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Updated: June 4, 2025
Here the tribes of Israel may have been gathered while the priests chanted the curses of the law from Ebal and the blessings from Gerizim.
It calls down heaven's wrath upon the confiscated lands in language as bitter as ever Mt. Ebal heard: fire and flood over the crops, blight upon the fruit, and pestilence upon the heartless barbarians who drive peaceful peasants into exile. The setting is once more that of the country about Naples, of the Campanian hills and the sea coast, not that of Mantua.
At two o'clock we stopped to lunch and rest at ancient Shechem, between the historic Mounts of Gerizim and Ebal, where in the old times the books of the law, the curses and the blessings, were read from the heights to the Jewish multitudes below. The narrow canon in which Nablous, or Shechem, is situated, is under high cultivation, and the soil is exceedingly black and fertile.
On Mount Gerizim are fountains and gardens and plantations, but Mount Ebal is rocky and barren; and between them in the valley lies the city of Shechem. From the latter place it is a distance of four parasangs to Mount Gilboa, which the Christians call Mont Gilboa; it lies in a very parched district. And from there it is five ..., a village where there are no Jews.
The morning sun found us already on horseback; we rode through the whole of the beautiful valley at the entrance of which Nablus lies. The situation of this town is very charming. The valley is not broad, and does not exceed a mile and a half in length; it is completely surrounded with low hills. The mountain on the right is called Ebal, and that on the left Grissim.
In the Hebrew edition of the same inspired books, Mount Ebal is selected as the scene of these pious services; a variation which the Samaritans openly ascribe to the hatred and malignity of the Jews, who, they assert, have in this passage corrupted the sacred oracles.
Shechem had seen many an eventful hour, but never one heavier with important issues than that on which the united Israel met for the last time, and there, in the rich valley with Ebal and Gerizim towering above them, heard the fateful answer of this braggart. A dozen rash words brought about four hundred years of strife, weakness, and final destruction.
About a mile and a half from Shechem we halted at the base of Mount Ebal before a little square area, inclosed by a high stone wall, neatly whitewashed. Across one end of this inclosure is a tomb built after the manner of the Moslems. It is the tomb of Joseph. No truth is better authenticated than this.
Joshua built the altar as directed, on which he offered sacrifices to God, and wrote a copy of the law upon it. All Israel stood, "half of them over against Mount Gerizim, and half of them over against Mount Ebal," and Joshua read all the words of the law, "the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law."
I will pray with the Spirit, 1663 6. Mount Ebal and Gerizim, 9. Prison Meditations, 10. The Holy City, &c., 1665 11. The Resurrection, &c., 1665 12. Confession of Faith, &c., 1672 15. Difference in Judgment, &c., 1673 16. Peaceable principles, &c., 1674 17. Light for them in Darkness, 19. Instructions for the Ignorant, 1675 21. Saved by Grace, 22. The Strait-Gate, 1676 23.
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