DEUTERONOMY 7 COMMENTARY

EDITED BY GLENN PEASE

Driving Out the Nations

1 When the Lord your God brings you into the

land you are entering to possess and drives out

before you many nations—the Hittites,

Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites,

Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and

stronger than you—

CLARKE, "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).

GILL, "When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it,.... The land of Canaan they were just now going into to take possession of; their introduction into which is here, as in many other places, ascribed not to themselves, or their leaders, but to the Lord as their covenant God:

and hath cast out many nations before thee; even all that were in it, the seven following:

the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites; the Canaanites were a particular nation in the land of Canaan, which had their name from Canaan himself; the rest were called from different sons of his; see Gen_10:15, the country of the Gergesenes, the same with the Girgashites, continued its name unto the times of Christ, Mat_8:28,

seven nations greater and mightier than thou; more in number, and more

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robust in body, some being of a gigantic stature; there were ten of these nations in Abraham's time, three of them were since sunk or swallowed up among the rest, the Kenites, and Kenizires, and the Rephaim; for instead of the Kadmonites the Hivites are here put, which seem to be the same.

HENRY, "Here is, I. A very strict caution against all friendship and fellowship with idols and idolaters. Those that are taken into communion with God must have no communication with the unfruitful works of darkness. These things they are charged about for the preventing of this snare now before them.

1. They must show them no mercy, Deu_7:1, Deu_7:2. Bloody work is here appointed them, and yet it is God's work, and good work, and in its time and place needful, acceptable, and honourable.

(1.) God here engages to do his part. It is spoken of as a thing taken for granted that God would bring them into the land of promise, that he would cast out the nations before them, who were the present occupants of that land; no room was left to doubt of that. His power is irresistible, and therefore he can do it; his promise is inviolable, and therefore he will do it. Now, [1.] These devoted nations are here named and numbered (Deu_7:1), seven in all, and seven to one are great odds. They are specified, that Israel might know the bounds and limits of their commission: hitherto their severity must come, but no further; nor must they, under colour of this commission, kill all that came in their way; no, here must its waves be stayed. The confining of this commission to the nations here mentioned plainly intimates that after-ages were not to draw this into a precedent; this will not serve to justify those barbarous laws which give no quarter. How agreeable soever this method might be, when God himself prescribed it, to that dispensation under which such multitudes of beasts were killed and burned in sacrifice, now that all sacrifices of atonement are perfected in, and superseded by, the great propitiation made by the blood of Christ, human blood has become perhaps more precious than it was, and those that have most power yet must not be prodigal of it. [2.] They are here owned to be greater and mightier than Israel. They had been long rooted in this land, to which Israel came strangers; they were more numerous, had men much more bulky and more expert in war than Israel had; yet all this shall not prevent their being cast out before Israel. The strength of Israel's enemies magnifies the power of Israel's God, who will certainly be too hard for them.

JAMISON, "Deu_7:1-26. All communion with the nations forbidden.

the Hittites — This people were descended from Heth, the second son of Canaan (Gen_10:15), and occupied the mountainous region about Hebron, in the south of Palestine.

the Girgashites — supposed by some to be the same as the Gergesenes (Mat_8:28), who lay to the east of Lake Gennesareth; but they are placed on the west of Jordan (Jos_24:11), and others take them for a branch of the large family of the Hivites, as they are omitted in nine out of ten places where the tribes of Canaan are enumerated; in the tenth they are mentioned, while the Hivites are not.

the Amorites — descended from the fourth son of Canaan. They occupied, besides their conquest on the Moabite territory, extensive settlements west of the Dead Sea, in the mountains.

the Canaanites — located in Phoenicia, particularly about Tyre and Sidon, and being sprung from the oldest branch of the family of Canaan, bore his name.

the Perizzites — that is, villagers, a tribe who were dispersed throughout the

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country and lived in unwalled towns.

the Hivites — who dwelt about Ebal and Gerizim, extending towards Hermon. They are supposed to be the same as the Avims.

the Jebusites — resided about Jerusalem and the adjacent country.

seven nations greater and mightier than thou — Ten were formerly mentioned (Gen_15:19-21). But in the lapse of near five hundred years, it cannot be surprising that some of them had been extinguished in the many intestine feuds that prevailed among those warlike tribes. It is more than probable that some, stationed on the east of Jordan, had fallen under the victorious arms of the Israelites.

MEYER, " NO COMPROMISE WITH IDOLATRY

Deu_6:20-25; Deu_7:1-11

The great Lawgiver had His eye constantly on the coming generation. It is good when the children are so arrested by our religious life, that they come to ask us to tell them the reasons that account for it. Seek to live so purely and devoutly, and yet so attractively, that the young people around will be compelled to inquire after your secret, Luk_11:1.

We are not only to teach the children, but to guard them against forming friendships and making marriage alliances with those who might divert them from God. In the New Testament, Christians are forbidden to marry except “in the Lord,” and equally stringent are prohibitions against worldly intercourse, 1Co_7:39; 2Co_6:14.

God can break the seven-fold power of sin in the heart of those who are absolutely given over to Him and are willing to surrender their evil ways. This is pledged to us by His fidelity and love, Deu_7:8-9.

COFFMAN, "This chapter, following the pattern we have already observed, is

devoted to a further exposition and comment on the 2nd and 3commandments of the

Decalogue. Here Moses extensively warned the Israelites against the idolatry of the

land of Canaan into which they were about to enter. In the very first verse of this

chapter, we have, "When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land ...." This

expression, or its equivalent (including half a dozen slight variations of it) occurs

twenty-four times in Moses' speeches as recorded in Deuteronomy, and only five

times throughout all the rest of the Pentateuch.[1] This amazing characteristic was due

to the fact that when Moses delivered these addresses, all of Israel were standing on

the threshold of Canaan, which could plainly be seen across the rolling waters of the

Jordan river. In the mouth of Moses, this oft-repeated expression is natural,

reasonable, and in harmony with all that is known of that situation. On the other hand,

such expressions are absolutely contrary to anything that a forger, impersonator, or

any seventh-century author can possibly be conceived of as writing. This material

confirms the formal declarations in Deuteronomy that Moses is indeed the author of

all this material.[2]

"When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it,

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and shall cast out many nations before thee, the Hittite, and the Gergashite, and the

Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven

nations greater and mightier than thou: and Jehovah thy God shall deliver them up

before thee, and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them: thou shalt

make no covenant with them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy

daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy

son. For he will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods:

so will the anger of Jehovah be kindled against you, and he will destroy thee quickly.

But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces

their pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire."

The list of nations here in Deuteronomy 7:1 is also found in Genesis 15:19-21;

Exodus 3:8; Deuteronomy 1:4; 20:17; Joshua 3:10; 24:11, a "total often of these being

enumerated in all."[3] In several instances only six nations are named, but in others

we have seven, as here. There were actually thirty-two kingdoms of Palestine

destroyed by the Israelites, and all of these lists may be considered as typical

summaries of all of them, these being the principal racial divisions. We have no

patience with scholars who complain that the Girgashites were omitted from the list in

Exodus 3:8, or that the Rephaim (Genesis 15:20) are omitted here and in other places.

So what? "The Girgashites, thought by some to be the same as the Gergesenes

(Matthew 8:28), may be identified as a subdivision of the large Hivite group";[4] and

the Rephaim were not mentioned by Moses at this point, because Israel had just

"destroyed Og, the last of the Rephaim!" (Deuteronomy 3:11). "The Rephaim were at

this time extinct, having been conquered and destroyed by the Israelites."[5] That

these groups thus distinguished in these various lists are to be understood as racial

divisions appears in the following:

The Gergesenes. (See the paragraph above.)

The Amorites were descended from the fourth son of Canaan.

The Hittites were descended from Herb, the second son of Canaan (Genesis 10:15).

The Canaanites were descended from the first son of Canaan, and were the bearer of

his name. They occupied the coast.

The Hivites dwelt in the region near Gerizim and Ebal northward to Mount Hermon.

The Perizzites were villagers, living in unwalled towns throughout the land of

Palestine.

