When the other Joshua came here, He said God is still seeking those who worship in spirit and truth.
Having taken Jericho, Ai, and Bethel, the children of Israel have effectively cut the land of Canaan in half. They control the high ground in the center of the country and the main road north and south. Joshua thinks it’s the perfect time to take a break from the battle and do something vital to the success of the new nation. He had been instructed by Moses to build “an altar of whole stones over which no man has wielded an iron tool” (Jos 8:31; see Deut 27:5). This was not to be built anywhere but at another spot with two looming sentinels—Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim—standing astride the Ridge Road. Adam Clarke writes, “Gerizim abounds with springs, gardens, and orchards, and…is covered with a beautiful verdure, while Ebal is as naked and as barren as a rock. On this very account the former was highly proper for the ceremony of blessing, and the latter for the ceremony of cursing.” Here half the tribes ascended Gerizim and half went up Ebal. The blessings and curses of the Law were intoned by the Levites in the Vale of Shechem below, and a million voices thundered out the Amens. As far as God was concerned, this was the cause. The victories, the territories gained, and treasures secured were merely the effects of Israel’s faithfulness to the covenant. The altar, built without any human artistry, was raised on the mount of cursing, for it was in times of disobedience that they needed restoration to God. “And they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord, and sacrificed peace offerings” (Jos 8:31). There Joshua carved into “stones a copy of the law of Moses” (v 32), reinforcing the fact that God’s people without God’s Word are hopeless, but with it, they are undefeatable and unimaginably blessed.