This tell occupied a crucial position. Of the three link roads between the international highways, the middle one goes through the narrow pass separating the mountains Ebal and Gerizim. On the eastern end of this pass sat Shechem. For anyone journeying in the mountain country, it also guarded the only really viable roads from north and south.

When Abram entered the land, his first destination was "the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. " (eilon moreh, Genesis 12:6). The word moreh, in biblical use, meant "oracle" or "soothsaying." Under this tree Jacob buried the foreign gods of his household (Gen. 35:4). In Deuteronomy 11:29-32, Shechem is not mentioned, but the trees (eilonei moreh) appear to designate it. Joshua later writes the words of the covenant on a great stone, which he sets "under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the LORD" at Shechem (Josh. 24:26). The present Arabic name for the tell, balata, immediately suggests to native speakers a paving stone or tile, but it probably comes from the Arabic balut, meaning oak. If so, then the sacred tree, long gone, is preserved in the name.

For all the advantages of its location, Shechem was low and vulnerable. This may be the reason why it so often yielded to newcomers, e.g., to Jacob and his family, to Joshua and the Israelites (for no battle is recorded), and to Abimelech son of Gideon. Although Jeroboam made it his capital, he quickly left it and built another, and the kings after him did not return. This vulnerability was also the factor that led the inhabitants to build the huge wall, dubbed "Cyclopean," for it must have taken a giant like the Cyclops to move the stones we see. (Outside the wall the ground was lower than it is today; much fill was poured in to build the modern road.) The wall was built at a time of major fortification throughout the country, corresponding to the domestication of the horse. People from this land (whom the Egyptians called "Hyksos," foreign rulers) had then taken over Egypt. On the conventional dating, that would have been about 1650 BC.

We note too the gate in the wall. Some of the mud brick is still left on the piers, though the rains, each year, take a little more away. It may have been the gate in which Hamor the Hivite and his son Shechem persuaded the males of the city to circumcise themselves, that they might intermarry with Jacob's clan. (Genesis 34).

Going in through this gate, we head right (south) until we find ourselves within an outline of walls. At one stage, we shall see, this was the temple of the Lord (mikdash yhwh) referred to in Joshua 24: 26. (Translators sometimes use circumlocutions.)

The lower sections of these ruined walls are five yards thick, so they must have supported a towering structure. They date from the same time as the Cyclopean city wall.

In front of this temple, archaeologist Ernst Sellin (in 1926-28) found standing stones (Heb. massebot), which signified the presence of the divine (as we saw at the gate of Dan). Just outside, in the forecourt, was an altar approached by a ramp. This tower-temple was destroyed along with the city, presumably by the Egyptians when they drove out the Hyksos. After a period of abandonment, city and temple rose again. In the forecourt Sellin found an altar and a huge standing stone (below).

How can we know that this was the temple of the Lord mentioned in Joshua or the "temple of El-berith" (God of the covenant) mentioned in Judges 9:46? First, it was built before the country underwent a dramatic decline in settlement, a decline attested by archaeological surveys carried out in the 1980's. Then came a burst of settlement activity, out of which arose the towns of biblical Israel. Throughout this period, the temple at Shechem must have endured, because we hear of its destruction only at the time of Abimelech, son of Gideon (Judges 9:46-49):

^{When all the leaders of the tower of
Shechem heard of it, they entered the inner chamber of the temple of El-berith.

It was told Abimelech that all the leaders of the tower of Shechem were
gathered together. So Abimelech went up to Mount Zalmon, he and all the people
who were with him; and Abimelech took an axe in his hand and cut down a
branch from the trees, and lifted it and laid it on his shoulder. Then he
said to the people who were with him, "What you have seen me do, hurry
and do likewise." All the people also cut down each one his branch and
followed Abimelech, and put them on the inner chamber and set the inner
chamber on fire over those inside, so that all the men of the tower of
Shechem also died, about a thousand men and women.}

The Israelites did not conquer Shechem (or any town in the tribal territory of Manasseh). Apparently, they didn't have to. But according to the Bible, it became at once a major center. (Deut. 11:29-32) Just west of us, the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim almost touch -- the pass is only 300 yards wide. It is quite conceivable that the Levites stood in it, before the temple, shouting the laws to the tribes on the slopes. So we have Deuteronomy 27: 12-26

"When you cross the Jordan, these shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. For the curse, these shall stand on Mount Ebal: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. The Levites shall then answer and say to all the men of Israel with a loud voice,

'Cursed is the man who makes an idol or a molten image, an abomination to the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.' And all the people shall answer and say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who dishonors his father or mother.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who moves his neighbor's boundary mark.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who misleads a blind person on the road.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who distorts the justice due an alien, orphan, and widow.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who lies with his father's wife, because he has uncovered his father's skirt.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who lies with any animal.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who lies with his sister, the daughter of his father or of his mother.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who lies with his mother-in-law.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who strikes his neighbor in secret.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to strike down an innocent person.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'"

Each of the laws is brief and rhythmical, as if written to be chanted. They are not in the long, casuistic form that we find elsewhere, for example, in Exodus 21 or the code of Hammurabi: if someone does such-and-such, then such-and-such will be his punishment. Rather, they are absolute and comprehensive in nature, as in the most famous example, the Ten Commandments . It is unique, in the ancient Near East, to find laws of this "apodictic" form at the national level. Such laws alone could be pronounced aloud and heard by a large group of people.

Albrecht Alt, a German scholar, has suggested that Israel held a regular ceremony of covenant renewal at Shechem between Ebal and Gerizim. That would connect to the biblical name for the temple: El-berith, the God of the covenant. In Joshua 24: 25-28, we read that Joshua summoned the tribes to Shechem and renewed the covenant:

So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the LORD. Joshua said to all the people, "Behold, this stone shall be for a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the LORD which He spoke to us; thus it shall be for a witness against you, so that you do not deny your God." Then Joshua dismissed the people, each to his inheritance.

("Sanctuary of the LORD" translates the Hebrew mikdash yhwh. The usual translation of mikdash is "temple.")

The masseba is coming! Please be patient.

The huge fragment of stone now standing in the forecourt may have belonged to the one in the biblical account. Sellin thought so. The stone was complete when he found it, but today we see only the lower part. Outraged at the notion that this might be it, his successor had it thrown into the dump and it broke. That is why we see only part. One hopes it is standing where Sellin found it: all his field records and the draft of his final report went up in flames during World War II amid the bombing of Berlin. An expedition from Drew University, McCormick Theological Seminary and Harvard re-studied the tell and the temple from 1956 - 1968. Upon their work we depend.

Here, between Ebal and Gerizim, is a place to consider the tension between Word and Earth in Ancient Israel.

Logistics and opening hours:

One may phone these numbers at the Palestinian Antiquities Authority: 050-636199 or 09/2391065 or 2958484. Fax: 09/2374690

Nablus (Shechem)

Tell Balata

Jacob's Well

On the Samaritans

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE(r),
(c) Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by
The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)