The Jebusites occupied the area in the vicinity of Jerusalem.[6]

COKE, "Ver. 1. When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land— Moses, well

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foreseeing how apt the Israelites would be to fall into idolatry, thought it necessary to

insist particularly upon this article: accordingly, in the sequel of his speech, he desires

them to remember what it was that God expected they should do to the seven

idolatrous nations of Canaan; and how they were to behave when he delivered them

into their hands. In the promise made to Abraham, Genesis 15:19 there is mention of

ten nations promised to his posterity; but, as this promise was above four hundred

years before, it is easy to suppose, that some of those people, by affinities with their

more powerful neighbours, might now be called by the names of that people to which

they were joined. In Genesis 15:19 before cited, there is no mention of the Hivites;

and, besides the other six here enumerated, we have the Kenites, Kenizzites,

Kedmonites, and Rephaims, which seem to have been only lesser families included in

mount Lebanon, as appears from Judges 3:3. The Hivites seem to be the people called

Rephaims in Genesis 15. Bochart is of opinion, that the Kenites and Kenizzites were

extinct between the age of Abraham and Moses: but that cannot be true; for we read of

the Kenites, both in Moses's time, and long after, Numbers 24:21. Judges 1:16. 1

Samuel 15:6 and Joshua 10:5-6. The dreadful execution to be done on the Canaanites

by the divine command, has been urged as an act of the greatest cruelty and injustice.

Some have endeavoured to extenuate this, by arguing from the present passage,

compared with Joshua 11:19-20 that conditions of peace were to be offered to them:

but waving that, in consideration of verses 1, 2. 5. 16 and many other parallel texts,

and comparing chap. Deuteronomy 20:15-16 with Joshua 11:6-7; Joshua 11:23 it may

with greater certainty, says Dr. Doddridge, be replied, 1. That God, as their offended

creator, had a right to their forfeited lives; and, therefore, might as well destroy them

and their posterity by the sword of the Israelites, as by famine, pestilence, fire and

brimstone rained from heaven, or any other calamity appearing to come more

immediately from himself. 2. That the wickedness of this people, especially as

aggravated by the destruction of Sodom, was such as made the execution done upon

them an useful lesson to neighbouring nations. Compare Genesis 15:16. Leviticus

20:27. Jude 1:4; Jude 1:7. Wisdom of Solomon 12:3; Wisdom of Solomon 12:7;

Wisdom of Solomon 12:3. That the miracles wrought in favour of the Israelites, not

only at their coming out of Egypt, but at their entrance on Canaan, proved that they

were indeed commissioned as God's executioners, and, consequently, that their

conduct was not to be a model for conquerors in ordinary cases. 4. That there was a

peculiar propriety in destroying those sinners by the sword of Israel, as that would

tend to impress the Israelites more strongly with an abhorrence of the idolatry and

other vices of these nations, and consequently subserve that design of keeping them a

distinct people, adhering to the worship of the true God, which was so gracious to

mankind in general as well as to them in particular. After all, had any among the

Canaanites surrendered themselves at discretion to the God of Israel, a new case

would have arisen, not expressly provided for in the law, in which, it is probable, God,

upon being consulted by Urim and Thummim, would have spared the lives of such

penitents, and either have incorporated them with the Israelites by circumcision, or

have ordered them a settlement in some neighbouring country, as the family of Rahab

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seems to have had; Joshua 6:23. See Doddridge's Lectures, p. 354 and Waterland's

Scripture Vindicated, p. 2. We refer to the end of the twentieth chapter for reflections

on the destruction of the seven nations of Canaan.

ELLICOTT, "(1) When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land. . . .—The

former chapter applies the Decalogue to the love of Jehovah and of His word, and to

faith in Him as the God of Israel; and thus it may be regarded as an expansion of the

first commandment. The exhortation in this chapter concerns the treatment of

idolaters in the conquest of Canaan, and the avoidance of all such intercourse or union

with them as might tend to turn Israel from Jehovah. Obviously, this may be

connected both with the first and with the second commandment.

CONSTABLE 1-11, "Moses mentioned seven nations that resided in Canaan here

(Deuteronomy 7:1), but as many as 10 appear in other passages (cf. Genesis 15:19-21;

Exodus 34:11; Numbers 13:28-29; Judges 3:5). Perhaps Moses named seven here for

rhetorical purposes, seven being a number that indicates completion or fullness. One

reason for the total extermination of these idolaters was the evil effect their corrupt

worship would have on the Israelites and their relationship with Yahweh

(Deuteronomy 7:4). [Note: See Tremper Longman III, "The Divine Warrior: The New

Testament Use of an Old Testament Motif," Westminster Theological Journal 44 (Fall

1982):290-307.] They deserved to die for their sins (Deuteronomy 9:4-5) and for their

persistent hatred of God (Deuteronomy 7:10; cf. Genesis 9:25-26; Genesis 10:15-18;

Exodus 23:23).

"Thus he is not speaking of those Canaanites who actually forsook their idols and

followed the Lord [such as Rahab]." [Note: Sailhamer, p. 440.]

Israel was to be different from other nations (i.e., holy) because God had chosen to

bless her (Deuteronomy 7:6). Likewise Christians today should deal ruthlessly with

sin in our lives (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:6). Israel's election was not due to anything in her

that merited God's favor, but only to the free choice of God to bless whom He would

bless.

"Israel had a priestly tribe, the tribe of Levi, but the nation as a whole was also to be a

priesthood. The historical function of a priest was to represent man to God. The tribe

of Levi represented Israel before God; and the nation Israel was to represent the

Gentile nations before God." [Note: Fruchtenbaum, p. 115.]

God's promises to the Israelites' forefathers and His deliverance of Israel out of Egypt

were demonstrations of the love that lay behind God's election. The motive of love

comes through clearly. The reason for this love was not that its recipients were

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attractive but that its giver is a loving Person.

Verses 1-26

3. Examples of the application of the principles chs. 7-11

"These clearly are not laws or commandments as such but primarily series of parenetic

homilies in which Moses exhorted the people to certain courses of action in light of

the upcoming conquest and occupation of Canaan. Within these sections, however, are

specific and explicit injunctions based upon the Decalogue and anticipatory of further

elaboration in the large section of detailed stipulations that follows (Deuteronomy

12:1 to Deuteronomy 26:15)." [Note: Ibid., p. 176.]

Command to destroy the Canaanites and their idolatry ch. 7

This chapter is a logical development of what Moses said in chapters 5 and 6. God

had called on His people to acknowledge that He is the only true God and to be

completely loyal to Him. In Canaan they would encounter temptations that might

divert them from their fidelity (cf. Deuteronomy 6:14). Now we have a full

explanation of how the Israelites were to deal with these temptations. These

instructions amplify the second commandment (Deuteronomy 5:8-10).

BENSON, "Deuteronomy 7:1. Seven nations — Ten are mentioned, Genesis 15:19;

but this being some hundreds of years after, it is not strange if three of them were

either destroyed by foreign or domestic wars, or by cohabitation and marriage united

with and swallowed up in the rest.

EBC 1-26, "THE BAN

As in the previous chapter we have had the Mosaic and Deuteronomic statement of the internal and spiritual means of defending the Israelite character and faith from the temptations which the conquest in Canaan would bring with it, in this we have strenuous provision made against the same evil by external means. The mind first was to be fortified against the temptation to fall away: then the external pressure from the example of the peoples they were to conquer was to be minimized by the practice of the ban.

The first five verses (Deu_7:1-5), and the last two (Deu_7:25-26) deal emphatically with that, as also does Deu_7:16, and what lies between is a statement of the grounds upon which a strict execution of this dreadful measure was demanded. These, as is usual in Deuteronomy, are dealt with somewhat discursively; but the command as to the ban, coming as it does at the beginning, middle, and end, gives this chapter unity, and suggests that it should be treated under this head as a whole. There are besides other passages which can most conveniently be discussed in connection with chapter 7. These are the historic statements as to the ban having been laid upon the cities of Sihon (Deu_2:34) and Og; (Deu_3:6) the provision for the extirpation of idolatrous persons and communities; (Deu_13:15) and lastly, that portion of the law of war

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which treats of the variations in the execution of the ban which circumstances might demand. (Deu_20:13-18) These passages, taken together, give an almost exhaustive statement in regard to the nature and limitations of the Cherem, or ban, in ancient Israel, a statement much more complete than is elsewhere to be found; and they consequently suggest, if they do not demand, a complete investigation of the whole matter.

It is quite clear that the Cherem, or ban, by which a person or thing, or even a whole people and their property, were devoted to a god, was not a specially Mosaic ordinance, for it is a custom known to many half-civilised and some highly civilized nations. In Livy’s account of early Rome we read that Tarquinius, after defeating the Sabines, burned the spoils of the enemy in a huge heap, in accordance with a vow to Vulcan, made before advancing into the Sabine country. The same custom is alluded to in Vergil, Aen. 8:562, and Caesar, B.C. 6:17, tells us a similar thing of the Gauls. The Mexican custom of sacrificing all prisoners of war to the god of war was of the same kind. But the most complete example of the ban in the Hebrew sense, occurring among a foreign people, is to be found in the Moabite stone which Mesha, king of Moab, erected in the ninth century B.C., i.e., in the days of Ahab. Of course Moab and Israel were related peoples, and it might in itself be possible that Moab during its subjection to Israel had adopted the ban from Israel. But that is highly improbable, considering how widespread this custom is, and how deeply its roots are fixed in human nature. Rather we should take the Moabite ban as an example of its usual form among the Semitic peoples. "And Chemosh said to me, Go, take Nebo against Israel. And I went by night and fought against it from the break of morn until noon, and took it and killed them all, seven thousand men and boys, and women and girls and maid-servants, for I had devoted it to ‘Ashtor-Chemosh’; and I took thence the vessels" (so Renan) "of Yahweh, and I dragged them before Chemosh." The ordinary Semitic word for the ban is Cherem. It denotes a thing separated from or prohibited to common use, and no doubt it indicated originally merely that which was given over to the gods, separated for their exclusive use forever. In this way it was distinguished from that which was "sanctified" to Yahweh for that could be redeemed; devoted things could not.

