Then Joshua built an altar unto the LORD God of Israel in mount Ebal,
Then Joshua built an altar ... in mount Ebal - (see the note at Deuteronomy 27:1-26.) This spot was little short of twenty miles from Ai. The march through a hostile country, and the unmolested performance of the religious ceremonial observed at this mountain, would be greatly facilitated, through the blessing of God, by the disastrous fall of Ai. The solemn duty was to be attended to at the first convenient opportunity after the entrance into Canaan (Deuteronomy 27:2); and with this view Joshua seems to have conducted the people through the mountainous region that intervened, though no details of the journey have been recorded.
Ebal was on the north, opposite to Gerizim, which was on the south side of the town of Shechem (Nablous). Eusebius [peri toon topikoon], and Jerome in his Latin translation ('De locis Hebraicis,' voce Gerizim), describe the Ebal and Gerizim in the neighbourhood of Shechem as different from the Ebal and Gerizim on which the blessings and curses were rehearsed. But there is no good reason for departing from the common view as to the topography of those hills (see Stanley, 'Sinai and Palestine,' pp. 234, 235). Kennicott ('Dissertation,' 2:, ch. 1) labours to prove that Ebal has been substituted in this passage for the original Gerizim, which still stands in the Samaritan Pentateuch, by the Jews, who were desirous to make Gerizim the fertile mount-the mount of blessing, According to Buckingham, these hills are equal in height, and rise about 700 or 800 feet above the valley of Shechem; but Dr. Olin declares Gerizim to be the higher of the two.
Built an altar ...