Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Deuteronomy 27:2
And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaster them with plaster:
2. on the day on which ye shall pass over Jordan ] The Heb. idiom (cp. 2Sa 19:20, Est 9:1) implies the very day on which they were crossing, and not (vaguely) the time when they crossed; and this is confirmed by 3 b which indicates that the stones were to be set up when Israel crossed Jordan but before they entered upon their occupation of the land, in order that thou mayest go in (similarly Dillm. and Dri.).
and plaister them with plaister ] A whitewash of lime or chalk, as a background for the writing in black or another colour. The practice was Egyptian, and in Egypt the climate was not hostile to the result. But such writing would not survive the winters of Palestine, where not even inscriptions engraved in limestone, but only those in basalt have endured. It is possible therefore that we have here a very ancient fragment incorporated in D. Cp. E, Exo 24:4-7 where the writing of the words of the Lord by Moses is associated with the erection of twelve maebth.
all the word; of this law ] Heb. Trah (see on Deu 1:5, Deu 31:9, etc.). How much is comprised in this phrase we cannot say, for we are not sure of the exact size of the original code of D.
It was a widespread custom in antiquity to engrave laws upon stone pillars. The Code of ammurabi is engraved on a pillar of black diorite in ‘about 49 columns, 4000 lines and 8000 words’ (Johns, Hastings’ D.B., Extra Vol.). The local tariff of Palmyra contains about 260 lines in Greek and 163 in Aramaic (Cooke, N. Semit. Inscr. 313 ff.). The regulations for sacrifices at Carthage ( CIS. i. i. 166 ff.) were graven on stone. For Greece cp. Apollodorus in the Schol. to l. 447 of the Clouds of Aristophanes: . These pillars were called and the phrase (Polyb. xxvi. 1, 4) = to transgress the laws (Knobel).
when thou art passed over ] LXX, ye are.
that thou mayest go in, etc.] Cp. Deu 4:40, Deu 6:3, Deu 7:1, etc. LXX B, etc., read that ye may go in, but most MSS have Sg.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The stones here named are not those of which the altar Deu 27:5 was to be built, but are to serve as a separate monument witnessing to the fact that the people took possession of the land by virtue of the Law inscribed on them and with an acknowledgment of its obligations.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Deu 27:2-3
That thou shalt set up great stones.
Memorial pillars
On the boundary line between European and Siberian Russia there is a square pillar of brick bearing on one side the coat-of-arms belonging to the province of Perm in Europe, and on the other side the coat-of-arms belonging to the province of Tobolsk in Asia. That pillar has more sorrowful associations than any other pillar in the world. For many years the exiles to Siberia had to pass it, and there bade a long farewell to home and country. Strong men wept; some pressed their faces to the loved soil they were leaving, some collected a little earth to take with them to their new abodes, and some passionately kissed the European side of the pillar. The plaister on the bricks was covered with inscriptions, plaintive and pathetic as the epitaphs in a graveyard. Moses thought of pillars which were to have not a mournful, but a joyful significance. The stones were afterwards set up by the people as memorials of Gods work on their behalf. The stones were to be a perpetual memorial of indebtedness to God for rescue from slavery and guidance to prosperity and honour. The disciples of Christ have experienced a change wonderful as that experienced by the Israelites. They have passed from bondage to liberty, from darkness to light, from moral debasement to spiritual glory. They are not to boast as if by their own endeavours they had wrought out the salvation in which they rejoice, but gratefully to confess that God has made them what they are. They are themselves to be monuments of Gods power such as all can see and understand. Something more is needed from them than activity in setting up great stones as abiding witnesses of the great revolution in their life. They are to stand before the world as witnesses of Gods saving, hallowing work in the human soul. The stones the Israelites were to set up were to be plaistered, and the law written on the plaister. There was a deep significance in the words thus inscribed. The people would be reminded by them that though they were out of the wilderness they had not ceased to be under the law. The horrors of Egyptian slavery would have been better for them than luxurious life in Canaan unrestricted by Divine precepts. The written stones were an attestation of Gods supremacy over them, and as a restraint from the moral laxity to which they would be tempted when at ease amid the limpid wells and orchards green and all the other charms of the land where Abraham fed his flock of yore. The disciples of Christ are to be as pillars inscribed with the law of the Lord. They do not bear the words of the ceremonial law, nor are they under direct obligation to bear those of the social law enacted in the wilderness. It is the moral law they bear as a sacred inscription on their life. Special prominence is to be given to the two great commandments, love to God and love to man, which, according to the teaching of Jesus, include the whole of the Decalogue. Faith in Christ does not mean freedom from the law as a rule of life. Truth, honesty, amiability are as much required in members of the Church as if those qualities were the sole condition of salvation: evangelical righteousness implies practical righteousness. (J. Marrat.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 2. Thou shalt set thee up great stones] How many is not specified, possibly twelve, and possibly only a sufficient number to make a surface large enough to write the blessings and the curses on.
