Topic
Gerizim, Mount
12 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Genesis 12:6ISBE
¶ And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.
- Genesis 14:17ISBE
¶ And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king’s dale.
- Genesis 28:11ISBE
And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.
- Deuteronomy 11:29ISBE
And it shall come to pass, when the LORD thy God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal.
- Deuteronomy 11:30ISBE
Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth down, in the land of the Canaanites, which dwell in the champaign over against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh?
- Deuteronomy 27:12ISBE
These shall stand upon mount Gerizim to bless the people, when ye are come over Jordan; Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Joseph, and Benjamin:
- Joshua 4:20ISBE
And those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal.
- Joshua 8:33ISBE
And all Israel, and their elders, and officers, and their judges, stood on this side the ark and on that side before the priests the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, as well the stranger, as he that was born among them; half of them…
- Judges 9:7ISBE
¶ And when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you.
- Nehemiah 13:28ISBE
And one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son in law to Sanballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him from me.
- 2 Maccabees 5:23ISBE
And at Garizim, Andronicus; and besides, Menelaus, who worse than all the rest bare an heavy hand over the citizens, having a malicious mind against his countrymen the Jews.
- John 4:20ISBE
Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 12 references
ger'-i-zim, ge-ri'-zim (har gerizzim):
1. Scriptural References:
Named in the directions for the reading of the law (De 11:29), and in the account of that great ceremony (De 27:12; Jos 8:33 f). Mts. Ebal and Gerizim stood over against each other, and on their sides the peoples were placed, half upon one and half upon the other, while in the vale which separates the mountains stood the ark, with the Levites. Those who stood on Gerizim responded to the blessings, those on Mt. Ebal to the cursings, as these were spoken "with a loud voice" by the Levites. From a spur of Mt. Gerizim Jotham spoke his taunting parable to the men of Shechem (Jud 9:7). The name appears no more in canonical Scripture. In consequence of the dispute which arose over the marriage of Manasseh, who belonged to the high-priestly family, with a daughter of Sanballat the Horonite (Ne 13:28), a temple was built on Gerizim as a rival to that in Jerusalem (circa 432 BC). This was the beginning of the schism which lasts to the present day (Ant., XI, viii, 2, 4). See SAMARITANS. The temple was destroyed by John Hyrcanus circa 110 BC (Ant., XIII, ix, 1; BJ, I, ii, 6).
2. Description:
Mt. Gerizim, the modern Jebel et-Tur, stands on the South, Mt. Ebal on the North, of the narrow pass which cuts through the mountain range, opening a way from the sea to the Jordan. In the throat of this pass to the West, on the South of the vale, and close to the foot of Gerizim, lies the town of Nablus, the ancient Shechem. Here copious fountains rise, filling the valley with beauty and fruitfulness. The sides of the mountain are steep and rocky on East and North; on the West the ascent is more gradual, and here, by means of a system of terraces carried almost to the summit, it is cultivated with great care and success. Its height is 2,849 ft. above the level of the sea, 228 ft. lower than its northern companion.
3. Samaritan Traditions:
Abraham came through the pass and camped near Gerizim at the oak of Moreh (Ge 12:6). According to Samaritan tradition it was on this mountain that he prepared to sacrifice Isaac, and at Salem, not far distant, he met Melchizedek (Ge 14:17). The scene of Jacob's dream is placed at Khirbet Lauzeh on the summit (Ge 28:11 f). In a little hollow West of the ridge, the Samaritans annually celebrate the Passover in accordance with the directions of the Pentateuch. This is done in the open air, their temple having long since disappeared.
4. Antiquities:
The most important remains on the mountain today are those of Justinian's fortress, built in 533 AD, to protect the church which had been erected in 475 AD. Near the center of the plateau is a bare piece of rock, on which, tradition says, the altar stood in the Samaritan temple. A cup-like hollow in it may have been used for libations. In the western wall of el-Qal`ah, Justinian's castle, there are 12 stones under which, it is said, are the stones which Israel took from the bed of the Jordan (Jos 4:20).
Gerizim was certainly "this mountain" pointed to by the woman of Samaria in her conversation with Jesus (Joh 4:20 f); the cliffs of the mountain almost overhanging the Well of Jacob.
For the reason why Gerizim was chosen for the blessing and Ebal for the cursing we are left to conjecture. The directions were fixed by one looking to the East, not, as with us, looking to the North. For one standing in the valley, therefore, Gerizim was on the right hand, "the side of good fortune" (Driver, Deuteronomy on 11:28).
Onom places Ebal and Gerizim much nearer the Jordan valley. This was doubtless to meet the difficulty raised by the long distance from Ai to Shechem. But their nearness to the "oaks of Moreh" (De 11:30) points to this locality, and this is confirmed by Josephus, who speaks of Shechem, the metropolis of the Samaritans, as "a city situated at Mt. Gerizim" (Ant., XI, viii, 6).
Andronicus, appointed governor of Gerizim by Antiochus Epiphanes, is mentioned in 2 Macc 5:23 (the King James Version "Garizim").
W. Ewing
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.