Note: This view shows ‘verses’ which are not natural language units and hence sometimes only part of a sentence will be visible. Normally the OET discourages the reading of individual ‘verses’, but this view is only designed for doing comparisons of different translations. Click on any Bible version abbreviation down the left-hand side to see the verse in more of its context. The OET segments on this page are still very early looks into the unfinished texts of the Open English Translation of the Bible. Please double-check these texts in advance before using in public.
Key: khaki:verbs.
Note: Automatic aligning of the OET-RV to the LV is done by some temporary software, hence the OET-RV alignments are incomplete (and may occasionally be wrong).
ULTAnd there on the stones he wrote a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote before the face of the sons of Israel.
USTAs the Israelites watched, Joshua wrote on stones a copy of the laws that Yahweh had given to Moses.
BSB § And there in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua inscribed on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written.
BBEAnd he made there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, writing it before the eyes of the children of Israel.
MoffAlso he wrote on the stones there a copy of the law of Moses, writing it in presence of the Israelites.
JPSAnd he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote before the children of Israel.
ASVAnd he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote, in the presence of the children of Israel.
DRAAnd he wrote upon stones the Deuteronomy of the law of Moses, which he had ordered before the children of Israel.
YLTand he writeth there on the stones the copy of the law of Moses, which he hath written in the presence of the sons of Israel.
DrbyAnd he wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written before the children of Israel.
RVAnd he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote, in the presence of the children of Israel.
WbstrAnd he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.
KJB-1769¶ And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.
KJB-1611¶ And he wrote there vpon the stones a copie of the Lawe of Moses, which hee wrote in the presence of the children of Israel. (¶ And he wrote there upon the stones a copie of the Lawe of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.)
BshpsAnd he wrote there vpon the stones a rehearsal of the lawe of Moyses, and wrote it in the presence of the chyldren of Israel. (And he wrote there upon the stones a rehearsal of the law of Moses, and wrote it in the presence of the children of Israel.)
GnvaAlso he wrote there vpon the stones, a rehearsall of the Lawe of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel. (Also he wrote there upon the stones, a rehearsall of the Lawe of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel. )
Cvdland there vpon the stones he wrote the seconde lawe of Moses, which he wrote before the childre of Israel. (and there upon the stones he wrote the second law of Moses, which he wrote before the children of Israel.)
Wycand he wroot on the stoonys the Deutronomye of Moises lawe, `which he hadde declarid bifor the sones of Israel. (and he wrote on the stones the Deutronomye of Moses law, `which he had declarid before the sons of Israel.)
LuthUnd schrieb daselbst auf die Steine das andere Gesetz, das Mose den Kindern Israel vorgeschrieben hatte. (And schrieb there on the Steine the other law, the Mose the Kindern Israel vorwritten had.)
ClVgEt scripsit super lapides Deuteronomium legis Moysi, quod ille digesserat coram filiis Israël. (And scripsit over lapides Deuteronomium legis of_Moses, that ille digesserat coram childrens Israel. )
8:32 Joshua fulfilled Moses’ command to set up stones and coat them with plaster (Deut 27:2-8). After the plaster hardened, the instructions (Hebrew torah) would permanently be on public display at the first location where Israel formally worshiped the Lord after entering the land. The public display of laws occurred in other places; the best-known example is the famous Code of Hammurabi, which that king set up in Babylon.
Shechem was strategically located at the entrance to the pass between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, where it could control several key roads through the central hill country. Jacob bought land near Shechem (Gen 33:18-19). While there, Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, was raped by the prince of the area (whose name was Shechem); in response, two of Dinah’s brothers, Simeon and Levi, killed all the men of the land (Gen 34). Later, the town of Shechem became part of Joseph’s inheritance (Josh 24:32) and one of the cities of refuge (see Deut 19:1-13; Josh 20:7).
During the period of the judges, Gideon’s son Abimelech ruled from Shechem (Judg 9). Solomon later fortified Shechem as a provincial capital, but it was sacked soon after, probably by Shishak of Egypt when he invaded Israel in 926 BC (see 1 Kgs 14:25). Jeroboam I then refortified the city and made it the capital of the kingdom of Israel (1 Kgs 12:25). Shechem was again destroyed, this time by the Assyrian king Shalmaneser V, in 724 BC, shortly before the destruction of Samaria, and the ruins were virtually uninhabited for about four hundred years.
[Author’s note: This map and article assume that Ai was located at Khirbet al-Maqatir and Bethel was located at al-Bira. It is beyond the scope of this article to present all the convincing reasons for these assumptions, but they are well summarized in the following articles: “Traditional Site of Bethel Questioned,”“Location of Biblical Bethel and Ai Reconsidered,” and “The Khirbet el-Maqatir Excavations.” The expected locations for Roman mile markers are also included on this map, which confirm that al-Bira is located precisely at the twelfth mile marker from Jerusalem, as Eusebius and Jerome both asserted. All other maps in this Atlas have been recently updated to use these same locations for Ai and Bethel.