In the ancient laws repeated in Lev_27:28-29, two classes of devoted things seem to be referred to. First of all, we have the things which an individual may devote to God, "whether of man or beast, or of the field of his possession." The provision made in regard to them is that they shall not be sold or redeemed, but shall become in the highest degree sacred to Yahweh. Men so devoted, therefore, became perpetual slaves at the holy places, and other kinds of property fell to the priests. In the next verse, Lev_27:29, we read, "None devoted which shall be devoted of" (i.e., from among) "men shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death," but that must refer to some other class of men devoted to Yahweh. It is inconceivable that in Israel individuals could at their own will devote slaves or children to death. Moreover, if every man devoted must be killed, the provision of Num_18:14, according to which everything devoted in Israel is to be Aaron’s, could not be carried out. Further, there is a difference in expression in the two verses: in Lev_27:28 we have things "devoted to Yahweh," in Lev_27:29 we have simply men "devoted." There can be little doubt, therefore, that we have in Lev_27:29 the case of men condemned for some act for which the punishment prescribed by the law was the ban (as in Exo_22:20, "He that sacrificeth unto any god save unto Yahweh only shall be put to the ban"), or which some legal tribunal considered worthy of that punishment. In such cases, the object of the ban being something offensive, something which called out the Divine wrath and abhorrence, this "devotion" to God meant utter destruction. Just as anathema, a thing set up in a temple as a votive offering, became anathema, an accursed thing,

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and as sacer, originally meaning sacred, came to mean devoted to destruction, so Cherem, among the Semites, came to have the meaning of a thing devoted to destruction by the wrath of the national gods. From ancient days it had been in use, and in Israel it continued to be practiced, but with a new moral and religious purpose which antiquity could know nothing of. No more conspicuous instance of that transformation of ancient customs of a doubtful or even evil kind by the spirit of the religion of Yahweh, which is one of the most remarkable characteristics of the history of Israel, can be conceived than this use of the ban for higher ends.

As the fundamental idea of the Cherem was the devoting of objects to a god, it is manifest that the whole inner significance of the institution would vary with the conception of the Deity. Among the worshippers of cruel and sanguinary gods, such as the gods of the heathen Semites were, the ends which this practice was used to promote would naturally be cruel and sanguinary. Moreover, where it was thought that the gods could be bought over by acceptable sacrifices, where they were conceived of as non-moral beings, whose reasons for favor or anger were equally capricious and unfathomable, it was inevitable that the Cherem should be mainly used to bribe these gods to favor and help their peoples. Where victory seemed easy and within the power of the nation, the spoil and the inhabitants of a conquered city or country would be taken by the conquerors for their own use. Where, on the other hand, victory was difficult and doubtful, an effort would be made to win the favor of the god, and wring success from him by promising him all the spoil. The slaughter of the captives would be considered the highest gratification such sanguinary gods could receive, while their pride would be held to be gratified by the utter destruction of the seat of the worship of other gods. Obviously it was in this way that the Gauls and Germans worked this institution; and the probability is that the heathen Semites would view the whole matter from an even lower standpoint. But to true worshippers of Yahweh such thoughts must have grown abhorrent. From the moment when their God became the center and the norm of moral life to Israel, acts which had no scope but the gratification of a thirst for blood, or of a petty jealous pride, could not be thought acceptable to Him. Every institution and custom, therefore, which had no moral element in it, had either to be swept away, or moralized in the spirit of the purer faith. Now the ban was not abolished in Israel; but it was moralized, and turned into a potent and terrible weapon for the preservation and advancement of true religion.

By the Divine appointment the national life of Israel was bound up with the foundation and progress of true religion. It was in this people that the seeds of the highest religion were to be planted, and it was by means of it that all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. But as the chief means to this end was to be the higher ethical and religious character of the nation as such, the preservation of that from depravation and decay became the main anxiety of the prophets and priests and lawgivers of Israel. Just as in modern days the preservation and defense of the State is reckoned in every country the supreme law which overrides every other consideration, so in Israel the preservation of the higher life was regarded. Rude and half-civilized as Israel was at the beginning of its career, the Divinely revealed religion had made men conscious of that which gave this people its unique: value both to God and men. They recognized that its glory and strength lay in its thought of God, and in the character which this impressed upon the corporate life, as well as on the life of each individual. As we have seen, this bred in them a consciousness of a higher calling, of a higher obligation resting on them than upon others. They consequently felt the necessity of guarding their special character, and used the ban as their great weapon to ward off the contagion of evil, and to give this character room to develop itself. Its tremendous, even cruel, power was directed in Israel to

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this end; it was from this point of view alone that it had value in the eyes of the fully enlightened man of Israel. Stade in his history (vol. 1., p. 490) holds that this distinction did not exist, that the Israelite view differed in little, if anything, from that of their heathen kinsmen, and that the ban resulted from a vow intended to gratify Yahweh and win His favor by giving Him the booty. But it is undeniable that in the earliest statement in regard to it (Exo_20:1-26) there is a distinct legislative provision that the ban should be proclaimed and executed irrespective of any vow; and in the later, but still early, notices of it in Joshua, Judges, and 1 Samuel the command to execute it comes in every case from Yahweh. In Deuteronomy, again, the ethical purpose of the ban is always insisted upon, most emphatically perhaps in Deu_20:17 ff., where the Cherem is laid down as a regular practice in war against the heathen inhabitants of Canaan: "But thou shalt utterly destroy them…that they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against Yahweh your God." Whatever hints or appearances there may be in the Scripture narratives that the lower view still clung to some minds are not to be taken as indicating the normal and recognized view. They were, like much else of a similar kind, mere survivals, becoming more and more shadowy as the history advances, and at last entirely vanishing away. The new and higher thought which Moses planted was the rising and prevailing element in the Israelite consciousness. The lower thought was a decaying reminiscence of the state of things which the Mosaic revelation had wounded to the death, but which was slow in dying.

In Israel, therefore, the ban was, on the principles of the higher religion, legitimate only where tile object was to preserve that religion when gravely endangered. If any object could justify a measure so cruel and sweeping as the ban, this could, and this is the only ground upon which the Scriptures defend it.. That the danger was grave and imminent, when Israel entered Canaan, cannot be doubted. As we have seen, the Israelite tribes were far from being of one blood or of one faith. There was a huge mixed multitude along with them; and even among those who had unquestioned title to be reckoned among Israelites, many were gross, carnal, and slavish in their conceptions of things. They had not learned thoroughly nor assimilated the lessons they had been taught. Only the elect among them had done that; and the danger from contact with races, superior in culture, and religiously not so far below the position occupied by the multitude of Israel, was extreme. The nation was born in a day, but it had been educated only for a generation; it was raw and ignorant in all that concerned the Yahwistic faith. In fact it was precisely in the condition in which spiritual disease could be most easily contracted and would be most deadly. The new religion had not been securely organized; the customs and habits of the people still needed to be molded by it, and could not, consequently, act as the stay and support of religion as they did at later times. Further, the people were at the critical moment when they were passing from one stage of social life to another. At such moments there is immense danger to the health and character of a nation, for there is no unity of ideal present to every mind. That which they are moving away from has not ceased to exert its influence, and that to which they are moving has not asserted itself with all its power. At such crises in the career of peoples emerging from barbarism, even physical disease is apt to be deadlier and more prevalent than it is among either civilized or entirely savage men. The old Semitic heathenism had not been entirely overcome, and the new and higher religion had not succeeded in establishing full dominion. Contact with the Canaanites in almost any shape would under such circumstances be like the introduction of a contagious disease, and at almost any price it had to be avoided. The customs of the world at that time, and of the Semitic nations in particular, offered this terribly effective weapon of the "ban" and for this higher purpose it was accepted; and it was enforced with a stringency which nothing would justify short of the fact that life or death to the great hope of mankind was

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involved in it.

