Section 8:30–35 Joshua read the law of Moses to the Israelites.

In this section the people of Israel built an altar to Yahweh and made sacrifices to him. Joshua had them write the law of Moses on stone tablets. Then all the people assembled at Mount Ebal and Mount Gerazim while Joshua read the law aloud to them. He read all of its blessings and its curses.

Before they crossed the Jordan River, Moses foretold this event. He gave them detailed instructions for how they should do this in Deuteronomy 27:1-13. Now that the Israelites were well established in the land of Canaan they followed the instructions of Moses.

Here are some other possible section headings:

Reading the law at Mount Ebal and Mount Gerazim
-or-
Joshua reads the blessings and the curses to the people

Paragraph 8:30–35

8:30a

At that time Joshua built an altar on Mount Ebal: There was probably a period of several days between the fight against Ai, and the time when Joshua built the altar to Yahweh. If the phrase At that time suggests that this happened immediately after Ai, it may be better to add a phrase such as:

some time later
-or-
on another day

Joshua: The Hebrew text says that Joshua built the altar. It is most likely that he told some of the Israelites to build the altar for him. You may want to make this explicit. For example:

he told some of his men, “Build an altar for offering sacrifices to the Lord ” (Contemporary English Version)

built an altar: This altar was made by piling up stones. It is different from the altar of burnt offering that was inside the tent of meeting. That altar was made of acacia wood overlaid with bronze. See Exodus 38:1-7.

Verse 8:31 says that the altar was made of stones that were not cut with a tool. Do not use a word for built in your language which implies that tools were used.

Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

made an altar
-or-
piled stones up as an altar

on Mount Ebal: The altar was on the top of Mount Ebal. It was not buried inside it. The Hebrew preposition that the Berean Standard Bible translates as on is translated that way by most English versions. Use a preposition that is appropriate in your language.

Mount Ebal: Mount Ebal is about 32 kilometers north of Ai.

8:30b

to the LORD, the God of Israel: They built the altar so that they could make sacrifices to Yahweh on it. Yahweh is given this extended title for emphasis. You should translate this phrase consistently with the decisions you have made about translating the name of God throughout the Old Testament.

© 2001, 2011, 2020, 2022, 2023 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.