p. 83 | Ebal and Gerizim

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 16, 1875

Ebal and Gerizim.

An interesting experiment was recently tried in connection with Mounts Ebal and Gerizim, for the purpose of meeting the doubts sometimes expressed as to whether the blessings and cursings recorded in the twenty-seventh chapter of Deuteronomy could be heard in the valley below. On this point a correspondent of the London Sunday-school Times relates the following incident:—

“On the 22d day of March last, I stood myself on Gerizim—not on the top, but on a spur, like a platform, on its side, above the valley; and there is a similar platform opposite, on Ebal. A friend stood on Ebal, opposite. There was a congregation of from twelve to fifteen below us. My friend on Ebal first read the curses (see Deut. 27), one by one, and the people below shouted ‘Amen’ after each of them. I followed, reading the blessings in the next chapter, and our friends below responded to the same with their ‘Amen.’ Then we read several verses in the first chapter of John, the one and the other reading every alternate sentence. Not only the people in the valley below, but I myself, standing on the side of Gerizim, could hear most distinctly every word that my friend read on the side of Ebal, and vice versa. We did not measure the distance, but it was estimated by the party to be nearly a mile.”