But it may be and should be asked, Would any circumstances justify Christian men, or a Christian nation, in entering upon a war of extermination now? and if not, how can a war of extermination against the Canaanites have been sanctioned by God? In answer to the first question, it must be said that, while circumstances can be conceived under which the extermination of a race would certainly be carried out by nations called Christian, it is hardly possible to imagine Christian men taking part in such a massacre. Even the supposed command of God could not induce them to do so. It would be so contrary to all that they have learned of God’s will, both as regards themselves and others, that they would hesitate. Almost certainly they would decide that they were bound to be faithful to what God had revealed of Himself; they would feel that He could not wish to blunt their moral sense and undo what He had done for them, and they would put aside the command as a temptation. But the case with the Israelites was altogether different. The question is not, how could God destroy a whole people? Were it only that, there would be little difficulty. Everywhere in His action through nature God is ruthless enough against sin. Vice and sin are every day bringing men and women and innocent children to death, and to suffering worse than death. For that every believer in God holds the Divine law responsible. And when the Divine command was laid upon the Israelites to do, more speedily, and in a more awe-inspiring way, what Canaanite vices were already doing, there can be no difficulty except in so far as the effect upon the Israelites is concerned. It is by death, inflicted as the punishment of vice, and sparing neither woman nor child, that nations have, as a rule, been blotted out; and, except to the confused thinker, so far as the Divine action is concerned there is no difference between such cases and this of the Canaanites. The real question is, Can a living, personal God deliberately set to men a task which can only lower them in the scale of humanity-brutalize them, in fact? No, is of course the only possible answer; therefore a supposed Divine command coming to us to do such things would rightly be suspected. We could not, we feel sure, be called upon by God to slay the innocent with the guilty, to overwhelm in one common punishment individual beings who have each of them an inalienable claim to justice at our hands. But the Israelites had not and could not have the feeling we have on the subject. The feeling for the individual did not exist in early times. The clan, the tribe, the nation was everything, and the individual, nothing. Consequently there was not existent in the world that keen feeling in regard to individual rights, which dominates us so completely that we can with difficulty conceive any other view. In this world the early Israelite scarcely perceived the individual man, and beyond this world he knew of no certain career for him. He consequently dealt with him only as part of his clan or tribe. His tribe suffered for him and he for his tribe, and in early penal law the two could hardly be separated. Indeed it may almost be said that, when the individual suffered for his own sin, the satisfaction felt by the wronged was rather due to the tribe having suffered so much loss in the individual’s death than to the retribution which fell upon him. Moreover war was the constant employment of all, and death by violence the most common of all forms of death. Manners and feelings were both rude, and the pains as well as the pleasures of civilized and Christian men lay largely beyond their horizon. There was consequently no danger of doing violence to nobler feelings or of leaving a sting in the conscience by calling such men to such work. The stage of moral development they had reached did not forbid it, and the work therefore might be given them of God.

But the grounds for the action were immeasurably raised. Instead of being left on the heathen level, "the usage was utilized so as to harmonize with the principles of their religion, and to satisfy its needs. It became a mode of secluding and rendering harmless anything which peculiarly imperiled the religious life of either an individual

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or the community, such objects being withdrawn from society at large, and presented to the sanctuary, which had power, if needful, to authorize their destruction." The Deuteronomic command is not given shamefacedly. The interests at stake are too great for that. Israel is utterly to smite the Canaanite nations, to put them to the ban, to make no covenant with them nor to intermarry with them. "Thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their obelisks, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire." There is a fierce, curt energy about the words which impresses the reader with the vigor needed to defend the true religion. The danger was seen to be great, and this tremendous weapon of the ban was to be wielded with unsparing rigor, if Israel was to be true to its highest call. "For," Deu_7:6 goes on to say, "thou art a holy people unto Yahweh thy God; Yahweh thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto Himself, out of all peoples that are upon the face of the earth." They were the elect of God; they were a holy people, a people separated unto their God, and the Divine blessing was to come upon all nations through them if they remained true. Their separateness must therefore be maintained. As a people marked out by the love of God, they could not share in the common life of the world as it then was. They could not lift the Canaanites to their level by mingling with them. So they would only obscure, nay, in so far as this rigorous command was not carried out, they did all but fatally obscure, the higher elements of national and personal life which they had received. They were too recently converted to be the people of Yahweh, too weak in their own faith, to be able to do anything but stand in this austere and repellent attitude towards the world. Centuries passed before they could relax without danger. It may even be said that until the coming of our Lord they dared not take up any other than this separatist position, though as the ages passed and the prophetic influence grew, the yearning after a gathering in of the Gentiles, and the promise of it in the Messianic day, became more markedly prominent. Only when men could look forward to being made perfect in Jesus Christ did they receive the command to go unreservedly out into the world, for only then had they an anchor which no storm in the world could drag.

But we must be careful not to exaggerate the separation called for here. It does not authorize anything like the fierce, intolerant thirst for conquest and domination which was the very keynote of Islam. In Deu_2:5-6; Deu_2:19; the lands of Edom, Moab, and Ammon are said to be Yahweh’s gift to these peoples in the same way as Canaan was to Israel. Nor did the law ever authorize the bitter and contemptuous feeling with which Pharisaic Israelites often regarded all men beyond the pale of Judaism. There was no general prohibition against friendly intercourse with other peoples. It was against those only, whose presence in Canaan would have frustrated the establishment of the theocracy, and whose influence would have been destructive of it when established, that the "ban" was decreed. When war arose between Israel and cities farther off than those of Canaan, they were not to be put to the "ban." Though they were to be hardly treated according to our ideas, they were to suffer only the fate of cities stormed in those days, for the danger of corruption was proportionately diminished (Deu_20:17) by their distance. The right of other peoples to their lands was to be respected, and friendly intercourse might be entered on with them. But the right of Israel to the free and unhindered development to which it had been called by Yahweh was the supreme law. The suspicion of danger to that was to make things otherwise harmless, or even useful, to be abhorred. If men are to live nearer to God than others, they must sacrifice much to the higher call.

To press home this, to induce Israel to respond to this demand, to convince them anew of their obligation to go any length to keep their position as a people holy to Yahweh, our chapter urges a variety of reasons. The first (Deu_7:7-11) is that the

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history and grounds of their election exhibit the character of Yahweh in such a way as to heighten their sense of their privileges and the danger of losing them. He had chosen them, only because of His own love to them; and having chosen them and sworn to their fathers, He is true to His covenant. He brought them out of the house of bondage, and has led them until now. In Yahweh they had a spiritual ideal, whose characteristics were love and faithfulness. But though He loves He can be wrathful, and though He has made a covenant with Israel, it must be fulfilled in accordance with righteousness. In dealing with such a God they must beware of thinking that their election is irrespective of moral conditions, or that His love is mere good nature. He can and does smite the enemies of good, for anger is always possible where love is. It is only with good nature that anger is not compatible, just as warm and self-sacrificing affection also is. Those who turn away from Him, therefore, He requites immediately to their face, as surely as "He keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments." All the blessed and intimate relations which He has opened up with them, and in which their safety and their glory lie, can be dissolved by sin. They are, therefore, to strike fiercely at temptation, to regard neither their own lives nor the lives of others when that has to be put out of the way, to smite and spare not, for the very love of God.

A second reason why they should obey the Divine commands, as in other matters, so in this terrible thing, is this. If they be willing and obedient, then God will bless them in temporal ways as well as with spiritual blessings. Even for their earthly prosperity a loyal attitude to Yahweh would prove decisive. "Thou shalt be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you, or among your cattle. And Yahweh will take away from thee all sickness, and He will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt which thou knowest upon thee; but will lay them’ upon all them that hate thee." The same promises are renewed in more detail and with greater emphasis in the speech contained in chapters 28 and 29. There the significance of such a view, and the difficulties involved in it for us, will be fully discussed. Here it will be sufficient to note that the profit of obedience is brought in to induce Israel to enforce the "ban" most rigorously.

The last verses of our chapter, Deu_7:17-26, set before Israel a third incitement and encouragement. Yahweh, who had proved His might and His favor for them by His mighty deeds in Egypt, would be among them, to make them stronger than their mightiest foes (Deu_7:21): "Thou shalt not be affrighted at them, for Yahweh thy God is in the midst of thee, a great God and a terrible." The previous inducements to obey Yahweh their Goal and be true to Him were founded on His character and on His acts. He was merciful; but He could be terrible, and He would reward the faithful with prosperity. Now His people are encouraged to go forward because His presence will go with them. In the conflicts which obedience to Him would provoke, He would be with them to sustain them, whatever stress might come upon them. Step by step they would drive out those very peoples whom they had dreaded so when the spies brought back their report of the land. The terror of their God would fall upon all these nations. A great God and a terrible He would prove Himself to be, and with Him in their midst they might go forth boldly to execute the ban upon the Canaanites. The sins and vices of these peoples had brought this upon them; their horrible worship left an indelible stain wherever its shadow fell. Israel, led and directed by Yahweh Himself, was to fall upon them as the scourge of God.

