Commentary on Joshua - Keil & Delitzsch - David Cox

Keil and Delitzsch <strong>Commentary</strong> on the Old Testament
they were to commence with the blessings, is incorrect. But if, on the other hand, we
connect the word "before" with the principal verb of the sentence, "commanded," the
meaning will be that Moses did not give the command to proclaim the blessings and
cursings to the people for the first time in connection with these instructions (Deut
27), but had done so before, at the very outset, namely, as early as Deut 11:29.
Verse 34-35. "And afterwards (after the people had taken the place assigned them)
he read to them all the words of the law," i.e., he had the law proclaimed aloud by the
persons entrusted with the proclamation of the law, viz., the Levitical priests. qaaraa'
(OT:7121), lit. to call out of proclaim, then in a derivative sense to read, inasmuch as
reading aloud is proclaiming (as, for example, in Ex 24:7). The words "the blessing
and the curse" are in apposition to "all the words of the law," which they serve to
define, and are not to be understood as relating to the blessings in Deut 28:1-14, and
the curses in Deut 27:15-26 and 28:15-68. The whole law is called "the blessing and
the curse" with special reference to its contents, inasmuch as the fulfilment of it
brings eo ipso a blessing, and the transgression of it eo ipso a curse. In the same
manner, in Deut 11:26, Moses describes the exposition of the whole law in the
steppes of Moab as setting before them blessing and cursing. In v. 35 it is most
distinctly stated that Joshua had the whole law read to the people; whilst the
expression "all Israel," in v. 33, is more fully explained as signifying not merely the
congregation in its representatives, or even the men of the nation, but "all the
congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that
were in the midst of it."
Nothing is said about the march of Joshua and all Israel to Gerizim and Ebal. All that
we know is, that he not only took with him the people of war and the elders or heads
of tribes, but all the people. It follows from this, however, that the whole of the
people must have left and completely vacated the camp at Gilgal in the valley of the
Jordan. For if all Israel went to the mountains of Gerizim and Ebal, which were
situated in the midst of the land, taking even the women and children with them, it is
not likely that they left their cattle and other possessions behind them in Gilgal,
exposed to the danger of being plundered in the meantime by the Canaanites of the
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