When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possessThis phrase emphasizes the divine initiative and promise in Israel's conquest of Canaan. The LORD is the one who brings them into the land, highlighting His sovereignty and faithfulness to the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ( Genesis 12:7, 26:3, 28:13). The land is a gift from God, and Israel's possession of it is contingent upon their obedience to His commandments. This entry into the land is a fulfillment of God's promises and a pivotal moment in Israel's history, marking the transition from a nomadic existence to a settled nation. you are to proclaim the blessing on Mount Gerizim
Mount Gerizim, located in the central region of Canaan, near Shechem, is significant in biblical history. It is associated with blessings due to its fertile land and its role in the covenant renewal ceremony (Joshua 8:33-35). The choice of Mount Gerizim for blessings symbolizes the prosperity and favor that come from obedience to God's laws. This act of proclamation is a public declaration of allegiance to God and His covenant, reinforcing the importance of communal commitment to His statutes. and the curse on Mount Ebal
Mount Ebal, situated opposite Mount Gerizim, is associated with curses, representing the consequences of disobedience to God's commandments. The geographical proximity of the two mountains serves as a visual representation of the choice set before Israel: obedience leading to blessing, and disobedience leading to curse (Deuteronomy 30:19). The altar built on Mount Ebal (Joshua 8:30-31) signifies the need for atonement and the seriousness of sin. This dual proclamation underscores the covenantal relationship between God and Israel, where blessings and curses are contingent upon their faithfulness to the covenant.
The ceremony on these mountains is a powerful reminder of the conditional nature of the Mosaic Covenant, contrasting with the unconditional promises of the Abrahamic Covenant. It also foreshadows the ultimate blessing and curse fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who bore the curse of the law on the cross (Galatians 3:13) and offers the blessing of eternal life to those who believe in Him (John 3:16). Persons / Places / Events 1. The LORD (Yahweh)The covenant God of Israel, who is guiding and instructing His people. 2. The IsraelitesThe chosen people of God, who are about to enter the Promised Land. 3. Mount GerizimThe mountain where blessings are to be proclaimed, symbolizing obedience and favor. 4. Mount EbalThe mountain where curses are to be proclaimed, symbolizing disobedience and consequences. 5. The Promised LandThe land of Canaan, which God promised to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Teaching Points Obedience and BlessingGod’s blessings are tied to obedience. Just as the Israelites were to proclaim blessings on Mount Gerizim, we are reminded that obedience to God’s commands brings His favor. Disobedience and ConsequencesThe proclamation of curses on Mount Ebal serves as a solemn reminder that disobedience leads to consequences. This principle is timeless and applies to our lives today. The Importance of ChoiceThe Israelites were given a clear choice between blessing and curse. Similarly, we are faced with daily choices that reflect our commitment to God’s ways. Symbolism of MountainsMount Gerizim and Mount Ebal symbolize the dual paths of life: one leading to blessing and the other to curse. This imagery encourages us to choose the path of righteousness. Christ as the FulfillmentIn the New Testament, Christ is seen as the one who fulfills the law and redeems us from the curse, offering us the ultimate blessing of eternal life. Bible Study Questions 1. How does the concept of blessings and curses in Deuteronomy 11:29 relate to the choices we make in our daily lives? 2. In what ways can we ensure that we are living in obedience to God’s commands to receive His blessings? 3. How does the fulfillment of this command in Joshua 8 reinforce the importance of following God’s instructions? 4. What are some modern-day "Mount Gerizims" and "Mount Ebals" that we encounter, and how can we navigate them? 5. How does understanding Christ’s redemption from the curse of the law in Galatians 3 impact our view of the blessings and curses in Deuteronomy? Connections to Other Scriptures Joshua 8This chapter describes the actual event where Joshua and the Israelites fulfill the command given in Deuteronomy 11:29 by proclaiming blessings and curses on Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. Deuteronomy 27-28These chapters provide a detailed account of the blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience, expanding on the instructions given in Deuteronomy 11:29. Galatians 3Paul discusses the law and the curse, explaining how Christ redeems us from the curse of the law, which connects to the concept of blessings and curses in Deuteronomy. People Abiram, Canaanites, Dathan, Eliab, Moses, Pharaoh, ReubenPlaces Arabah, Beth-baal-peor, Egypt, Euphrates River, Gilgal, Jordan River, Lebanon, Moreh, Mount Ebal, Mount Gerizim, Red SeaTopics Blessing, Blessings, Bring, Brings, Curse, Curses, Ebal, Enterest, Entering, Gerizim, Ger'izim, Goest, Hast, Heritage, Mount, Pass, Possess, Possession, Proclaim, Reviling, WhitherDictionary of Bible Themes Deuteronomy 11:29 4254 mountains Library Canaan on Earth
Many of you, my dear hearers, are really come out of Egypt; but you are still wandering about in the wilderness. "We that have believed do enter into rest;" but you, though you have eaten of Jesus, have not so believed on him as to have entered into the Canaan of rest. You are the Lord's people, but you have not come into the Canaan of assured faith, confidence, and hope, where we wrestle no longer with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus--when …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856The God of the Rain
(Fifth Sunday after Easter.) DEUT. xi. 11, 12. The land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven. A land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year, even unto the end of the year. I told you, when I spoke of the earthquakes of the Holy Land, that it seems as if God had meant specially to train that strange people the Jews, by putting them into a country where they …
Charles Kingsley—The Gospel of the Pentateuch 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 Josiah, a Pattern for the Ignorant.
"Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before Me; I also have heard thee, saith the Lord. Behold therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place."--2 Kings …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII The Blessings of Noah Upon Shem and Japheth. (Gen. Ix. 18-27. )
Ver. 20. "And Noah began and became an husbandman, and planted vineyards."--This does not imply that Noah was the first who began to till the ground, and, more especially, to cultivate the vine; for Cain, too, was a tiller of the ground, Gen. iv. 2. The sense rather is, that Noah, after the flood, again took up this calling. Moreover, the remark has not an independent import; it serves only to prepare the way for the communication of the subsequent account of Noah's drunkenness. By this remark, …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament Subjects of Study. Home Education in Israel; Female Education. Elementary Schools, Schoolmasters, and School Arrangements.
If a faithful picture of society in ancient Greece or Rome were to be presented to view, it is not easy to believe that even they who now most oppose the Bible could wish their aims success. For this, at any rate, may be asserted, without fear of gainsaying, that no other religion than that of the Bible has proved competent to control an advanced, or even an advancing, state of civilisation. Every other bound has been successively passed and submerged by the rising tide; how deep only the student …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life In the Fifteenth Year of Tiberius Cæsar and under the Pontificate of Annas and Caiaphas - a Voice in the Wilderness
THERE is something grand, even awful, in the almost absolute silence which lies upon the thirty years between the Birth and the first Messianic Manifestation of Jesus. In a narrative like that of the Gospels, this must have been designed; and, if so, affords presumptive evidence of the authenticity of what follows, and is intended to teach, that what had preceded concerned only the inner History of Jesus, and the preparation of the Christ. At last that solemn silence was broken by an appearance, …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah The Worship of the Synagogue
One of the most difficult questions in Jewish history is that connected with the existence of a synagogue within the Temple. That such a "synagogue" existed, and that its meeting-place was in "the hall of hewn stones," at the south-eastern angle of the court of the priest, cannot be called in question, in face of the clear testimony of contemporary witnesses. Considering that "the hall of hew stones" was also the meeting-place for the great Sanhedrim, and that not only legal decisions, but lectures …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life Among the People, and with the Pharisees
It would have been difficult to proceed far either in Galilee or in Judaea without coming into contact with an altogether peculiar and striking individuality, differing from all around, and which would at once arrest attention. This was the Pharisee. Courted or feared, shunned or flattered, reverently looked up to or laughed at, he was equally a power everywhere, both ecclesiastically and politically, as belonging to the most influential, the most zealous, and the most closely-connected religions …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life Covenanting Confers Obligation.
As it has been shown that all duty, and that alone, ought to be vowed to God in covenant, it is manifest that what is lawfully engaged to in swearing by the name of God is enjoined in the moral law, and, because of the authority of that law, ought to be performed as a duty. But it is now to be proved that what is promised to God by vow or oath, ought to be performed also because of the act of Covenanting. The performance of that exercise is commanded, and the same law which enjoins that the duties …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting The Old Testament Canon from Its Beginning to Its Close.
The first important part of the Old Testament put together as a whole was the Pentateuch, or rather, the five books of Moses and Joshua. This was preceded by smaller documents, which one or more redactors embodied in it. The earliest things committed to writing were probably the ten words proceeding from Moses himself, afterwards enlarged into the ten commandments which exist at present in two recensions (Exod. xx., Deut. v.) It is true that we have the oldest form of the decalogue from the Jehovist …
Samuel Davidson—The Canon of the Bible 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 Links Deuteronomy 11:29 NIVDeuteronomy 11:29 NLTDeuteronomy 11:29 ESVDeuteronomy 11:29 NASBDeuteronomy 11:29 KJV
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