Notwithstanding the Divine urgency, the command to destroy the Canaanites and their idols was not carried out. After a victory or two the enemy began to submit. Glad to be rid of the toils of war, Israel settled down among the people of the land. All central control would seem to have disappeared. The Canaanite worship and the Canaanite customs attracted and fascinated the people, and enemy after enemy broke

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in upon them and triumphed over them. The half-idolatrous masses were led away into depraved forms of worship, and for a time it looked as if the work of Moses would be utterly undone. Had the purer faith he taught them not been revived, Israel would probably not have survived the period of the Judges. As it was they just survived; but by their lapse the leavening of the whole of the nation with the pure principles of Yahweh-worship had been stopped. Instead of being cured, the idolatrous inclinations they had brought with them from the pre-Mosaic time had been revived and strengthened. Multitudes, while calling Yahweh their God, had sunk almost to the Canaanite level in their worship and during the whole period of their existence as a nation Israel as a whole never again rose clear of half-heathen conceptions of their God. Prophets taught and threatened them in vain, until at last ruin fell upon them and the Divine threats of punishment were fulfilled.

THE BAN IN MODERN LIFE

IN our modern time this practice of the ban has, of course, become antiquated and impossible. The Cherem, or ban, of the modern synagogue is a different thing, based upon different motives, and is directed to the same ends as Christian excommunication. But though the thing has ceased, the principles underlying it, and the view of life which it implies, are of perpetual validity. These belong to the essential truths of religion, and especially need to be recalled in a time like ours, when men tend everywhere to a feeble, lax, and cosmopolitan: view of Christianity. As we have seen, the fundamental principle of the Cherem was that, however precious, however sacred, however useful and helpful in ordinary circumstances a thing might be, whenever it became dangerous to the higher life it should at once be given up to Yahweh. The lives of human beings, even though they were men’s dearest and nearest, should be sacrificed; the richest works of art, the weapons of war, and the wealth which would have adorned life and made it easy, were equally to be given up to Him, that He might seclude them and render them harmless to men’s highest interests. Neighborliness to the Canaanites was absolutely forbidden, and the Church of the Old Testament was commanded to take up a position of hostility, or at best of armed neutrality, to all the pleasures, interests, and concerns of the peoples who surrounded them. Now the prevailing modern view is that not only the ban itself, but these principles have become obsolete. Notwithstanding that the Church of the New Testament is the bearer of the higher interests of humanity, we are taught that when it is least definite in its direction as to conduct, when it is most tolerant of the practices of the world, then it is most true to its original conception. We are told that an indulgent Church is what is wanted; rigor and religion are now supposed to be finally divorced in all enlightened minds. This view is not often categorically expressed, but it underlies all fashionable religion, and has its apostles in the golden youth who forward enlightenment by playing tennis on Sundays. Because of it too, Puritan has become a name of scorn, and careless self-gratification a mark of cultured Christianity. Not only asceticism, but has been discredited, and the moral tone of society has perceptibly fallen in consequence. In wide circles both within and without the Church it seems to be held that pain is the only intolerable evil, and in legislation as well as in literature that idea has been registering itself.

For much of this progress, as some call it, no reasoned justification has been attempted, but it has been defended in part by the allegation that the circumstances which make the "ban" necessary to the very life of the ancient people of God have passed away, now that social and political life has been Christianised. Even those who are outside the Church in Christian lands are no longer living at a moral and spiritual level so much below that of the Church. They are not heathen idolaters, whose moral and religious ideas are contagiously corrupting, and nothing but Pharisaism of the worst type, it is said, can justify the Church in taking up a position

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to society in any degree like that which was imposed upon ancient Israel. Now it cannot be denied that there is truth here, and in so far as the Christian Church or individual Christians have taken up precisely the same position to those without as is implied in the Old Testament ban, they are not to be defended. Modern society, as at present constituted, is not corrupting like that of Canaan. No one in a modern Christian state has been brought up in an atmosphere of heathenism, and what an incredible difference that involves only those who know heathenism well can appreciate. If spiritual life is neither understood nor believed in by all, yet the rules of morals are the same in every mind, and these rules are the product of Christianity. As a consequence, the Church is not endangered in the same way and to the same degree by contact with the world as in the ancient days. Indeed to the Israelite of the post-Mosaic time our "world," which some sects at least would absolutely ignore and shut out, would seem a very definite and legitimate part of the church. The Jewish Church was certainly to a very large extent made up of precisely such elements, while those who were to be put to the ban were far more remote than any citizens of a modern state, except a portion of the criminal class. Further, those not actively Christian are, on account of this community of moral sentiments, open to appeal from the Church as the heathen Canaanites were not. In English-speaking lands, while there are multitudes indifferent to Christianity, most acknowledge the obligation of the Christian motives. In nations at least nominally Christian, therefore, both because the danger of corruption is greatly less, and because the world is more accessible to the leaven of Christian life, no Church can, or dare, without incurring terrible loss and responsibility, withdraw from or show a merely hostile front to the world. The sects which do so live an invalid life. Their virtues take on the sickly look of all "fugitive and cloistered virtue." Their doctrines become full of the "idols of the cave," and they cease to have any perception of the real needs of men.

Nevertheless the austere spirit inculcated in this chapter must be kept alive, if the Church is to be the spiritual of humanity, for strenuousness is the great want of modern life. Dr. Pearson, whose book on "National Life and Character" has lately expounded the theory that the Church, "being too inexorable in its ideal to admit of compromises with human frailty, is precisely on this account unfitted for governing fallible men and women," i.e., governing them in the political sense, has elsewhere stated his view of the remedy for one of the great evils of modern life. "The disproportionate growth of the distributing classes, as compared with the producing, is due, I believe, to two moral causes-the love of amusement and the passion for speculation. Men flock out of healthy country lives in farms or mines into our great cities, because they like to be near the theatre and the racecourse, or because they hope to grow rich suddenly by some form of gambling. The cure for a taint of this kind is not economical but religious, and can only be found, I am convinced, in a return to the masculine asceticism that has distinguished the best days of history, Puritan or Republican." This is emphatically true of Australia, where and of which the words were first spoken; and masculine asceticism of the Puritan type would cure many another evil there besides these. But the same thing is true everywhere; and if religion is to cure slackness in social or political life, how much more must it cultivate this austere spirit for itself! The function of the Church is not to govern the world; it seeks rather to inspire the world. It should lead the advance to a higher, more ennobling life, and should exhibit that in its own collective action and in the kind of character it produces. Its greatest gift to the world should be itself, and it is useful only when it is true to its own ethos and spirit. To keep that unimpaired must therefore be its first duty, and to fulfill that duty it must keep rigorously back from everything which, in relation to its own existing state, would be likely to lower the power of its peculiar life. The State must often compromise with human frailty. Often there will be before the legislator and the statesman only a choice between two evils,

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or at least two undesirable courses, unless a worse thing is to be tolerated. The Church, on the other hand, should keep close to the ideal as it sees it. Its reason for existence is that it may hold up the ideal to men, and exhibit it as far as that may be. Compromise in regard to that is impossible for the Church, for that would be nothing else than disloyalty to its own essential principle. The spirit, therefore, that inspired the "ban" must always be living and powerful in the Church. Whatever is dangerous to the special Christian life must cease to exist for Christians. It should be laid at the feet of their Divine Head, that He may seclude it from His people and render it innocuous. Many things that are harmless or even useful at a lower level of life must be refused a place by the Christian: Gratifications that cannot but seem good to others must be refused by him; for he seeks to be in the forefront of the battle against evil, to be the pioneer to a more whole-hearted spiritual life.

But that does not imply that we should seek to renew the various imperfect and external devices by which past times sought to attain this exceedingly desirable end. Experience has taught the folly and futility of sumptuary laws, for example. Their only effect was to do violence to the inwardness which belongs of necessity to spiritual life. They externalized and depraved morality, and finally defeated themselves. Nor would the later Puritanism, with its rigidity as regards dress and deportment, and its narrow and limited view of life, help us much more. It began doubtless with the right principle; but it sought to bind all to its observances, whether they cared for the spirit of them or not; and it showed a measureless intemperance in regard to the things which it declared hostile to the life of faith. In that form it has been charged with "isolation from human history, human enjoyment, and all the manifold play and variety of human character." For a short time, however, Puritanism did strike the golden mean in this matter, and probably we could not in this present connection find a better example for modern days than in the Puritanism of Spenser, of Colonel Hutchinson (one of the regicides so called), and of Milton. Their united lives covered the heroic period of Puritanism, and taken in their order they represent very fairly its rise, its best estate, and its tendencies towards harsh extremes, when as yet it was but a tendency.

