Deuteronomy 27 · a question people ask
Who spoke the curses: the six tribes on Ebal, or the Levites?
The chapter gives each part to someone. The tribes "shall stand": six "on Mount Gerizim to bless the people" (27:12), and six "on Mount Ebal for the curse" (27:13). The speaking is given to the Levites: "With a loud voice, the Levites shall say to all the men of Israel" (27:14). The answer is given to everyone: "All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen’" (27:15). Levi is also named among the tribes on Gerizim (27:12); the text doesn't say how the two fit together. When it was done, all Israel "stood on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests, who carried the ark of the LORD’s covenant", half in front of each mountain (Joshua 8:33).
The verses
““These shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, when you have crossed over the Jordan: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. These shall stand on Mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. With a loud voice, the Levites shall say to all the men of Israel, ‘Cursed is the man who makes an engraved or molten image, an abomination to the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’”
“All Israel, with their elders, officers, and judges, stood on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests, who carried the ark of the LORD’s covenant, the foreigner as well as the native; half of them in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel.”