Deuteronomy 27:20
Cursed is he who sleeps with his father's wife, for he has violated his father's marriage bed.' And let all the people say, 'Amen!'
Sermons
Ebal and GerizimJ. Orr Deuteronomy 27:11-26
ResponsesR.M. Edgar Deuteronomy 27:11-26
The Decalogue Nationally ReciprocatedD. Davies Deuteronomy 27:11-26
Against Imposing on the IgnorantJ. Jortin, D. D.Deuteronomy 27:15-26
AmenJames Cochrane, M. A.Deuteronomy 27:15-26
The Landmarks of FaithOriginal Secession MagazineDeuteronomy 27:15-26














This ceremony turns on the idea of the Law as primarily entailing a curse. Blessings and curses were both to be recited (vers. 12, 13). But the curse seems to have been first pronounced, and it only is given in the record. It has the lead in the transaction. The explanation is obvious. Ver. 26 shows that, in strictness, none can escape the curse (Psalm 130:3; Galatians 3:10). A blessing is pronounced from Gerizim, but it is abortive, as depending on a condition which no sinner can fulfill. Hence:

1. The stones are all placed on Ebal.

2. All the sons of the bondwomen are placed on that mount (cf. Galatians 4:21-31).

This is preferable to supposing that prominence is given to the curse, inasmuch as, under law, fear rather than love is the motive relied on to secure obedience. The appeal to fear is itself an evidence that "the law is not made for a righteous man" (1 Timothy 1:9). It brings strikingly to light the inherent weakness of the economy (Romans 8:3). When a Law, the essence of which is love, requires to lean on curses to enforce it, the unlikelihood of getting it obeyed is tolerably manifest. As an actually working system, the Mosaic economy, while availing itself of the Law to awaken consciousness of sin and to keep men in the path of virtue, drew its strength for holiness, not from the Law, but from the revelations of love and grace which lay within and behind it. We learn -

I. THAT THE LAW IS COMPREHENSIVE OF EVERY PART OF OUR DUTY. A variety of sins are mentioned as examples. They relate to all departments of duty - duty to God and duty to man. The list is avowedly representative (ver. 26). Note:

1. That it covers a large part of the Decalogue. The first table is fairly represented by the second commandment, and a curse is pronounced on the making and worshipping of images (ver. 15). The precepts of the second table are involved in the other verses - the fifth commandment in the curse on filial disrespect (ver. 16), the sixth in the curse on murder (ver. 24), the seventh in the curses on the grosser forms of uncleanness (vers. 20-23); the eighth in the curse on removing the landmark (ver. 17); the ninth in the, curse on slaying another for reward, which may include perjury (ver. 25); while vers. 19:19 may be viewed as forbidding breaches of the law of love generally.

2. That the sins against which the curses are directed are mostly secret sins. The Law searches the heart.

3. That the usual care is shown for the interests of the defenseless (vers. 18, 19). It is touching, in the heart of so awful a malediction, to find this tender love for the blind, the stranger, the fatherless, the widow. Wrath and love in God are close of kin.

II. THAT A CURSE WAITS ON EVERY VIOLATION OF THE LAW'S PRECEPTS. The position of Scripture is that every sin, great and small, subjects the sinner to God's wrath and curse. It derives this truth, not, as some have sought to derive it, from the metaphysical notion of sin's infinite demerit, as committed against an infinite God; but from its own deep view of sin, as involving a change, a deflection, an alteration, in its effects of infinite moment, in the very center of man's being. There is no sin of slight turpitude. A holy being, to become capable of sin, must admit a principle into his heart totally foreign to the holy condition, and subversive of it. In this sense, he that offends in one point is guilty of all (James 2:10, 11). Sin is in him, and on a being with sin in him the Law can pronounce but one sentence. His life is polluted, and, being polluted, is forfeited. The curse involves the cutting of the sinner off from life and favor, with subjection to the temporal, spiritual, and eternal penalties of transgression. The denial of this article leaves no single important doctrine of the gospel unaffected; the admission of it carries with it all the rest. It gives its complexion to a whole theology.

III. THAT THE SINNER MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THE JUSTICE OF THE LAW'S CLAIMS AGAINST HIM. The people were required to say, "Amen." This "Amen was:

(1) An assent to the conditions of life proposed.

(2) A recognition of the righteousness of them.

The Law declares God's judgment against sin. And this:

1. Is echoed by the conscience. Fitfully, reluctantly, intermittently, yet truly, even by the natural conscience. The Amen" is implied in every pang of remorse, in every feeling of self-condemnation. Every time we do that we would not, we consent unto the Law that it is good (Romans 3:16). The very heathen know the "judgment of God, that they which commit such things" as are here specified "are worthy of death" (Romans 1:32). But it needs the spiritually convinced heart to render this "Amen hearty and sincere. The true penitent justifies God and condemns himself (Psalm 51.).

2. Was acknowledged by Christ as our Sin-bearer. In Christ's atonement, it has been truly remarked, there must have been a perfect 'Amen in humanity to the judgment of God on the sin of man. Such an 'Amen' was due to the truth of things. He who was the Truth could not be in humanity and not utter it - and it was necessarily a first step in dealing with the Father on our behalf" (J. McLeod Campbell).

3. Will yet be joined in by the whole universe (Revelation 15:2; Revelation 17:1, 2).

CONCLUSION. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13). In him no condemnation (Romans 8:1). - J.O.

That thou shalt set up great stones.
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 God's 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 God's 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 God's 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 God's 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.)

