Deuteronomy 27:4

4 and you are on the other side of the Jordan, set up these stones on Mount Ebal, as I am instructing you today, and cover them with plaster.

Deuteronomy 27:4 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 27:4

And therefore it shall be, when ye be gone over Jordan
Some time after they had passed that river:

[that] ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, in
Mount Ebal;
a mountain near Shechem in Samaria, and was, as Benjamin of Tudela says ^F18, dry as stones and rocks itself, and perhaps had its name, as some think ^F19, from the root in the Arabic language which signifies to strip a tree of its leaves, and a derivative from it, white stones and a mountain in which such are found. Hither the stones commanded to be set up were to be brought, and fixed here; from whence it is not certain; it may be from some part of the mountain. Here the Samaritan version has Gerizim instead of Ebal, which is generally thought to be a wilful corruption of the Samaritans, in favour of their temple built at Gerizim:

and thou shall plaster them with plaster;
as before directed, ( Deuteronomy 27:2 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F18 Itinerar. p. 40.
F19 Reland. Dissert. 3. de Monte Gerizim, p. 128. See Castel. Lexic. Heptaglott col 2642.

Deuteronomy 27:4 In-Context

2 On the day you cross the Jordan River and enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you are to set up some large stones, cover them with plaster,

3 and write on them all these laws and teachings. When you have entered the rich and fertile land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you,

4 and you are on the other side of the Jordan, set up these stones on Mount Ebal, as I am instructing you today, and cover them with plaster.

5 Build an altar there made of stones that have had no iron tools used on them,

6 because any altar you build for the Lord your God must be made of uncut stones. There you are to offer the sacrifices that are to be burned,