Plaster them with plaster] Perhaps the original vesadta otham bassid should be translated, Thou shalt cement them with cement, because this was intended to be a durable monument. In similar cases it was customary to set up a single stone, or a heap, rudely put together, where no cement or mortar appears to have been used; and because this was common, it was necessary to give particular directions when the usual method was not to be followed. Some suppose that the writing was to be in relievo, and that the spaces between the letters were filled up by the mortar or cement. This is quite a possible case, as the Eastern inscriptions are frequently done in this way. There is now before me a large slab of basaltes, two feet long by sixteen inches wide, on which there is an inscription in Persian, Arabic, and Tamul; in the two former the letters are all raised, the surface of the stone being dug out, but the Tamul is indented. A kind of reddish paint had been smeared over the letters to make them more apparent. Two Arabic marbles in the University of Oxford have the inscriptions in relievo, like those on the slab of basalt in my possession. In the opinion of some even this case may cast light upon the subject in question.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
On that day, i.e. about that time, for it was not done till some days after their passing over.
Day is oft put for time, as hath been noted before.
Plaister them with plaister, for conveniency of writing upon them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. it shall be on the day when yeshall pass over Jordan“Day” is often put for “time”;and it was not till some days after the passage that the followinginstructions were acted upon.
thou shalt set thee up greatstones, and plaister them with plaisterThese stones were to betaken in their natural state, unhewn, and unpolishedthe occasionon which they were used not admitting of long or elaboratepreparation; and they were to be daubed over with paint or whitewash,to render them more conspicuous. Stones and even rocks are seen inEgypt and the peninsula of Sinai, containing inscriptions made threethousand years ago, in paint or plaister. By some similar methodthose stones may have been inscribed, and it is most probable thatMoses learned the art from the Egyptians.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And it shall be, on the day when you shall pass over Jordan,…. Not the precise day exactly, but about that time, a little after they passed that river, as soon as they conveniently could; for it was not till after Ai was destroyed that the following order was put in execution; indeed as soon as they passed over Jordan, they were ordered to take twelve stones, and did; but then they were set up in a different place, and for a different purpose; see Jos 4:3;
unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones; not in Jordan, as Jarchi, but on Mount Ebal, De 27:4; nor had the stones set up in Jordan any such inscription as what is here ordered to be set on these:
and plaster them with plaster: that so words might be written upon them, and be more conspicuous, and more easily read.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
2. The day when ye shall pass over Jordan Day is used here, as elsewhere, to denote the time when. After you have passed over Jordan, thou shalt set thee up great stones, etc. Some have inferred that the law was first engraved upon the stones and then the stones covered with some kind of cement.