Soon after the Israelites entered the Promised Land and captured the city of Jericho, they sent a force of only three thousand men to capture the much smaller fortified town of Ai (Joshua 7). They suffered defeat, however, and the Lord revealed to them that this happened because a man named Achan had taken some of the devoted items from Jericho. So Joshua took Achan and his family to the Valley of Achor and executed them there (see Israel Enters the Promised Land map). Later the Lord told Joshua to attack Ai again, because this time he was going to give them the town. It appears that Ai, which had a direct line of sight to the more powerful city of Jerusalem to the south, must have served as a sort of early warning outpost for the larger city. Thus, capturing Ai was critical to staging an effective battle campaign throughout southern Canaan. So Joshua advanced with thirty thousand troops during the night and camped north of the city, and he positioned a force of five thousand men in ambush between Bethel and Ai, just to the west of Ai. The men in ambush were also just east of the mountain where Abraham had pitched his tent centuries earlier (Genesis 12:8). Joshua himself spent the night in the valley between Ai and the main Israelite camp. Early the next morning, the king of Ai led all the inhabitants of the town in an attack on the main camp of the Israelites, who feigned retreat into the wilderness. After the Israelite army had drawn the people of Ai away from the town, the Israelites hiding in ambush rose up and captured Ai. They set the town on fire, sending a signal to the the main army of Israelites to turn back upon the forces of Ai. The Israelites completely destroyed the people of Ai and reduced the town to a burning heap of ruins.
The Covenant Is Renewed at Shechem
Deuteronomy 11:26-32; 27:1-26; Joshua 8:30-35
A quick search on the internet reveals that some of the top ways to commit something to long term memory include: 1) organizing the information; 2) making associations; 3) using visual cues (graphs, etc.); 4) creating mnemonic devices (rhymes, acrostics, etc.); 5) writing it down; 6) saying it out loud; 7) quizzing yourself; 8) and rehearsing it (https://www.usa.edu/blog/science-backed-memory-tips/). There should be no doubt, then, that the covenant renewal ceremony at Shechem would have been a truly memorable event for all involved. Two times in the book of Deuteronomy the Israelites are instructed to renew the covenant at Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal after they have entered the Promised Land of Canaan, and then the actual event is recorded in the book of Joshua. Located in the heartland of Israel, Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal sat on either side of the ancient city of Shechem, where the Lord had promised centuries earlier to give Canaan to Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 12:6-7). The renewal ceremony was essentially the corporate, verbal affirmation of the terms of the covenant that the Lord had established with Israel at Mount Sinai. As with virtually all ancient Near Eastern covenants, the terms included blessings for those who remained faithful to it and curses for those who broke it. Joshua and the priests stood between the two mountains with the Ark of the Covenant and read the entire book of the law. Six of the tribes (Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin) stood in front of the Ark on Mount Gerizim and shouted the blessings for faithfulness to the covenant, and six of the tribes (Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali) stood in front of the Ark on Mount Ebal and shouted the curses for unfaithfulness. It is very possible that this ceremony was performed within a natural amphitheater that exists even today on both Gerizim and Ebal at the place shown on this map. By standing within the concave spaces of the two mountains, the tribes would have been both “on” the mountains (Deuteronomy 27:11-13) and “on opposite sides of” the Ark (Joshua 8:33), and they would have been entirely capable of hearing Joshua’s words as well as each other’s shouts of blessings and curses. As far as why Gerizim was assigned the place of blessing and Ebal the place of curses, it is not entirely clear, but it may be because the ancients typically regarded east as being in front of them, so Gerizim would have been located on their right, which was typically favored over the left. Also, commentators have often expressed confusion over the mention of “the arabah” and “Gilgal” in Deuteronomy 11, typically because it is assumed that they refer to the Jordan Valley and the Gilgal near Jericho, respectively. This author, however, is convinced that “the arabah” (often meaning, “plain”) refers to the small plain immediately east of Shechem. And “Gilgal” (meaning, “wheel/circle”) in this verse refers to a location just across the plain at Khirbet Gulegil. (The name “Gilgal” was likely applied to at least four locations throughout Canaan; see Joshua 4:19; 15:7; Judges 3:19; 2 Kings 2:1; 4:38; Deuteronomy 11:30.) Centuries later, a Samaritan temple was built atop Mount Gerizim after foreign peoples were resettled in Israel, and this is what the Samaritan woman was referring to when she said to Jesus, “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem” (John 4:20). But Jesus replied to her, “Believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem….But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:21-23; see also “Shechem and the Hill Country of Samaria” map).
