Mount Gerizim rises south of Shechem’s valley, with Mount Ebal to the north. God appointed Gerizim for the blessing and Ebal for the curse, then commanded Israel to build an altar on Ebal. I find that arrangement striking because the people would hear God’s judgment against disobedience where He had also provided for sacrifice. The altar keeps me from reading the ceremony as though its only message were condemnation.
“Now it shall be, when the LORD your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.”Deuteronomy 11:29
The Mountains and the Covenant
Moses gave these instructions before Israel crossed the Jordan. God was bringing the people into the land He had promised, but possession of that land would not excuse them from obeying Him. Their life there would remain subject to the covenant’s blessings and penalties. The study on The Mosaic Covenant explains the terms of that relationship.
“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil… I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life.”Deuteronomy 30:15, 19
The choice concerned Israel’s response to the LORD who had already delivered them. They were to receive His commands and live faithfully in the land He was giving them. Those commands would be written plainly at the gathering:
“And it shall be, on the day when you cross over the Jordan to the land which the LORD your God is giving you, that you shall set up for yourselves large stones, and whitewash them with lime. You shall write on them all the words of this law… Therefore it shall be, when you have crossed over the Jordan, that on Mount Ebal you shall set up these stones… And there you shall build an altar to the LORD your God, an altar of stones; you shall not use an iron tool on them. You shall build with whole stones the altar of the LORD your God.”Deuteronomy 27:2-3, 4-6
Israel was to display the Law on large plastered stones and build an altar from whole stones that had not been worked with iron. God had specified how they were to prepare both. I understand the unworked altar as consistent with a wider lesson of sacrifice: people must approach God through what He provides, rather than devise their own means of atonement. Atonement concerns dealing with sin so that the guilty can be reconciled to Him.
The ceremony also required a public response. Moses assigned six tribes to Gerizim for the blessing and six to Ebal for the curse. The Levites were to pronounce the curses aloud, and the people were to answer Amen:
“These shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people… and these shall stand on Mount Ebal to curse… And the Levites shall speak with a loud voice… ‘Cursed is the one who makes a carved or molded image…’ And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen!’”Deuteronomy 27:12-15
Amen expresses agreement that what has been said is true. Israel was to acknowledge God’s judgment even against sins someone might commit in secret. The list includes hidden idolatry, contempt for parents, sexual wrongdoing, and corrupt judgments that deny people justice. By answering Amen, they agreed that such wrongdoing deserved His judgment, whether or not the community discovered it. The final curse extended to the whole Law:
“Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law by observing them.”Deuteronomy 27:26
Deuteronomy 28 explains the consequences in Israel’s national life. Obedience would bring blessing on their work, their households, and the produce of the land:
“The LORD will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand.”Deuteronomy 28:8
Moses also warned that disobedience would bring failed harvests, disease, military defeat, and eventually captivity:
“But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God… all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.”Deuteronomy 28:15
Joshua carried out the command after Israel’s victories at Jericho and Ai. He built the altar on Ebal, offered the appointed sacrifices, wrote the Law on the stones, and read it to the assembly (Joshua 8:30-34):
“There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly.”Joshua 8:35
“All Israel, with their elders and officers and judges, stood on either side of the ark… half of them were in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal.”Joshua 8:33
Israel stood on either side of the ark before the priests who carried it, half toward each mountain. Joshua read before the women, children, and foreigners living among them as well as the leaders. God required the whole community to hear His Word. It was not enough for the officials alone to know the commands and the consequences of disobedience.
These were covenant terms for Israel. I would not turn the promise about storehouses into a guarantee that every Christian will become prosperous, or use illness as proof that someone has disobeyed God. Faithful people also suffer. Blessings and Curses considers that distinction more fully.
Why the Altar Stood on Mount Ebal
The altar was on the mountain appointed for the curse, yet God also commanded the people to offer peace offerings there, eat, and rejoice before Him (Deuteronomy 27:7). A peace offering included a shared sacrificial meal in fellowship before the LORD. That meal helps me understand why Ebal was also a place of rejoicing. God invited Israel to approach Him through the sacrifices He appointed, even as the people acknowledged His judgment against sin.
Deuteronomy does not explicitly explain why He selected Ebal for the altar. I understand the arrangement as pointing ahead to Christ: where the Law exposed guilt, God also provided sacrifice. A type is an earlier pattern that finds its fulfillment in Christ. Moses commands the location without giving that explanation, but Paul explicitly connects the Law’s curse with Christ’s redeeming death:
“For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’… Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.”Galatians 3:10, 13
Paul quotes the Law’s demand for obedience and then directs us to Christ, who redeemed those under its curse. He also draws from Deuteronomy’s instruction about the body of an executed offender displayed on a tree:
“He who is hanged is accursed of God.”Deuteronomy 21:23
The command required burial that day rather than leaving the body hanging overnight. Paul applies the language of the curse to Jesus’ death on the cross. Christ was sinless, yet He willingly gave Himself to die for our sins at the hands of wicked men. I understand Ebal’s altar as anticipating the salvation secured by His shed blood, rather than as a declaration that the Father would become hostile to His obedient Son.
