Blessing and Curse Across the Land

"For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: But the land… is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it."

If Israel loves God, "I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain." If it turns to other gods, "he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain." Therefore "lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul," bind them, teach them, write them on doorposts.

"Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse." When Israel enters the land, "thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal," the two mountains "beside the plains of Moreh."

Rain and river

Egyptian farming depended on the annual Nile flood and canal irrigation ("watered it with thy foot" may refer to opening channels with the foot or to treadmills). The hill country of Canaan depended on rainfall: the "former rain" in autumn for plowing and the "latter rain" in spring for ripening grain. Climate in the region has varied over millennia, but the basic contrast between river and rain agriculture holds.

Gerizim and Ebal

The two mountains stand on either side of the pass at ancient Shechem (Tell Balata, by modern Nablus): Gerizim to the south (about 881 m) and Ebal to the north (about 940 m). They are among the most securely identified places in the Bible. Whether the ceremony described in Deuteronomy 11 and 27 and Joshua 8 took place is not independently attested. Which mountain was to receive the altar is the subject of a famous textual difference, examined in the lesson on Deuteronomy 27.

The Samaritan Pentateuch reads 11:30 with an addition, placing the site "opposite Shechem." It also uses 11:29–30 as part of its Gerizim commandment in the Ten Commandments.