Deuteronômio 27:3 Comentário: Ibn Ezra, Ramban, Or HaChaim & Rabbeinu Bahya

so that you shall come for God will aid you, if you start by observing His commandments. This was their very first obligation upon entering: to build a new altar, to thank God for the start of their occupation of the land.

AND THOU SHALT WRITE UPON THEM ALL THE WORDS OF THIS LAW. Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra wrote in the name of the Gaon⁵⁸Rav Saadia Gaon. See Vol., II p. 99, Note 230. that “they wrote upon the stones a list of the commandments like those written down in the ‘Hilchoth Gedoloth,’⁵⁹Rabbi Shimon Kairo of the Gaonic period, who flourished in the second half of the eighth century Common Era, was the first to enumerate the Taryag Mitzvoth contained in the Torah. The listing is in the preface to his work “Hilchoth Gedoloth”. His concept was utilized by the Paitanim, the writers of liturgical poetry who wrote various Azharoth (Exhortations), liturgical poems containing the Divine Commandments. — It should be noted that while the “Hilchoth Gedoloth” contains the first historical record in our possession of an attempt at enumerating the individual commandments, there is no doubt that the author drew upon older sources of such lists, and as Rabbeinu Saadia Gaon writes here, such “a list of the commandments” was written upon the stones by Moses. in the form of Azharoth (‘Exhortations’ of the liturgical poets). And the meaning of the expression ‘ba’eir heiteiv’ (very plainly)⁶⁰Verse 8. refers to the writing” [i.e., that it be in legible script, but it does not mean “well explained,” since only a brief list of the commandments rather than a detailed rendering was inscribed upon the stones].
And our Rabbis have said⁶¹Sotah 32a. [that ‘ba’eir heiteiv’⁶⁰Verse 8. means] in the seventy languages [of the peoples of the world]. Now, we find in the Book of Tagin (crownlets)⁶²See Vol. I, p. 11. that the entire Torah was written on them [i.e., the stones] — from the beginning of Bereshith to in the sight of all Israel⁶³Further, 34:12. — with its crownlets and its flourishes, and from there all the crownlets in the entire Torah were copied. It is likely that either these stones were huge, or it was a miraculous event [for, otherwise, it would have been impossible to inscribe so much on a few stone tablets].

למען אשר תבא אל הארץ "in order that you may enter the land, etc." Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra explains this to mean that when you commence to observe His commandments, i.e. to inscribe the stones, (and this is the first commandment), you will enter the Holy Land by dint of this merit. Nachmanides understands the words: "in order that you will enter" as a commandment to inscribe the entire Torah on these stones at the time the Israelites would cross the Jordan [as opposed to Ibn Ezra who wrote that only the actual commandments had to be inscribed on these stones. Ed.] I do not believe that either one of these two explanations does justice to the plain meaning of our verse. Another thing we have to explain are the words כאשר דבר ה׳ אלוקי אבותיך לך, "as the Lord the G'd of your fathers has said to you." The Torah should have written the word לך, to you, immediately after the words כאשר דבר, and we would have entertained no doubt about who had said this to the Israelites.