Plaster them The Hebrew word which our version renders plaster is so seldom met with that its meaning is not plain. In a dry climate, with little or no frost, the cement will remain intact for a long time. That on the so-called Pools of Solomon, which bear marks of great age, is in admirable preservation, as though only a few years old.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Ver. 2. On the day when ye shall pass over Jordan Day here, as well as in the former verse, signifies time. See Jos 8:30. It is not said how many great stones they were to set up; neither can we determine their number, unless we knew exactly how much of the law was to be written, whether the whole book of Deuteronomy, or only the ten commandments, or the curses and the blessings. They are ordered to plaister over these stones with plaister. This plaister has been generally understood, as meant to be laid over the stones, to give them smooth surfaces, that so the law might be inscribed upon that plaister. But the very next words shew, that the words were not to be inscribed upon it, i.e. the plaister; but upon them, i.e. the stones. Besides, if duration was not intended, the original tables were present, and might have been used for a single recital of the commandments on this extraordinary occasion: and if duration was intended, covering the surfaces of the stones with plaister, notwithstanding what has been said of the tenacity of the ancient plaister, seems a method very unlikely to perpetuate the inscription; especially as the words are supposed to be inscribed as soon as the plaister was laid on. The learned Houbigant thinks, that the words do not mean plaister for the surfaces, but cement for the sides of these stones, by which they were to be joined firmly together:caementum, quo lapides monumenti, unus ad unum, firme cohaererent. But, perhaps, the truth of the case is this: the letters on these stones were not to be sunk or hollowed out, but raised in relievo, and the stone cut from around the letters. The plaister would then be of excellent use to fill up the interstices of the letters: and if the plaister was white between the letters of black marble, the words would appear according to the command, ver. 8 very plainly, or, as in Coverdale’s Version of 1535, manifestly and well. This hypothesis of the letters being raised may be strengthened, by observing, that the Arabic inscriptions, perhaps all that are now extant, are in relievo. The two Arabick marbles, preserved in the University of Oxford, are proofs of this method of engraving; which, therefore, might obtain formerly among the other oriental nations. Selden, in his account of the Oxford marbles, mentions four, numbered 191, 192, 193, 194, which have on them Hebrew characters, and were anciently parts of some sepulchral monuments of the Jews. But not knowing where these fragments are, I cannot say whether the letters upon them are in relievo, or the contrary. See Kennicott’s Dissertation, 2: p. 77.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Deu 27:2 And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaister them with plaister:
Ver. 2. And plaster them with plaster. ] That they might have it in white and black.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
on the day = in the day, or, when. See App-18.
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
God. Hebrew. Elohim. App-4.
stones: i.e. rough and unhewn. Compare Exo 20:25.
plaister = gypsum. A hard white cement.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
on the day: Deu 6:1, Deu 9:1, Deu 11:31, Jos 1:11, Jos 4:1, 5-24
unto the: Deu 27:3, Deu 26:1
great stones: Eze 11:19, Eze 36:26
and plaster: Houbigant and others are of opinion that the original words, wesadta othom beseed, should be rendered “thou shalt cement them with cement,” because this was intended to be a durable monument. Some suppose that the writing was to be in relievo, and that the spaces were to be filled up by the mortar or cement; as is frequently the case with eastern inscriptions.
Reciprocal: Jos 8:32 – General Job 19:24 – graven
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Deu 27:2-3. On the day Here it is evident the word day does not signify precisely the very same day they passed over, but some indefinite time after, namely, as soon as they were come to mount Ebal, (Deu 27:4,) after the taking of Jericho and Ai. See Jos 8:30. All the words of this law Some have thought that he means the whole book of Deuteronomy. But they must have been immense stones to have contained this. It is more probable that only the ten commandments are intended, or perhaps, as Josephuss opinion is, only the cursings which here follow, the last whereof seems to respect the whole law of Moses. Mount Ebal The mount of cursing. Here the law was written, to signify that a curse was due to the violaters of it, and that no man could expect justification from it, all having violated it in one kind and degree or other. Here the sacrifices were to be offered, to show that there is no way to be delivered from this curse but by the blood of Christ, which all these sacrifices did typify, and by Christs being made a curse for us.