And therefore it shall be, when ye be gone over Jordan,.... Some time after they had passed that river:[that] ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, in Mount Ebal; a mountain near Shechem in Samaria, and was, as Benjamin of Tudela says , dry as stones and rocks itself, and perhaps had its name, as some think , from the root in the Arabic language which signifies to strip a tree of its leaves, and a derivative from it, white stones and a mountain in which such are found.
Hither the stones commanded to be set up were to be brought, and fixed here; from whence it is not certain; it may be from some part of the mountain. Here the Samaritan version has Gerizim instead of Ebal, which is generally thought to be a wilful corruption of the Samaritans, in favour of their temple built at Gerizim:and thou shall plaster them with plaster; as before directed, De 27:2.
Itinerar. p. 40. Reland. Dissert. 3. de Monte Gerizim, p. 128. See Castel. Lexic.