Bible Commentaries

Deuteronomy 27:2 And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaister them with plaister:

Ver. 2. And plaster them with plaster.] That they might have it in white and black.

Deuteronomy 27:4 Therefore it shall be when ye be gone over Jordan, [that] ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, in mount Ebal, and thou shalt plaister them with plaister.

Ver. 4. In mount Ebal.] Where the curse was denounced, [Deuteronomy 27:13] to signify, that those that sought salvation in the law, must needs be left under the curse. The law is a yoke of bondage, as Jerome calls it; and they who look for righteousness from thence are like oxen, who toil and draw, and when they have done their labour, are fatted for slaughter.

Deuteronomy 27:5 And there shalt thou build an altar unto the LORD thy God, an altar of stones: thou shalt not lift up [any] iron [tool] upon them.

Ver. 5. Thou shalt build an altar.] For burnt offerings, &c. [Deuteronomy 27:6-7] God teacheth them thereby, that righteousness, impossible to the law, was to be sought in Christ, figured by that altar and those sacrifices. Thus the moral law drove the Jews to the ceremonial, which was their gospel, as it doth now drive us to Christ, who is indeed "the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." [Romans 10:4]

Deuteronomy 27:8 And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly.

Ver. 8. All the words of this law very plainly.] Therefore it could not be all Deuteronomy, much less all Moses’s books, as some have thought; for what stones could suffice for such a work? Unless they could write as close, - but how then could it be very plainly? - as he did who set forth the whole history of our Saviour’s passion very lively, both things, and acts, and persons, on the nails of his own hands, as Maeiolus reporteth. ^(a)

Deuteronomy 27:15 Cursed [be] the man that maketh [any] graven or molten image, an abomination unto the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth [it] in [a] secret [place]. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen.

Ver. 15. Cursed be he, &c.] The blessings are not mentioned by Moses; that we might learn to look for them by the Messiah only. [Acts 3:26]

Deuteronomy 27:16 Cursed [be] he that setteth light by his father or his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.

Ver. 16. That setteth light.] That despises, undervalues, not only that curses, as Exodus 21:17.

Deuteronomy 27:24 Cursed [be] he that smiteth his neighbour secretly. And all the people shall say, Amen.

Ver. 24. That smiteth.] Either with violent hand or virulent tongue. [Jeremiah 28:16-17]

Deuteronomy 27:25 Cursed [be] he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, Amen.

Ver. 25. Cursed be he that taketh reward.] Among the Romans, by the law of the twelve tables, it was death without any deliverance. The psalmist doometh this sin with exclusion out of heaven. [Psalms 15:5] That king of this land that was called St Edmund, was wont oft to say, There is not much difference betwixt those two words, prendere and pendere, to take gifts and to hang, and that the latter was the desert of the former. A bribing judge wants but a hurdle, a horse, and a halter, to do him right; as Belknap once said in another case.

Deuteronomy 27:26 Cursed [be] he that confirmeth not [all] the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.

Ver. 26. Cursed.] Aut faciendum, aut patiendum. Men must either have the direction of the law, or the correction.