John Gill Commentary Deuteronomy 27

And Moses, with the elders of Israel, commanded the people ,
saying
The seventy elders, at the head of whom was Moses, which made the great sanhedrim, or council of the nation; Moses having recited all the laws of God to the people, these joined with him in an exhortation to them to observe and obey them:

keep all the commandments which I command you this day ;
not in his own name, as being the supreme legislator, but in the name of the Lord, whom they had avouched to be their God and King, from whom he had received them.

And it shall be, on the day when you shall pass over Jordan ,
&c.] Not the precise day exactly, but about that time, a little after they passed that river, as soon as they conveniently could; for it was not till after Ai was destroyed that the following order was put in execution; indeed as soon as they passed over Jordan, they were ordered to take twelve stones, and did; but then they were set up in a different place, and for a different purpose; see (Joshua 4:3Joshua 4:8Joshua 4:9) (8:31) ;

unto the land which the Lord your God gives you, that you shall set
up great stones ;
not in Jordan, as Jarchi, but on Mount Ebal, (Deuteronomy 27:4) ; nor had the stones set up in Jordan any such inscription as what is here ordered to be set on these:

and plaster them with plaster :
so that words might be written upon them, and be more conspicuous, and more easily read.

And you shall write upon them all the words of this law
Not the whole book of Deuteronomy, as some think, at least not the historical part of it, only what concerns the laws of God; and it may be only a summary or abstract of them, and perhaps only the ten commandments. Josephus ^F17 is of opinion that the blessings and the curses after recited were what were written on them:

when you are passed over ;
that is, the river Jordan:

that you may go in unto the land which the Lord your God gives
you, a land flowing with milk and honey ;
this account of the land of Canaan is so frequently observed, to imprint upon their minds a sense of the great goodness of God in giving them such a fruitful country, and to point out to them the obligation they lay under to observe the laws of God ordered to be written on plastered stones, as soon as they came into it:

as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you ;
(Exodus 3:8) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F17: Antiqu. l. 4. c. 8. sect. 44.

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

[that] you 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 where 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 you shall plaster them with plaster ;
as before directed, (Deuteronomy 27:2) .

FOOTNOTES:

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

And there shall you build an altar to the Lord your God
On the same mountain, though not of the same stones. Jarchi's note is, "after that (the setting up of the plastered stones) you shall bring from thence (from Jordan) others, and build of them an altar on Mount Ebal;" but Josephus ^F20 places this altar not on Mount Ebal, but between that and Gerizim. This altar, he says, was ordered to be built towards the rising sun, not far from the city of Shechem, between two mountains, Gerizim and Ebal; but the text is express, that it was to be built where the stones were set up, which was on Mount Ebal, and there it was built, (Joshua 8:30) ; an altar of stones; of whole stones, as in (Deuteronomy 27:6) , not broken, nor hewed, but rough as they were when taken out of the quarry: you shall not lift up [any] iron [tool] upon them ;
to hew them, and make them smooth; (See Gill on Exodus 20:25);

FOOTNOTES:

• F20: Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 4. c. 8. sect. 44.)