Deuteronomy 7

World English Bible (WEB) · English

1 When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, and casts out many nations before you—the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite—seven nations greater and mightier than you; 2 and when the LORD your God delivers them up before you, and you strike them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them. 3 You shall not make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son. 4 For that would turn away your sons from following me, that they may serve other gods. So the LORD’s anger would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. 5 But you shall deal with them like this: you shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their engraved images with fire. 6 For you are a holy people to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 The LORD didn’t set his love on you nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples; 8 but because the LORD loves you, and because he desires to keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD your God himself is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness to a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments, 10 and repays those who hate him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack to him who hates him. He will repay him to his face. 11 You shall therefore keep the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances which I command you today, to do them. 12 It shall happen, because you listen to these ordinances and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep with you the covenant and the loving kindness which he swore to your fathers. 13 He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your livestock and the young of your flock, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give you. 14 You will be blessed above all peoples. There won’t be male or female barren among you, or among your livestock. 15 The LORD will take away from you all sickness; and he will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, on you, but will lay them on all those who hate you. 16 You shall consume all the peoples whom the LORD your God shall deliver to you. Your eye shall not pity them. You shall not serve their gods; for that would be a snare to you. 17 If you shall say in your heart, “These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?” 18 you shall not be afraid of them. You shall remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: 19 the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. So shall the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20 Moreover the LORD your God will send the hornet among them, until those who are left, and hide themselves, perish from before you. 21 You shall not be scared of them; for the LORD your God is among you, a great and awesome God. 22 The LORD your God will cast out those nations before you little by little. You may not consume them at once, lest the animals of the field increase on you. 23 But the LORD your God will deliver them up before you, and will confuse them with a great confusion, until they are destroyed. 24 He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under the sky. No one will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them. 25 You shall burn the engraved images of their gods with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourself, lest you be snared in it; for it is an abomination to the LORD your God. 26 You shall not bring an abomination into your house and become a devoted thing like it. You shall utterly detest it. You shall utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing.

Commentary — not Bible text

Deuteronomy 7:1

Introduction

With the seven nations that God shall cast out, Deu 7:1, they shall make no covenant, Deu 7:2, nor form any matrimonial alliances, Deu 7:3; lest they should be enticed into idolatry, Deu 7:4. All monuments of idolatry to be destroyed, Deu 7:5. The Israelites are to consider themselves a holy people, Deu 7:6; and that the Lord had made them such, not for their merits, but for his own mercies, Deu 7:7, Deu 7:8. They shall therefore love him, and keep his commandments, Deu 7:9-11. The great privileges of the obedient, Deu 7:12-24. All idolatry to be avoided, Deu 7:25, Deu 7:26.

Verse 1

Seven nations greater and mightier than thou - In several places of the Hebrew text, each of these seven nations is not enumerated, some one or other being left out, which the Septuagint in general supply. How these nations were distributed over the land of Canaan previously to the entering in of the Israelites, the reader may see in the note on Jos 3:10 (note).

Deuteronomy 7:2

Verse 2

Thou shalt smite them, etc. - These idolatrous nations were to be utterly destroyed, and all the others also which were contiguous to the boundaries of the promised land, provided they did not renounce their idolatry and receive the true faith: for if they did not, then no covenant was to be made with them on any secular or political consideration whatever; no mercy was to be shown to them, because the cup of their iniquity also was now full; and they must either embrace, heartily embrace, the true religion, or be cut off.

Deuteronomy 7:3-5

Verse 3

Neither shalt thou make marriages, etc. - The heart being naturally inclined to evil, there is more likelihood that the idolatrous wife should draw aside the believing husband, than that the believing husband should be able to bring over his idolatrous wife to the true faith.

Deuteronomy 7:6-7

Verse 6

Thou art a holy people - And therefore should have no connection with the workers of iniquity.

A special people - סגלה segullah, - Septuagint, λαον περιουσιον, - a peculiar people, a private property. The words as they stand in the Septuagint are quoted by the apostle, 1Pet 2:9.

Deuteronomy 7:8-11

Verse 8

But because the Lord loved you - It was no good in them that induced God to choose them at this time to be his peculiar people: he had his reasons, but these sprang from his infinite goodness. He intended to make a full discovery of his goodness to the world, and this must have a commencement in some particular place, and among some people. He chose that time, and he chose the Jewish people; but not because of their goodness or holiness.

Deuteronomy 7:12-21

Verse 12

The Lord - shall keep unto thee the covenant - So we find their continuance in the state of favor was to depend on their faithfulness to the grace of God. If they should rebel, though God had chosen them through his love, yet he would cast them off in his justice. The elect, we see, may become unfaithful, and so become reprobates. So it happened to 24,000 of them, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness because they had sinned; yet these were of the elect that came out of Egypt. Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall.

Deuteronomy 7:22-24

Verse 22

Put out those nations - by little and little - The Israelites were not as yet sufficiently numerous to fill the whole land occupied by the seven nations mentioned Deu 7:1. And as wild and ferocious animals might be expected to multiply where either there are no inhabitants, or the place is but thinly peopled, therefore God tells them that, though at present, by force of arms, they might be able to expel them, it would be impolitic so to do, lest the beasts of the field should multiply upon them.

Deuteronomy 7:25-26

Verse 25

Thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them - Some of the ancient idols were plated over with gold, and God saw that the value of the metal and the excellence of the workmanship might be an inducement for the Israelites to preserve them; and this might lead, remotely at least, to idolatry. As the idols were accursed, all those who had them, or any thing appertaining to them, were accursed also, Deu 7:26.

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