Spenser, born in the "spacious times of great Elizabeth," was politically and nationally a Puritan, and in aim and ideal, at least, was so in his stern view of life and religion. His attachment to Lord Grey of Wilton, that personally kind yet absolutely ruthless executor of the English "ban" against the untamable Irish, and his defense of his policy, show the one; while his "Fairy Queen," with its representation of religion as "the foundation of all nobleness in man" and its dwelling upon man’s victory over himself, reveals the other. But he had in him also elements belonging to that strangely mingled world in which he lived, and which came from an entirely different source. He had the Elizabethan enthusiasm for beauty, the large delight in life as such even where its moral quality was questionable, and the artist’s sensitiveness and adaptability in a very high degree. These diverse elements were never fully interfused in him. Amid all the gracious beauty of his work, there is the trace of discord and the mark of conflict; and at times perhaps his life fell into courses which spoke little of self-control. But his face was always in the main turned upwards. In the main, too, his life corresponded with his aspirations. He combined his poetic gift, his love of men and human life, with a faithfulness to his ideal of conduct which, if not always perfect, was sincere, and was, too, as we may hope, ultimately victorious. The Puritan in him had not entire victory over the worldling, but it had the mastery; and the very imperfection of the victory kept the character in sympathy with the whole of life.

In Colonel Hutchinson, as depicted in that stately and tender panegyric which speaks to us across more than two centuries so pathetically of his wife’s almost adoring love, we see the Puritan character in its fullest and most balanced form. We do not, of

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course, mean that his mind had the imaginative power of Spenser’s, or his character the force of Milton’s; but partly from circumstances, partly by singular grace of nature, his character possessed a stability and an equilibrium which had not come when Spenser lived, and which was beginning to go in the evil days upon which Milton fell. At the root of all his virtues his wife sets "that which was the head and spring of them all, his Christianity." "By Christianity," she says, "I intend that universal habit of grace which is wrought in a soul by the regenerating Spirit of God, whereby the whole creature is resigned up into the Divine will and love, and all its actions designed to the obedience and glory of its Maker." He had been trained in a Puritan home, and though when he went out into the world he had to face quite the average temptations of a rich and well-born youth, he fled all youthful lusts. But he did not retire from the world. "He could dance admirably well, but neither in youth nor riper years made any practice of it; he had skill in fencing such as became a gentleman; he had a great love to music, and often diverted himself with a viol, on which he played masterly; he had an exact ear, and judgment in other music; he shot excellently in bows and guns, and much used them for his exercise; he had great judgment in painting, graving, sculpture, and all liberal arts, and had many curiosities of value in all kinds. He took much pleasure in improvement of grounds, in planting groves and walks and fruit-trees, in opening springs and making fishponds. Of country recreations he loved none but hawking, and in that was very eager, and much delighted for the time he used it." Hutchinson was no ascetic, therefore, in the wrong sense, but lived in and enjoyed the world as a man should. But perhaps his greatest divergence from the lower Puritanism lay in this, that "everything that it was necessary for him to do he did with delight, free and unconstrained." Moreover, though he adopted strong Puritan opinions in theology, "he hated persecution for religion, and was always a champion for all religious people against all their great oppressors. Nevertheless self-restraint was the law of his life, and he many times forbore things lawful and delightful to him, rather than he would give any one occasion of scandal." In public affairs he took-the courageous part of a man who sought nothing for himself, and was moved only by his hatred of wrong to leave the prosperity and peace of his home life. He became a member of the Court which tried the King against his will, but signed the warrant for his death, simply because he conceived it to be his duty. When the Restoration came and he was challenged for his conduct, scorning the subterfuges of some who declared they signed under compulsion, he quietly accepted the responsibility for his acts. This led to his death in the flower of his age, through imprisonment in the Tower; but he never flinched, "having made up his accounts with life and death, and fixed his purpose to entertain both honorably." From the beginning of his life to the end there was a consistent sanity, which is rare at any time, and was especially rare in those days. His loyalty to God kept him austerely aloof from unworthiness, while it seemed to add zest to the sinless joys which came in his way. Above all, it never suffered him to forget that the true Christian temper and character was the pearl of price which all else he had might lawfully be sacrificed to purchase.

In the character of Milton we find the same essential elements, the same purity in youth, which, with his beauty, won for him the name of the Lady of his College; the same courage and public spirit in manhood; the same love of music and of culture. After his University career he retired to his father’s house, and read all Greek and Latin literature, as well as Italian, and studied Hebrew and some other Oriental languages. All the culture of his time, therefore, was absorbed by him, and his mind and speech were shot through and through with the brilliant colors of the history and romance of many climes. Almost no kind of beauty failed to appeal to him, but the austerity of his views of life kept him from being enslaved by it. In his earlier works even, he caught in a surprising way all the glow, and splendor, and poetic fervor of

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the English Renaissance; but he joined with it the sternest and most uncompromising Puritan morality, not only in theory and desire like Spenser, but in the hard practice of actual life. When the idea of duty comes to dominate a man, the grace and impetuosity of youth, the overmastering love of beauty, and the appreciation of the mere joy of living are apt to die away, and the poetic fire burns low. But it was not so with Milton. To the end of his life he remained a true Elizabethan, but an Elizabethan who had always kept himself free from the chains of sensual vice, and had never stained his purity of soul. That fact makes him unique almost in English history, and has everywhere added a touch of the sublime to all that his works have of beauty. "His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart" and we may entirely believe what he tells us of himself when he returned from his European travels: "In all the places in which vice meets with so little discouragement, and is protected with so little shame, I never once turned from the path of integrity and virtue, and perpetually reflected that, though my conduct might escape the notice of men, it could not elude the inspection of God." Like the true Puritan he was, Milton not only overcame evil in himself, but he thought his own life and health a cheap price to pay for the overthrow of evil wherever he saw it. When the civil war broke out, he returned at once from his travels, to help to right the wrongs of his country. In the service of the Government he sacrificed his poetic gift, his leisure for twenty years, and finally his sight, to the task of defending England from her enemies. But he did not stop there. His severity became excessive, at times almost vindictive. When he wrote prose he scarcely ever wrote without having an enemy to crush, and much that he uttered in this vein cannot possibly be approved. His pamphlets are unfair to a degree which shows that his mind had lost balance in the turmoil of the great struggle, so that he approached at moments the narrower Puritanism. But he still proved himself too great for that, and emerged anew as a great and lofty spirit, held down very little by earthly bonds, and strenuously set against evil as a true servant of God.

Now the temper of Puritanism such as this of these old English worthies is precisely what Christians need most to cultivate in these days. They must be animated by the spirit which refuses to touch, and refers to God, whatever proves hostile to life in God; but they must also combine with this aloofness a sympathetic hold on ordinary life. It is easy on the one hand to solve all problems by cutting oneself off from any relation with the world, lest the inner life should suffer. It is also easy to let the inner life take care of itself, and to float blithely on with all the currents of life which are not deadly sins. But it is not easy to keep the mind and life open to all the great life-streams which tend to deepen and enrich human nature, and yet to stand firm in self-control, determined that nothing which drags down the soul shall be permitted to fascinate or overpower. To this task Christian men and the Christian Church seem at present to be specially called. It is admitted on all hands that the ordinary Puritanism became too intolerant of all except spiritual interests; so that it could not, without infinite loss, have been accepted as the guide for all life. But hence what was good in it has been rejected along with the bad; and it needs to be restored, if a weak, self-indulgent temper, which resents hardship or even discipline, is not to gain the upper hand. In social life especially this is needful, otherwise so much debate would never have been expended on the question of amusements. On the face of it, a Christianity which can go with the world in all those of its amusements which are not actually forbidden by the moral law must be a low type of Christianity. It can be conscious of no special character which it has to preserve, of no special voice which it has to utter in the antiphony of created things. Whatever others allow themselves, therefore, the vigilant Christian must see to it that he does nothing which will destroy his special contribution to the world he lives in. It is precisely by that that he is the salt of the earth; and if the salt have lost its savor wherewith will you season it? No price is too

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great for the preservation of this savor, and in reference to the care of it each man must ultimately be a law unto himself. No one else can really tell where his weakness lies. No one else can know what the effect of this or that recreation upon that weakness is.