Paul then explains that the blessing Christ secured extends to Gentiles as well as Jews. It comes through faith rather than through keeping the Law:
“That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”Galatians 3:14
Through Christ, Gentiles as well as Jews receive the promised Spirit by faith, fulfilling God’s promise to bless the nations through Abraham. We should not reduce this promise to comfortable circumstances. The Abrahamic Covenant follows that promise, and the study on the Book of Galatians examines Paul’s explanation of how it is received.
Shechem, the City of Choices
Shechem had already witnessed God’s promises long before Moses appointed the mountains for blessing and curse. When Abram first entered Canaan, the LORD appeared to him there:
“Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem… Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ And there he built an altar to the LORD.”Genesis 12:6-7
Abram built his altar in response to God’s appearance and promise. Generations later, Jacob also erected an altar near Shechem and named it El Elohe Israel, meaning God, the God of Israel:
“Then he erected an altar there and called it El Elohe Israel.”Genesis 33:20
Before Jacob’s household went on to Bethel, he commanded them to put away their foreign gods. They surrendered the objects, and he buried them near Shechem:
“So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods… and Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree which was by Shechem.”Genesis 35:4
They could not continue carrying idols while claiming allegiance to the God who had cared for Jacob. Their response involved putting the objects away, not simply admitting that idolatry was wrong. That demand for undivided allegiance would confront Israel again under Joshua after the nation entered the promised land.
At the end of Joshua’s life, he gathered Israel at Shechem again, recounted what the LORD had done for them, and called them to serve Him:
“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”Joshua 24:15
Joshua recorded the covenant words and raised a stone as a witness to their commitment:
“Then Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took a large stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the LORD.”Joshua 24:26
Joshua’s generation had heard the warning and pledged themselves to the LORD. Judges 9 records how a later generation at Shechem supported Abimelech as he gained power through the murder of his brothers. Abimelech’s youngest brother Jotham escaped the killing, then stood on Gerizim and challenged the men who had supported that crime:
“Now when they told Jotham, he went and stood on top of Mount Gerizim, and lifted his voice and cried out… ‘Listen to me, you men of Shechem, that God may listen to you!’”Judges 9:7
His parable described trees accepting a bramble as their king and warned that Abimelech and the men of Shechem would destroy one another. The chapter’s violence ends with God repaying the evil of both. Though Gerizim had been appointed for blessing, the people of Shechem still answered to God for their part in murder. Their history of covenant commitment could not excuse the crime.
I need to take that failure seriously when I read Israel’s public commitments. Hearing a command and answering Amen do not make a heart faithful. A person can know what God requires and still defend a course of action that violates it. We need the grace that changes us, as well as the truth that exposes what is wrong.
From the Curse to the Cross
The Law tells the truth about sin, but knowing that truth cannot undo the guilt we have already incurred. Paul’s answer is justification by faith, meaning that God declares the person who believes in Christ righteous. A sinner cannot earn that verdict by appealing to his own record of keeping the Law. I therefore see the altar as pointing beyond the mountains to the Savior who provides the reconciliation we need.
Jesus is the eternal Son, fully God and fully man, who lived without sin. He willingly offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. When Paul says that He became a curse for us, I understand Him to have taken the place of those under the Law’s condemnation. Wicked men tortured and crucified Him, and He willingly endured that real bodily suffering for us. He shed His blood and died, completing His saving sacrifice before He was buried and rose bodily. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were united in the work of saving us.
“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”2 Corinthians 5:21
Christ did not become morally sinful. He remained the sinless Son as He gave Himself for sinners so that we could be made righteous in Him. We cannot produce that reconciliation by improving our behavior or performing a religious ceremony:
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”Romans 6:23
John describes the consequence of our response to Christ:
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already.”John 3:18
Christ died for the sins of the whole world, and God’s offer of grace is genuine for every person. People can resist Him and refuse that offer, but everyone who repents and believes in Christ is forgiven and born again. The Holy Spirit indwells and seals the believer, who is eternally secure in Him. Obedience should be evidence of new life; it does not buy salvation or keep us saved. The study on the Gospel develops this good news more fully.
Scripture repeatedly confronts us with two ways of living. Psalm 1 describes the person who delights in the LORD’s instruction:
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly… His delight is in the law of the LORD.”Psalm 1:1-2
The psalm contrasts him with the wicked, who are like chaff. The wisdom books speak of paths to follow or avoid, and the prophets call people back from their sins. Jesus likewise warns that the way to life cannot be reduced to following the crowd:
“Enter by the narrow gate… Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”Matthew 7:13-14
These passages have their own settings, but they agree that our response to God has consequences. The gospel does not erase the warning about judgment; it reveals the Savior through whom a condemned sinner receives life:
“He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”John 3:36
The nations receive Abraham’s blessing through faith in Christ. Gentiles do not have to come under Israel’s Mosaic covenant to receive it:
“And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’”Galatians 3:8
Paul identifies Christ as the promised Seed and explains that those who belong to Him share in the promise. Gentile inclusion does not cancel the land promise God made to Abram at Shechem. The promise of blessing reaches sinners from every nation, who receive righteousness through Christ:
“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”Romans 10:4
True Worship and the Better Mountain
Centuries later, the Samaritans worshiped at Mount Gerizim. When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well near Shechem, she asked about the dispute between that mountain and Jerusalem:
“Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father… the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.”John 4:20-23
Jesus did not tell her that the competing religious claims were equally true. In the surrounding passage He corrected the Samaritans’ lack of knowledge and affirmed that salvation came through the Jews. He also announced that access to the Father would no longer depend on worshiping at Gerizim or Jerusalem. Worship must be in spirit and truth, through the Son who reveals the Father. The study on the Woman at the Well follows that conversation in full.
Christ is the true Temple and our High Priest. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews also describes believers as having an altar:
“We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.”Hebrews 13:10
I understand this altar as pointing to Christ’s sacrifice and the salvation we receive through it. The chapter is directing us to Christ, rather than commanding us to establish another earthly shrine. Paul describes Jesus suffering outside the gate and calls us to go to Him. We do not have to stand on either of Shechem’s mountains to receive the salvation His blood secured.
Earlier in Hebrews, Paul contrasts the terror of Sinai with the access believers have at heavenly Zion:
“For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire… But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God… to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.”Hebrews 12:18, 22, 24
Jesus is the Mediator, the One through whom we come to God under the new covenant. Abel’s blood cried from the ground after his murder; Christ’s blood speaks of the reconciliation He has provided. We can approach God through Him with gratitude and joy. Hebrews does not name Ebal or Gerizim in this contrast, and I would not read their names into Paul’s argument. I connect their covenant lesson with Hebrews because both confront us with God’s holiness and our need to approach Him through the provision He has made.
Worshiping the Father wherever we are does not cancel what He has promised Jerusalem. Isaiah called for persistent prayer concerning that city:
“I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they shall never hold their peace day or night… do not keep silent.”Isaiah 62:6
The next verse calls for prayer until God establishes Jerusalem as a praise in the earth. This promise concerns Jerusalem’s future, so I would not substitute our private ambitions for the city Isaiah names. God remains faithful to what He has said, and His people can keep praying for its fulfillment.
Access to God through Christ still calls for reverence. We cannot use forgiveness as permission to ignore the God who has forgiven us. The people at Ebal had to agree when His Law condemned wrongdoing, and I also need to acknowledge what Scripture exposes in me. When I excuse dishonest conduct or cherish an allegiance that competes with Christ, saying Amen at church will not make the sin harmless.
Israel’s public hearing of the Law also encourages us to read Scripture aloud in our homes. Children and adults need more than an occasional religious phrase; they need to hear the passage and have its meaning explained. We can ask questions, admit where it corrects us, and pray for the Lord’s help to obey.
Jacob’s buried idols and Joshua’s later appeal also press us to respond to what we hear. Work, savings, and help from another person can all be good provisions. The danger comes when we give any of them the allegiance owed to Christ. If keeping money or someone’s approval requires me to disobey Christ, I cannot defend that allegiance as harmless. Joshua’s own answer was plain:
“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”Joshua 24:15
We receive blessing through Christ’s sacrifice, and His grace gives us reason and strength to serve Him. A sacred location, inherited custom, or moving experience cannot take His place. A public commitment should lead me to keep trusting Christ and obeying His Word. The commitment itself cannot give me the life and forgiveness that come from Him.
My Final Thoughts
The altar on Ebal stood where God commanded it, alongside His written Law and the announcement of its curse. I understand it as a fitting anticipation of the Savior who would provide what guilty people could not provide for themselves. Christ willingly shed His blood and died for us, then rose bodily. As we hear God’s Word, we should agree with its judgment, put away the sins we have been defending, and receive the blessing He offers through faith in His Son.