“After this, he read all the words of the Torah, the blessing and the curse, according to everything written in the book of the Torah.”-Joshua 8:34
During the covenant renewal ceremony depicted in the closing verses of Joshua Chapter 8, in verse 32, we’re told that Joshua “wrote there on the stones a copy of the Torah of Moshe, inscribing it in the presence of the people of Israel”.
Okay, so seriously folks, do you really believe that all five books of Moses were inscribed on those slabs of stone?
Well, of course not.
Rather, it was a small representative portion of the Torah that was written on them.
However, we don’t know for sure exactly what parts of the Torah were selected to be inscribed.
One intelligent guess is that the 10 Commandments were written on them.
Others say the Book of Deuteronomy was inscribed on those stones.
But that’s still difficult to swallow because even the Book of Deuteronomy is a heck of a lot of words.
Either way, some kind of succinct summation of the Torah was written on those stones for all to see.
After that was done, the altar was built and then the awesome and holy Ark of the Covenant was placed in their midst.
All the Levites, the priests, and all Israel including the grafted in foreigners gathered around with half of them facing Mount Ebal and the other half facing Mount Gerizim.
Then the Torah was read out loud including all the blessings and curses.
This was an awesome scene.
It demonstrated that Joshua’s leadership was based on one thing and one thing only: the Word of God.
When in obedience to God’s Word, Joshua’s leadership was strong and successful.
On the other hand, minus obedience to God’s Word, his leadership would have been weak and constantly shifting (like so many of our leaders today who don’t seem capable of taking a strong position on anything).
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