When men lose spiritual touch with their own character they are apt to throw themselves back for guidance in such matters upon the general opinion of the Christian community, or the tradition of the elders. In doing so they are in danger of losing sincerity in a mass of formalism. But if a vivid apprehension of the need of individuality in the regulation of life is maintained, the formulated Christian objection to certain customs or certain amusements may be a most useful substitute for painful experience of our own. Some such amusements may have been banned in the past without sufficient reason; or they may have been excluded only because of the special openness to temptation of a certain community; or they may have so changed their character that they do not now deserve the ban which was laid upon them once justly enough. Any plea, therefore, for the revisal or abolition of standing conventions on such grounds must be listened to and judged, But, on the whole, these standing prohibitions of the Church represent accumulated experience, and all young people especially will do wisely not to break away from them. What the mass of Christians in the past have found hurtful to the Christian character will in most cases be hurtful still. For if it can be said of the secular world in all matters of experience that "this wise world is mainly right," it may surely be said also of the Christian community. In our time there is a quite justifiable distrust of conventionality in morals and in religion; but it should not be forgotten that conventions are not open to the same objection. They represent, on the whole, merely the registered results of actual experience, and they may be estimated and followed in an entirely free spirit. It is not wise, therefore, to revolt against them indiscriminately, merely because they may be used cruelly against others, or may be taken as a substitute for a moral nature by oneself. Thackeray in his constant railing at the judgment of the world seems to make this mistake. He is never weary in pointing out how unjust the broad general judgments of the world are to specially selected individuals. Harry Warrington in "The Virginians," for instance, though innocent, lives in a manner and with associates which the world has generally found to indicate intolerable moral laxity; and because the world was wrong in thinking that to be true in his case which would have been true in ninety-five out of a hundred similar cases, the moralist rails at the evil-hearted judgments of the world. But "this wise world is mainly right," and its rough and indiscriminating judgments fit the average case. They are part of the great sanitary provision which society makes for its own preservation. And the case is precisely similar with the conventions of the religious life. They too are in the main sanitary precautions which a conscience thoroughly alive and a strong intelligence may make superfluous, but which for the unformed, the half-ignorant, the less original natures, in a word, for average, men and women, are absolutely necessary. Spontaneity and freedom are admirable qualities in morals and religion. They are even the conditions of the highest kinds of moral and religious life, and the necessary presuppositions of health and progress. But something is due to stability as well; and a world of original and spontaneous moralists, trusting only to their own "genial sense" of truth, would be a maddening chaos. In other words, conventions if used unconventionally, if not exalted into absolute moral laws disobedience to which excludes from reputable society, if taken simply as indications of the paths in which least danger to the higher life has been found to lie, are guides for which men may well be thankful.

In the world of thought too, as well as in the world of action, a wise austerity of self-control is absolutely necessary. The prevailing theory is that every one, young men

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more especially, should read on all sides on all questions, and that they should know and sympathize with all modes of thought. This is advocated in the supposed interests of freedom from external domination and from internal prejudice. But in a great number of cases the result does not follow. Such catholicity of taste does produce a curious dilettante interest in lines of thought, but as a rule it weakens interest in truth as such. It delivers from the domination of a Church or other historic authority; but only, in most cases, to hand over the supposed freeman to the narrower domination of the thinker or school by which he happens to be most impressed. For it is vain and impotent to suppose that in regard to morals and religion every mind is able to find its way by free thought, when in regard to bodily health, or even in questions of finance, the free thought of the amateur is acknowledged to end usually in confusion. Those only can usefully expose their minds to all the various currents of modern thought who have a clear footing of their own. Whatever that may be, it gives them a point on which to stand, and a vantage-ground from which they can gather up what widens or corrects their view. But to leave the land altogether, and commit oneself to the currents, is to render any after-landing all but impossible. With regard to the books read, the lines of thought followed, and the associations formed, the Christian must exercise self-denial and self-examination. Whatever is manifestly detrimental to his best life, whatever he feels to be likely to taint the purity of his mind or lower his spiritual vitality, should be put under the "ban," should be resolutely avoided in all ordinary cases. Of course modes of thought that deserve to be weighed may be found mingled with such elements; also views of life which have a truth and importance of their own, though their setting is corrupt. But it is not every one’s business to extricate and discuss these. Those who are called to it will have to do it; and in doing it as a duty they may expect to be kept from the lurking contagion. Every one else who investigates them runs a risk which he was not called upon to run. The average Christian should, therefore, note all that tends to stunt or deprave him spiritually, and should avoid it. It is not manliness but folly which makes men read filthy literature because of its style, or skeptical literature because of its ability, when they are not called upon to do so, and when they have not fortified themselves by the purity of the Scriptures and the power of prayer. To make such literature or such modes of thought our staple mental food, or to make the writers or admirers of such books our intimate friends, is to sap our own best convictions and to disregard our high calling.

Lastly, however common it may be for men to sit down in selfish isolation and devote themselves to their own interests, even though these be spiritual, in the face of remediable evils, that is not the Christian manner of acting. Of the great Puritans we mentioned, Spenser endured hardness in that terrible Irish war which the men of Elizabeth’s day regarded as the war of good against evil; Hutchinson fought for and died in the cause of political and religious freedom; and Milton devoted his life and health to the same cause. All of them, the two latter especially, might have kept out of it all, in the peace and comfort of private life; but they judged that the destruction of evil was their first duty. At the trumpet call they willingly took their side, and prepared to give their lives, if necessary, for the righteous cause. Now it is not enough for us to avoid evil any more than it was for them. Though personal influence and example are undoubtedly among the most potent weapons in the warfare for the Kingdom of God, there must be, besides these, the power and the will to put public evils under the ban. Whatever institution or custom or law is ungodly, whatever in our social life is manifestly unjust, should stir the Christian Church to revolt against it, and should fill the heart of the individual Christian with an undying energy of hatred. It is not meant that the Christian Churches as such should transform themselves into political societies or social clubs. To do that would simply be to abdicate their only real functions. But they should be the sources of such teaching as

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will turn men’s thoughts towards social justice and political righteousness, and should prepare them for the sacrifice which any great improvement in the social state must demand of some. Further, every individual Christian should feel that his responsibility for the condition of his brethren, those of his own nation, is very great and direct; that to discharge municipal and political duty with conscientious care is a primary obligation. Only so can the power be gained to "ban" the bad laws, the unjust practices, the evil social customs, which disfigure our civilization, which degrade and defraud the poor.

A militant Puritanism here is not only a necessity for further social progress, but it is also a necessity for the full exhibition of the power and the essential sympathies of Christianity.

For want of it the working classes in their movement upward have not only been alienated from the Churches, but they have learned to demand of their leaders that they shall "countenance the poor man in his cause." They are tempted to require their leaders to share not only their common principles, but their prejudices; and they often look with suspicion upon those who insist upon applying the plumb-line of justice to the demands of the poor as well as to the claims of the rich. The whole popular movement suffers, for it is degraded from its true position. From being a demand for justice, it becomes a scramble for power-power too which, when gained, is sometimes used as selfishly and tyrannically by its new possessors as it sometimes was by those who previously exercised it. Into all branches of public life there is needed an infusion of a new and higher spirit. We want men who hate evil and will destroy it where they can, who seek nothing for themselves, who feel strongly that the kind of life the poor in civilized countries live is intolerably hard, and are prepared to suffer, if by any means they may improve it. But we want at the same time a type of reformer who, by his hold upon a power lying beyond this world, is kept steady to justice even where the poor are concerned, who, though he passionately longs for a better life for them, does not make more food, more leisure, more amusement, his highest aim. Men are needed who think more nobly of their brethren than that: men, on the one hand, who know that the Christian character and the Christian virtues may exist under the hardest conditions, and that the Christian Church exists mainly to brighten and rob of its degradation the otherwise cheerless life of the multitude; but, on the other, who recognize that our present social state is fatal in many ways to moral and spiritual progress for the mass of men, and must be in some way recast.

All this means the entrance into public life of Christian men of the highest type. Such men the Christian community must supply to the State in great numbers, if the higher characteristics of our people are not to be lost. Through a long and eventful history, by the manifold training afforded by religion and experience, the English nation has become strong, patient, hopeful, and self-reliant, with an instinct for justice and a hatred of violence which cannot easily be paralleled. It has, too, retained a faith in and respect for religion which many other nations seem to have lost. That character is its highest achievement, and its decay would be deplorable. Christianity is specially called to help to preserve it, by bringing to its aid the power of its own special character, with its great spiritual resources. The sources of its life are hid, and must be kept pure; the power of its life must be made manifest in actual union with the higher elements in the national character for mutual defense. Above all, Christianity must not, timidly or sluggishly, draw upon itself the curse of Meroz by not coming to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Nor can it permit the immediate interests of the respectable to blind or hold it back. That which is best in its own nature de/hands all this; and in seeking to answer that demand the Churches will attain to a quite new life and power. The Lord their God will be in the midst of

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them, and they will feel it; for they will then have made themselves channels for the Divine purity and power.

