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 Deu 11:29.
Verses 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. קרא, lit. to call out of proclaim, then in a derivative sense to read, inasmuch as reading aloud is proclaiming (as, for example, in Exo 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 Deu 28:1-14, and the curses in Deu 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 Deu 11:26, Moses describes the exposition of the whole law in the steppes of Moab as setting before them blessing and cursing. In Jos 8:35 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 southern mountains. So again we are not informed in what follows (Jos 9:1) in which direction Joshua and the people went after these solemnities at Ebal and Gerizim were over. It is certainly not stated that he went back to Gilgal
