Matthew Poole and continuators on Deuteronomy 27:12

12 These shall stand upon mount Gerizzim , to [illegible: 1+ letters]less the people , when ye are come over Jordan; Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Joseph, and Benjamin .

Obj. In Ios. 8. 33. they stood over against mount Gerizim. Ans. 1. Both are true: they who stood upon the one mount stood over against the other. 2. These words may be rendered, beside or near to (as the Hebrew al oft signifies) mount Gerizim, which might be over against it.

Whence it appears that the blessings also were pronounced as well as the curses though they be not here mentioned. See Ios. 8. 33.

All these were the children of the free-women, Leah and Rachel, to shew both the dignity of the blessings above the curses, and that the blessings belong onely to those that are Evangelically such, as this is expounded and applied, Gal. 4. 22, &c. even to those that receive the Spirit of adoption and liberty. Ioseph is here put for both his sons and tribes Manasseh and Ephraim, which are here reckoned as one tribe, because Levi is here numbred, but when Levi is omitted, as it is where the division of the land is made, there Manasseh and Ephraim pass for two tribes.