Deuteronomy 27:4

4 Therefore when you are passed over the Jordan, set up the stones which I command you this day, in mount Hebal, and thou shalt plaster 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 And when you are passed over the Jordan into the land which the Lord thy God will give thee, thou shalt set up great stones, and shalt plaster them over with plaster,

3 That thou mayst write on them all the words of this law, when thou art passed over the Jordan: that thou mayst enter into the land which the Lord thy God will give thee, a land flowing with milk and honey, as he swore to thy fathers.

4 Therefore when you are passed over the Jordan, set up the stones which I command you this day, in mount Hebal, and thou shalt plaster them with plaster:

5 And thou shalt build there an altar to the Lord thy God, of stones which iron hath not touched,

6 And of stones not fashioned nor polished: and thou shalt offer upon it holocausts to the Lord thy God: