While reading the Torah portion this week I began to wonder why specific information was given in Deut. 11:30 as to the location of the mountains of blessings and curses. As I began to look at the context of the passage I noticed that YHVH was telling man how to learn, teach, and live, one more time.
God tells us how to teach, then he gives the example
He tells us in Deut...
Chapter 6:
“And this is the command, the laws and right-rulings which יהוה your Elohim has commanded, to teach you to do in the land which you are passing over to possess,
Deu 6:2 so that you fear יהוה your Elohim, to guard all His laws and His commands which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days be prolonged.
Deu 6:3 “And you shall hear, O Yisra’ĕl, and shall guard to do, that it might be well with you, and that you increase greatly as יהוה Elohim of your fathers has spoken to you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
Deu 6:4 “Hear, O Yisra’ĕl: יהוה our Elohim, יהוה is one!
Deu 6:5 “And you shall love יהוה your Elohim with all your heart, and with all your being, and with all your might.
Deu 6:6 “And these Words which I am commanding you today shall be in your heart,
Deu 6:7 and you shall impress them upon your children, and shall speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up,
Deu 6:8 and shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
Deu 6:9 “And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deu 6:17 “Diligently guard the commands of יהוה your Elohim, and His witnesses, and His laws which He has commanded you.
Deu 6:18 “And you shall do what is right and good in the eyes of יהוה, that it might be well with you, and you shall go in and possess the good land of which יהוה swore to your fathers,
Deu 6:19 to drive out all your enemies from before you, as יהוה has spoken.
Deu 6:20 “When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is the meaning of the witnesses, and the laws, and the right-rulings which יהוהour Elohim has commanded you?’
Deu 6:21 then you shall say to your son, ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Mitsrayim, and יהוה brought us out of Mitsrayim with a strong hand,
Deu 6:22 and יהוה sent signs and wonders, great and grievous, upon Mitsrayim, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes.
Deu 6:23 ‘And He brought us out from there, to bring us in, to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers.
Deu 6:24 ‘And יהוה commanded us to do all these laws, to fear יהוה our Elohim, for our good always, to keep us alive, as it is today.
Deu 6:25 ‘And it is righteousness for us when we guard to do all this command before יהוה our Elohim, as He has commanded us.’
Then he gave us the commands and told us there would be blessings if we guard them and curses if we did not.
In Chapter 11 he reiterated this again:
Deu 11:18 ‘And you shall lay up these Words1 of Mine in your heart and in your being, and shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. Footnote: 1See footnote at 5:22.
Deu 11:19 ‘And you shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up,
Deu 11:20 and shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,
Deu 11:21 so that your days and the days of your children are increased on the soil of which יהוה swore to your fathers to give them, as the days of the heavens on the earth.
Finally, they lived the instruction.
Deu 11:26 ‘See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse:
Deu 11:27 the blessing, when you obey the commands of יהוה your Elohim which I command you today;
Deu 11:28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commands of יהוה your Elohim, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other mighty ones which you have not known.
Deu 11:29 ‘And it shall be, when יהוה your Elohim has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ěyḇal.
Deu 11:30 ‘Are they not beyond the Yardĕn, toward the setting sun, in the land of the Kenaʽanites who dwell in the desert plain opposite Gilgal, beside the terebinth trees of Moreh?
And as they walked between the two mountains the commands were read (see the rest of Deut)
It is interesting the meanings of the words in this final passage.
The Jordan (Yarden) is 'low place' which we must go through before reaching the mountains.
Then we go to the land of the Kena'anites which is 'peddlars' or merchants, traffickers. We are to uproot the world's traffickers in our lives so that we can make it to the mountains having shed off the world so that we can wisely choose to follow or to disobey.
Then we have the mountains:
The root meaning of Gerizim is 'cut apart' (also can be divide or set apart) which, if we keep the commands, we will be set apart to YHVH.
The root meaning of Eybal is bald, naked, as Adam and Chavah in the garden became ashamed when they realized they were naked, disobedience brings nakedness and shame.
And finally the locations where the mountains reside are by Gilgal and Moreh.
Gilgal is wheel, rolling, cycle and Moreh is teaching. In these two words we have the cyclic teaching model again reiterated symbolically.
As the children of Israel walk across the Jordan (through the low places) into the land of Kena'anites to displace them (in the midst of the world selling it's wears and displacing it), between the mountains of blessings (set apartness) and curses (shame) they will hear again the instructions of how to live and they will hear it over and over again (Gilgal and Moreh, circle teaching) year after year in the synagogue.
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