Shechem: Joshua Renews the Covenant

Ebal and Gerizim: the Law Read Between Two Mountains

An order given by Moses

The scene is prepared in Deuteronomy. Before the entry into the land, Moses prescribes a ceremony between the two mountains overlooking Shechem: the blessing is to be pronounced on Gerizim, the curse on Ebal.

"And it shall come to pass, when the LORD thy God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal."

Deuteronomy 11:29 (KJV)

״וְהָיָה כִּי יְבִיאֲךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר־אַתָּה בָא־שָׁמָּה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ וְנָתַתָּה אֶת־הַבְּרָכָה עַל־הַר גְּרִזִים וְאֶת־הַקְּלָלָה עַל־הַר עֵיבָל.״

דברים יא, כט

Deuteronomy 27 spells out the ritual: set up great plastered stones on Mount Ebal and write the Law on them, build an altar of unhewn stones, then divide the tribes. Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin stand on Gerizim to bless; Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan and Naphtali on Ebal for the curse (Deuteronomy 27:4-13).

The altar on Mount Ebal

The Book of Joshua tells how this order was carried out, just after the capture of Ai.

"Then Joshua built an altar unto the LORD God of Israel in mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lift up any iron."

Joshua 8:30-31 (KJV)

״אָז יִבְנֶה יְהוֹשֻׁעַ מִזְבֵּחַ לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּהַר עֵיבָל.״

יהושע ח, ל

Joshua writes a copy of the law of Moses on the stones. All the people stand on either side of the ark, "half of them over against mount Gerizim, and half of them over against mount Ebal". Joshua then reads "all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings" before the men, women, children and strangers (Joshua 8:32-35).

A landscape that explains the story

Ebal (about 940 m) to the north and Gerizim (about 880 m) to the south face each other across a narrow valley, where Nablus lies today. The setting suits a ceremony in which two halves of the people answer each other from one slope to the other. The text nonetheless has a complex history: the Septuagint places this episode a little later (after Joshua 9:2), and a Qumran manuscript puts it right after the crossing of the Jordan. This suggests that tradition hesitated over the moment of the ceremony, if not over its place.

The Assembly at Shechem: Renewing the Covenant

A review of the whole story

Late in life, Joshua summons the tribes to Shechem. His speech retraces the people's history from Terah, Abraham's father, who "served other gods" beyond the Euphrates. It then recalls the patriarchs, Egypt, the Exodus, the wilderness and the entry into Canaan. The account ends with the gift of a land: "cities which ye built not" and "vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not" (Joshua 24:2-13).

"Choose you this day whom ye will serve"

"And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

Joshua 24:15 (KJV)

״בַּחֲרוּ לָכֶם הַיּוֹם אֶת־מִי תַעֲבֹדוּן […] וְאָנֹכִי וּבֵיתִי נַעֲבֹד אֶת־יְהוָה.״

יהושע כד, טו

Three times the people answer that they will serve the LORD. Joshua stresses how demanding this choice is and tells them to put away foreign gods (Joshua 24:16-24). Then he makes a covenant: "So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem" (Joshua 24:25).

The great stone under the oak

"And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the LORD."

Joshua 24:26 (KJV)

״וַיִּכְתֹּב יְהוֹשֻׁעַ אֶת־הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה בְּסֵפֶר תּוֹרַת אֱלֹהִים וַיִּקַּח אֶבֶן גְּדוֹלָה וַיְקִימֶהָ שָּׁם תַּחַת הָאַלָּה אֲשֶׁר בְּמִקְדַּשׁ יְהוָה.״

יהושע כד, כו

Joshua adds that the stone "shall be a witness", for "it hath heard all the words of the LORD which he spake unto us" (Joshua 24:27). The Hebrew verse speaks of a miqdash, a "sanctuary": Shechem is presented as an already established place of worship.

Joseph's Bones and the Death of Joshua

The Book of Joshua ends with three burials. Joshua dies aged a hundred and ten and is buried at Timnath-serah, in the hill country of Ephraim (Joshua 24:29-30). Eleazar son of Aaron is buried on the hill of his son Phinehas (Joshua 24:33). In between, the text records the burial of Joseph's bones at Shechem (Joshua 24:32).

This detail closes a promise opened at the end of Genesis. Dying in Egypt, Joseph had made his brothers swear: "ye shall carry up my bones from hence" (Genesis 50:25). At the Exodus, "Moses took the bones of Joseph with him" (Exodus 13:19). They now rest in the field Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, a story told on the Shechem in Jacob's time page. Tradition places this tomb a few hundred metres from Tel Balata; it is a sensitive site with very restricted access.

