Deuteronomy Chapter 7
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 with them who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations,
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 amongst you, or amongst 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 amongst 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 amongst 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.
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Deuteronomy Chapter 7 Guide
Continuing to deal with the responsibilities of the people as they entered the land, Moses insisted upon the absolute necessity for the maintenance of the attitude of separation to God. Stringent instructions were given in this .matter. They must not compromise with the people of the land. They must not marry with them because such alliance would result in corruption of the chosen people and their straying after other gods. Moreover, they were to sweep out all the signs of false religion, altars and pillars and Asherim and graven images. Moses reminded them that their God was faithful both in mercy and in discipline, and urged them therefore to be faithful.
Still another peril threatened them. This peril would necessarily grow out of the difficulties of the work that lay before them. It was inevitable that they would become conscious of the number and strength of their foes. If once they permitted their minds to dwell on these things, they would repeat the folly of their fathers, who saw fenced cities and giants rather than God. Moses urged them, therefore, to remember the deliverances already wrought. The central word of this charge is, "for Jehovah thy God is in the midst of thee, a great God and terrible." To be perpetually conscious of this would be to be delivered from the sense of fear in the presence of all opposition.
Moses ended with the solemn warning that in the burning of the images the clothing and drapery also must be destroyed. Everything devoted by God to destruction must be destroyed by the people whom He leads into victory and possession.
From "An Exposition of the Whole Bible" by G. Campbell Morgan.
Deuteronomy Chapter 7 Commentary
Chapter Outline
- Intercourse with the Canaanites forbidden. -- (1-11)
- Promises if they were obedient. -- (12-26)
Verses 1-11
Here is a strict caution against all friendship and fellowship with idols and idolaters. Those who are in communion with God, must have no communication with the unfruitful works of darkness. Limiting the orders to destroy, to the nations here mentioned, plainly shows that after ages were not to draw this into a precedent. A proper understanding of the evil of sin, and of the mystery of a crucified Saviour, will enable us to perceive the justice of God in all his punishments, temporal and eternal. We must deal decidedly with our lusts that war against our souls; let us not show them any mercy, but mortify, and crucify, and utterly destroy them. Thousands in the world that now is, have been undone by ungodly marriages; for there is more likelihood that the good will be perverted, than that the bad will be converted. Those who, in choosing yoke-fellows, keep not within the bounds of a profession of religion, cannot promise themselves helps meet for them.
Verses 12-26
We are in danger of having fellowship with the works of darkness if we take pleasure in fellowship with those who do such works. Whatever brings us into a snare, brings us under a curse. Let us be constant to our duty, and we cannot question the constancy of God's mercy. Diseases are God's servants; they go where he sends them, and do what he bids them. It is therefore good for the health of our bodies, thoroughly to mortify the sin of our souls; which is our rule of duty. Yet sin is never totally destroyed in this world; and it actually prevails in us much more than it would do, if we were watchful and diligent. In all this the Lord acts according to the counsel of his own will; but that counsel being hid from us, forms no excuse for our sloth and negligence, of which it is in no degree the cause. We must not think, that because the deliverance of the church, and the destruction of the enemies of the soul, are not done immediately, therefore they will never be done. God will do his own work in his own method and time; and we may be sure that they are always the best. Thus corruption is driven out of the hearts of believers by little and little. The work of sanctification is carried on gradually; but at length there will be a complete victory. Pride, security, and other sins that are common effects of prosperity, are enemies more dangerous than beasts of the field, and more apt to increase upon us.
From the "Concise Commentary on the Bible" by Matthew Henry.