3 and you shall write on them all the words of this law, when you have passed over; that you may go in to the land which Yahweh your God gives you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has promised you.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
All the words of this law - i. e. all the laws revealed from God to the people by Moses, regarded by the Jews as 613 (compare Numbers 15:38 note). The exhibition of laws in this manner on stones, pillars, or tables, was familiar to the ancients. The laws were probably graven in the stone ("very plainly," Deuteronomy 27:8 is by some rendered "scoop it out well"), as are for the most part the Egyptian hieroglyphics, the "plaister" being afterward added to protect the inscription from the weather.
All the words of this law - After all that has been said by ingenious critics concerning the law ordered to be written on these stones, some supposing the whole Mosaic law to be intended, others, only the decalogue, I am fully of opinion that the (תורה torah) law or ordinance in question simply means the blessings and curses mentioned in this and in the following chapter; and indeed these contained a very good epitome of the whole law in all its promises and threatenings, in reference to the whole of its grand moral design. See at the end of this chapter, Deuteronomy 27:26 (note).
(b) And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law, when thou art passed over, that thou mayest go in unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, a land that floweth with milk and honey; as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee.
(b) God would have his law set up in the borders of the land of Canaan, that all that looked on it might know that the land was dedicated to his service.
And thou shall write upon them all the words of this law,.... Not the whole book of Deuteronomy, as some think, at least not the historical part of it, only what concerns the laws of God; and it may be only a summary or abstract of them, and perhaps only the ten commandments. Josephus (q) is of opinion that the blessings and the curses after recited were what were written on them:
when thou art passed over; that is, the river Jordan:
that thou mayest go in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, a land flowing with milk and honey; this account of the land of Canaan is so frequently observed, to imprint upon their minds a sense of the great goodness of God in giving them such a fruitful country, and to point out to them the obligation they lay under to observe the laws of God ordered to be written on plastered stones, as soon as they came into it:
as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee; Exodus 3:8.
(q) Antiqu. l. 4. c. 8. sect. 44.
thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law--It might be, as some think, the Decalogue; but a greater probability is that it was "the blessings and curses," which comprised in fact an epitome of the law (Joshua 8:34).
Upon the stones there were to be written "all the words of this law:" obviously, therefore, not only the blessings and curses in Deuteronomy 27:15-26 (as Josephus, Ant. iv. 8, 44, Masius, Clericus, and others maintain), nor only Deuteronomy (J. Gerhard, A. Osiander, Vater, etc.), since this contained no independent "second law," but the whole of the Mosaic law; not, indeed, the entire Pentateuch, with its historical narratives, its geographical, ethnographical, and other notices, but simply the legal part of it - the commandments, statutes, and rights of the Thorah. But whether all the 613 commandments contained in the Pentateuch, according to the Jewish reckoning (vid., Bertheau, die 7 Gruppen Mos. Ges. p. 12), or only the quintessence of them, with the omission of the numerous repetitions of different commands, cannot be decided, and is of no importance to the matter in hand. The object aimed at would be attained by writing the essential kernel of the whole law; though the possibility of all the commandments being written, of course without the reasons and exhortations connected with them, cannot be denied, since it is not stated how many stones were set up, but simply that large stones were to be taken, which would therefore contain a great deal. In the clause, "that thou mayest come into the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee," etc., the coming involves the permanent possession of the land. Not only the treading or conquest of Canaan, but the maintenance of the conquered land as a permanent hereditary possession, was promised to Israel; but it would only permanently rejoice in the fulfilment of this promise, if it set up the law of its God in the land, and observed it.
This law - The law properly so called, that is, the sum and substance of the precepts or laws of Moses, especially such as were moral, particularly the decalogue. Write it, that thou mayest go in - As the condition of thy entering into the land. For since Canaan is given only by promise, it must be held by obedience.
*More commentary available at chapter level.