People
Asher, Benjamin, Dan, Gad, Issachar, Joseph, Levi, Levites, Moses, Naphtali, Reuben, Simeon, Zebulun
Places
Beth-baal-peor, Jordan River, Mount Ebal, Mount Gerizim
Topics
Amen, Bed, Cursed, Dishonors, Father's, Lies, Lieth, Lying, Relations, Sex, Shame, Skirt, Sleeps, Uncovered, Uncovereth, Wife
Outline
1. The people are commanded to write the law upon stones
5. and to build an altar of whole stones
11. The tribes to be divided on Gerizim and Ebal
14. The curses to be pronounced on mount Ebal

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Deuteronomy 27:20

     5229   bed

Deuteronomy 27:1-26

     7797   teaching

Deuteronomy 27:9-26

     5827   curse

Deuteronomy 27:15-26

     1461   truth, nature of
     5783   agreement

Deuteronomy 27:20-23

     5681   family, nature of
     6237   sexual sin, nature of
     7525   exclusiveness

Library
Obedience
Take heed, and hearken, O Israel; this day thou art become the people of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt therefore obey the voice of the Lord thy God, and do his commandments.' Deut 27: 9, 10. What is the duty which God requireth of man? Obedience to his revealed will. It is not enough to hear God's voice, but we must obey. Obedience is a part of the honour we owe to God. If then I be a Father, where is my honour?' Mal 1: 6. Obedience carries in it the life-blood of religion. Obey the voice of the Lord
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

In Judæa and through Samaria - a Sketch of Samaritan History and Theology - Jews and Samaritans.
We have no means of determining how long Jesus may have tarried in Jerusalem after the events recorded in the previous two chapters. The Evangelic narrative [1850] only marks an indefinite period of time, which, as we judge from internal probability, cannot have been protracted. From the city He retired with His disciples to the country,' which formed the province of Judæa. There He taught and His disciples baptized. [1851] [1852] From what had been so lately witnessed in Jerusalem, as well
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

How Christ is Made Use of for Justification as a Way.
What Christ hath done to purchase, procure, and bring about our justification before God, is mentioned already, viz. That he stood in the room of sinners, engaging for them as their cautioner, undertaking, and at length paying down the ransom; becoming sin, or a sacrifice for sin, and a curse for them, and so laying down his life a ransom to satisfy divine justice; and this he hath made known in the gospel, calling sinners to an accepting of him as their only Mediator, and to a resting upon him for
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

Gilgal, in Deuteronomy 11:30 what the Place Was.
That which is said by Moses, that "Gerizim and Ebal were over-against Gilgal," Deuteronomy 11:30, is so obscure, that it is rendered into contrary significations by interpreters. Some take it in that sense, as if it were near to Gilgal: some far off from Gilgal: the Targumists read, "before Gilgal": while, as I think, they do not touch the difficulty; which lies not so much in the signification of the word Mul, as in the ambiguity of the word Gilgal. These do all seem to understand that Gilgal which
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

In Galilee at the Time of Our Lord
"If any one wishes to be rich, let him go north; if he wants to be wise, let him come south." Such was the saying, by which Rabbinical pride distinguished between the material wealth of Galilee and the supremacy in traditional lore claimed for the academies of Judaea proper. Alas, it was not long before Judaea lost even this doubtful distinction, and its colleges wandered northwards, ending at last by the Lake of Gennesaret, and in that very city of Tiberias which at one time had been reputed unclean!
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Meditations of the Misery of a Man not Reconciled to God in Christ.
O wretched Man! where shall I begin to describe thine endless misery, who art condemned as soon as conceived; and adjudged to eternal death, before thou wast born to a temporal life? A beginning indeed, I find, but no end of thy miseries. For when Adam and Eve, being created after God's own image, and placed in Paradise, that they and their posterity might live in a blessed state of life immortal, having dominion over all earthly creatures, and only restrained from the fruit of one tree, as a sign
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Jesus' Last Public Discourse. Denunciation of Scribes and Pharisees.
(in the Court of the Temple. Tuesday, April 4, a.d. 30.) ^A Matt. XXIII. 1-39; ^B Mark XII. 38-40; ^C Luke XX. 45-47. ^a 1 Then spake Jesus ^b 38 And in his teaching ^c in the hearing of all the people he said unto ^a the multitudes, and to his disciples [he spoke in the most public manner], 2 saying, ^c 46 Beware of the scribes, ^a The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat: 3 all things whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe: but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Differences in Judgment About Water Baptism, no Bar to Communion: Or, to Communicate with Saints, as Saints, Proved Lawful.
IN ANSWER TO A BOOK WRITTEN BY THE BAPTISTS, AND PUBLISHED BY MR. T. PAUL AND MR. W. KIFFIN, ENTITLED, 'SOME SERIOUS REFLECTIONS ON THAT PART OF MR BUNYAN'S CONFESSION OF FAITH, TOUCHING CHURCH COMMUNION WITH UNBAPTIZED BELIEVERS.' WHEREIN THEIR OBJECTIONS AND ARGUMENTS ARE ANSWERED, AND THE DOCTRINE OF COMMUNION STILL ASSERTED AND VINDICATED. HERE IS ALSO MR. HENRY JESSE'S JUDGMENT IN THE CASE, FULLY DECLARING THE DOCTRINE I HAVE ASSERTED. BY JOHN BUNYAN. 'Should not the multitude of words be answered?
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Deuteronomy
Owing to the comparatively loose nature of the connection between consecutive passages in the legislative section, it is difficult to present an adequate summary of the book of Deuteronomy. In the first section, i.-iv. 40, Moses, after reviewing the recent history of the people, and showing how it reveals Jehovah's love for Israel, earnestly urges upon them the duty of keeping His laws, reminding them of His spirituality and absoluteness. Then follows the appointment, iv. 41-43--here irrelevant (cf.
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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