Then Joshua built an altar unto the LORD God of Israel in mount Ebal,
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Hebal. The Samaritan Chronicle says, on Mount Garizim. No doubt Josue complied with the injunctions of Moses: but we have seen that there are reasons to doubt which mountain he pitched upon, Deuteronomy xxvii. 4. (Haydock)
It seems more probable that the altar would be upon Garizim, where the blessings were proclaimed, if the texts of Moses and of Josue did not formally assert the contrary. (Calmet)
But if they have been interpolated, nothing certain can be deduced from those passages. Josephus ( iv. 8,) says that the altar was between the two mountains, not far from Sichem, which was built at the foot of Garizim; and it is not probable that this historian, the mortal enemy of the Samaritans, would have hesitated to assert that the altar was upon Hebal, if the texts had been so positive, in his time. It is undeniable that the tribes of Levi, and of Ephraim, were upon Garizim; and consequently Josue and the priests must have been there; and who would then officiate at the altar on Hebal? See Kennicott, who ably refutes the insinuations of the infidel, Collins, against the character of the Samaritans. When this altar was erected the learned are not agreed. (Haydock)
Some say, immediately after the passage of the Jordan, and that the 12 stones taken from the bed of the river, were used for that purpose. Josephus says five years elapsed, and R. Ismael supposes that the altar was not built during the 14 years after the passage of the Jordan. But it is most probable that Josue complied with the command of God as soon as he had procured a sort of peace, (Haydock) by the conquest of these two cities, and was thus enabled to penetrate into the heart of the country, where Garizim was situated, not in the plain of Jericho, as Eusebius imagined, but near Sichem, (Calmet) about 30 or 40 miles to the north-west of Jericho. (Haydock)
