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EBAL, Mount
Mountain just over 3,000 feet (914.4 meters) high in the central hill country of Israel. Mt Gerizim is usually mentioned with it (Dt 11:29; 27:13; Jos 8:33). There is no certain known meaning to the word. It is quite unlikely that it was connected in any way with a son of Shobal, whose name is spelled the same as the mountain (Gn 36:23; 1 Chr 1:40; cf. 1 Chr 1:22, where Ebal is a variant of the spelling Obal of Gn 10:28).
Years before the entrance into the Promised Land, God, through Moses, designated the twin mountains Ebal and Gerizim as the place for the recitation of the curses and blessings of Deuteronomy 27–28. According to Deuteronomy 27:12, six tribes of Israel were to stand on Gerizim and shout the blessings. These were Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. “Joseph” here would mean the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh in whose territory these two mountains belonged. The other six tribes—Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali—were to recite the curses from Mt Ebal. It is interesting that Ebal is north of the east-west valley that separates the two mountains and it is the more northerly tribes that stand on it.
The fulfillment of the divine directive is recorded in Joshua 8:33. Joshua also obeyed in another matter—that of building on Mt Ebal an altar of unhewn stones (Jos 8:30) as Moses had commanded (Dt 27:4).