assembled to hear the ‘blessings and cursings’ read by the Levites.… This was, beyond question or comparison, the most august assembly the sun has ever shone upon; and I never stand in the narrow plain, with Ebal and Gerizim rising on either hand to the sky, without involuntarily recalling and reproducing the scene. I have shouted to hear the echo, and then fancied how it must have been when the loud-voiced Levites proclaimed from the naked cliffs of Ebal,’Cursed be the man that maketh any graven image, an abomination unto Jehovah.’ And then the tremendous Amen! tenfold louder, from the mighty congregation, rising, and swelling, and re echoing from Ebal to Gerizim, and from Gerizim to Ebal. ‘Amen I even so let him be accursed.’ No, there never was an assembly to compare with this.…
“Moses did not order such a Herculean labour as to grave the whole law in marble, but simply to write it on or in properly prepared cement. In this hot climate, where there is no frost to dissolve the cement, it will continue hard and unbroken for thousands of years. The cement on Solomon’s Pools remains in admirable preservation, though exposed to all the vicissitudes of the climate, and with no protection. The cement in the tombs about Sidon is still perfect, and the writing on them entire, though acted upon by the moist, damp air always found in caverns, for perhaps two thousand years. What Joshua did, therefore, when he erected those 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. If properly sheltered, and not broken away by violence, they would have remained to this day.”—[The Land and the Book.]
THE PLACE AND USE OF DIVINE THREATENINGS.
A late writer, with some knowledge of mountain vegetation, has said: “While the trees and flowers that clothe the fields of nature are dispersed over the wide surface of the earth, there are mountain regions lying within the tropics, where, in the course of a single day, the traveller finds every vegetable form peculiar to every line of latitude between the equator and the poles. These are all laid out in regular arrangement. Leaving the palms which cover the mountain’s foot, the traveller ascends into the region of the olive; from thence he rises to a more temperate climate, where vines festoon the trees, or trail their limbs along the naked rock; still mounting, he reaches a belt of oaks and chestnuts; from that he passes to rugged heights, shaggy with the hardy pine; by-and-by the trees are dwarfed into bushes; rising higher, his foot presses a soft carpet of lowly mosses; till, climbing the rocks where only lichens live, he leaves all life below, and now, shivering in the cold, panting in the thin air for breath, he stands on those dreary elevations, where eternal winter sits on a throne of snow, and, waving her icy sceptre, says to vegetation, ‘Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.’ ”
In Bible scenery, to the anxious spiritual climber, the order of the landscape often lies the other way. His spiritual experience begins amid stern and severe threatenings. He endeavours to ascend to more fruitful regions, and comes now to warnings, and now to precepts which he seeks to embody in the duties of his daily life. These affording no peace, he climbs yet further, finding exceedingly great and precious promises, but feeling that he cannot, and must not, call them his own. Rising higher, the love of God breaks upon his view; would that he could find it God’s love to himself! Climbing still, he comes to the cross of a dying Saviour, from which Mercy pleads even for the murderers of the Son of God, saying, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Forgiveness which can compass and embrace such, can surely include him, and thus he passes into the peace of faith; and henceforth, from his high standpoint, he looks out with the joy of an heir of God, and of a joint-heir with Christ, on the spiritual territory around him. Thus do many, inverting the way of mercy as it is experienced by others, come into the knowledge of forgiveness by starting from the fear wrought by threatenings. Climb to the summit of Bible truth into the rest of faith how he may, that man will have a firmer peace and a broader outlook, who, discarding the sentimental and unintelligent idea that God is unmixed love to everything, finds a richer depth of mercy in contemplating the wrath which, in himself, he so fully merited, and which, through Christ, he has so completely escaped.