Epilogue: Abimelech and the Temple of Baal-berith (Judges 9)

A generation later, the Book of Judges shows Shechem in a different light. Abimelech, son of Gideon (Jerubbaal), relies on his mother's family at Shechem to make himself king. The leading citizens give him seventy pieces of silver taken from the local temple.

"And they gave him threescore and ten pieces of silver out of the house of Baal-berith."

Judges 9:4 (KJV)

Made king by the tree at Shechem (Judges 9:6), Abimelech massacres his brothers. Only Jotham escapes: from the top of Gerizim, he calls out to the townspeople the fable of the trees looking for a king (Judges 9:7-15). Three years later the city rebels; Abimelech razes it and sows it with salt (Judges 9:45). The people of the "tower of Shechem" take refuge in the stronghold of the house of the god Berith, which he sets on fire (Judges 9:46-49). The god's name, "Baal of the covenant" or "El of the covenant", ironically echoes the covenant made under Joshua.

Archaeology: Late Bronze Age Shechem and Mount Ebal

Shechem in the Amarna age

In the 14th century BC, Shechem was the capital of a small Canaanite kingdom in the highlands. In the Amarna letters, its ruler Labayu writes to Pharaoh to defend himself against his neighbours' accusations (letters EA 252 to 254). The king of Jerusalem, Abdi-Heba, accuses him of having "given the land of Shechem to the Habiru" (EA 289). The city was therefore an active political centre in the Late Bronze Age, the period in which the conquest is traditionally placed.

The fortress-temple and the great standing stone

On the acropolis of Tel Balata, a large fortress-temple with thick walls was built in the Middle Bronze Age, around 1650 BC. According to the American expedition led by G. Ernest Wright (1956-1973), it was rebuilt in a more modest form in the Late Bronze Age and used until the beginning of the Iron Age. A large standing stone stood in front of it. Wright linked the building with the "house of the god Berith" (Judges 9:46), and the stone with Joshua's "great stone" (Joshua 24:26). These links remain hypothetical, and the chronology of these phases is being re-examined today.

The Mount Ebal structure

In 1980, during a survey of the hill country of Manasseh, archaeologist Adam Zertal (University of Haifa) spotted a stone structure on a north-eastern spur of Mount Ebal, a few kilometres from Tel Balata. He excavated it from 1982 to 1989. He uncovered a rectangular building of about 9 × 7 m, with no doorway or floor. It was filled with layers of stones, ash and burnt bones (young bulls, sheep or goats, fallow deer), with two paved courtyards and a ramp. Pottery and two scarabs date it to the late 13th and 12th centuries BC, at the very start of the Iron Age: right around 1200, or just after.

Zertal saw it as Joshua's altar: a filled platform reached by a ramp, in keeping with the altars "without steps" of Exodus (Exodus 20:26). Others, such as Israel Finkelstein, accept an early cult place but dispute that it is an altar or linked to the account in Joshua 8. Aharon Kempinski saw it as a watchtower. Critics also note that the site, facing north, does not face Gerizim.

In 2022 a team led by Scott Stripling announced that a small folded lead object, found in 2019 in the spoil heaps of Zertal's excavation, bore a curse in the name of the God of Israel. The article published in 2023 has been strongly disputed: several epigraphers see no inscription at all, and some consider it a simple net weight. It cannot be used as evidence.

Mount Gerizim: a much later sanctuary

On the summit of Gerizim, excavations have revealed the sacred precinct of the Samaritans, founded in the Persian period (late 5th century BC). It was enlarged in the 2nd century BC, with a Hellenistic city around it, and later topped by an octagonal Byzantine church. These remains are several centuries later than the period of Joshua. The Samaritan community, which still lives on the mountain, celebrates Passover there every year.

What Can Be Seen Today, and From Which Period?

• Tel Balata (Shechem) — Middle Bronze Age ramparts, gates and fortress-temple (c. 1650-1550 BC), with later phases. According to the text it is the place of the assembly of Joshua 24, but no remains are securely linked to that episode.
• Mount Ebal — the structure excavated by Adam Zertal, from the late 13th or 12th century BC. The site is not developed for visitors and can only be reached on organised visits.
• Mount Gerizim — Samaritan sacred precinct and city of the Persian and Hellenistic periods, Byzantine church. A fine panorama over Nablus, Tel Balata and Mount Ebal.

In the order of the biblical narrative, Shechem follows the capture of Jericho and Ai. It precedes the setting up of the ark at Shiloh, where Joshua divides the land among the tribes (Joshua 18). The Shechem (Tel Balata) page describes the mound and its fortifications in more detail.