BRUCE OBERST, "THE REASONS FOR THE HOLY WAR (7:1-15)

When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou

goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before thee, the Hittite,

and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Ganaanite, and the Perizzite,

and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than

thou; 2 and when Jehovah thy God shall deliver them up before thee,

and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them: thou

shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; 3 neither

shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give

unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. 4 For he will

turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods:

so will the anger of Jehovah be kindled against you, and he will destroy

thee quickly. 5 But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their

altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and

burn their graven images with fire.

6 For thou art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God: Jehovah thy

God hath chosen thee to be a people for his own possession, above all

peoples that are upon the face of the earth. 7 Jehovah did not set his

love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than

any people;, for ye were the fewest of all peoples: 8 but because Jehovah

lovth you, and because he would keep the oath which he sware unto your

fathers, hath Jehovah 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 Jehovah thy God, he is God, the faithful God,

who keepeth covenant and lovingkindness with them that love him and

keep his commandments to a thousand generations, 10 and repayeth them

that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him

that hateth him, he will repay him to his face. 11 Thou shalt therefore

keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I

command thee this day, to do them.

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12 And it shall come to pass, because ye harken to these ordinances,

and keep and do them, that Jehovah thy God will keep with thee the

covenant and the lovingkindness which he sware unto thy fathers: 13 and

he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee; he will also bless the

fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy ground, thy grain and thy new

wine and thine oil, the increase of thy cattle and the young of thy flock,

in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee, 14 Thou shalt

be blessed above all peoples: there shall not be male or female barren

among you, or among your cattle, 15 And Jehovah will take away from

thee all sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou

knowest, will he put upon thee, but will lay them upon all them that

hate thee, 16 And thou shalt consume all the peoples that Jehovah thy

God shall deliver unto thee; thine eye shall not pity them: neither shalt

thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee.

SEVEN NATIONS GREATER AND MIGHTIER THAN THOU (v. 1) —

"greater in number and stronger than thou" (Rotherham). And they also

had greater fortifications and equipment — 1:28, etc. The word nation

(goi) indicates a people, a confluence of men. The root idea of this word

is given as body, corpus, Baumgartner has swarm, people . . . nation . . .

the whole population of a territory." Thus the more formal sense we now

attach to "nation" does not necessarily hold, though it often does. It is

sometimes in this book rendered "peoples" and sometimes "nations." In

4:6-8, for example, we have this Hebrew word occuring four times — twice

translated "peoples" and twice "nation."

Third Millennium Study Bible, "Yahweh will bring Israel into the Praomised Land and "drive out" the "Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites" (Deut 7:1; 2:32). Canaan was evidently not ruled by a single power. These seven nations are hard to identify, and the names are fluid. In Deuteronomy 20:17 only six nations are mentioned, as is also true five times in Exodus (Exod 3:8,17; 23:23; 33:2; 34:11). In these six places, the Girgashites are omitted. The Jebusites are said to inhabit Jebus, another name for Jerusalem. There is some indication that the Jebusites were Hurrians (see Deut 2:10-12). Amorites are known from ancient Mesopotamia. Hammurapi was an Amorite, as were Og and Sihon, kings of the Transjordan. The word "Canaanite" seems sometimes to include them all.

JOE TEMPLE, "Before we look at chapter 7 in detail, let us remember that we are

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looking at what we have referred to as the second discourse , which Moses delivered to the children of Israel on this side of Jordan. You will recall that we told you the book of Dueteronomy is made up of three discourses: one blessing, one song, and one obituary, all of them delivered by Moses to the children of Israel over a period of forty days.

In the first discourse, Moses reviewed the failures and mistakes of past years so that the children of Israel would be able to avoid them as they entered into the Promised Land. In the second discourse, we said Moses was repeating the law of God with amplification and exhortation. The second discourse begins with chapter 5 and continues through chapter 26. The chapter at which we are now looking represents another of the exhortations which accompanied the giving of the law. We noticed one of those exhortations in chapter 6 of the book of Deuteronomy, in which Moses exhorted the people to complete obedience to the Word of God, reminding them that the perils of prosperity would keep them from giving strict adherence to the commandments of God.

Climate for Obedience

As we come to chapter 7, which we have just read in your hearing, we find the second exhortation that accompanied the repetition of the law, and this exhortation was related not so much to adherence to the law of God, not so much to obedience to the command of God as to those things which would enable them to give complete obedience to God's commands, to give complete obedience to God's Word. In other words, chapter 7 represents an exhortation to provide the right kind of climate for strict obedience to the Word of God because obedience to God's Word is never easy. There are many things that will detract, many things that will represent perils in obedience to the Word other than the blessings of prosperity at which we looked have previously looked.

In this chapter, we will notice the things which Israel had to face in order to provide the right kind of climate for obedience to God's Word. In noticing what they had to face, we will learn by way of application the things which we, as believers, even in this age of grace have to face if we are going to be obedient to the Word of God

JOSEPH PARKER, "Prohibitions

Deuteronomy 7

This chapter might be so read as to give great offence. There is in it a tone of pitilessness. The whole chapter is a vengeful speech. The chapter is charged with partiality on the part of God towards one nation, as though other nations were self-created or had been fashioned by inferior deities, and were worthy of nothing but contempt and destruction. Who made the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites,—seven nations greater and mightier than Israel? Were not they also the creation of God? Did they not live because "his mercy endureth for ever"? Why this passion? Why this almost eagerness to get rid of them by violent means? The putting

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of such questions reminds us that we are living in a different age. We do not read many portions of the Old Testament in the right light. Of course the great mental and spiritual difficulty is to think ourselves back to the exact condition of the time and circumstances under which certain parts of the Old Testament were written. There is a language of the time; there is an atmosphere of history as well as a detail of circumstances and events. This chapter, read in full recognition of that fact, assumes a totally different relation to our mind, and reveals a totally different purpose from that which at first we might suspect and condemn. People must be talked to in their own language. God himself must speak in terms which the people can understand. There is a providence of language. Language is daily changing in aspect and colour and accent; meaning is poured out from vessel to vessel, and many of the old word-vessels are either thrown away or have to be used by some carefully-guarded hand and application of thought and meaning. No ruthless hand must touch some of these vessels, and no untutored mind must undertake to discuss some of those lessons; otherwise God himself and his whole truth will be put in a false light, and will be so expressed as to draw upon themselves the anger and moral indignation of mankind. The language of this chapter is in some parts awful. It is not to be explained by mere criticism, but is rather to be expounded and revealed in its intentions by the New Testament spirit, by the larger providence by which God has revealed his purpose and discovered to the observation of man what all the time he has been endeavouring to do. We must avail ourselves of some such principles as these if we are to get through with any comfort many of the rough places and rocky roads of the ancient record. The language might be changed, and yet every principle remain in its integrity. This is the very lesson which revelation is endeavouring every day to teach us. The revelation is not a matter of mere words or unchangeable expressions, but of what is in the words: the words being the mere wrappage within which we are to find the contents of the divine mind and purpose. The chapter might be rewritten in modern language and yet not one or its principles would be for an instant modified or impaired. We could get rid of the passion and yet retain the justice; we could wholly strip off all vengefulness and yet retain the divine purpose which is to create a Church, a family, a kingdom pure as the purity of God.

2 and when the Lord your God has delivered

them over to you and you have defeated them,

then you must destroy them totally.[a] Make

no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.

CLARKE, "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

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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.

GILL, "And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee,.... Into their hands:

thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; men, women, and children; which was ordered not merely to make way and room for the people of Israel to inherit their land, but as a punishment for capital crimes they had been guilty of, such as idolatry, incest, murder, &c. wherefore though they were reprieved for a while for Israel's sake, till their time was come to possess the land, they were at length righteously punished; which observed, abates the seeming severity exercised upon them:

thou shalt make no covenant with them; to dwell in their cities and houses, and enjoy their lands and estates, on any condition whatever; and though they did make a league with the Gibeonites, that was obtained by fraud, they pretending not to be of the land of Canaan, but to come from a very distant country:

nor show mercy unto them; by sparing their lives, bestowing any favours upon them, or giving them any help and assistance when in distress: the Jews extend this to all other Heathen nations besides these seven; wherefore, if an Israelite, as Maimonides (z) says, should see a Gentile perishing, or plunged into a river, he may not take him out, nor administer medicine to a sick person. Hence Juvenal (a) the poet upbraids them with their unkindness and incivility; and says that Moses delivered it as a Jewish law, in a secret volume of his, perhaps referring to this book of Deuteronomy, that the Jews might not direct a poor traveller in his way unless he was one of their religion, nor one athirst to a fountain of water; and which led Tacitus (b), the Heathen historian, to make this remark upon them, that they entertained an hostile hatred against all other people.

HENRY, "(2.) He engages them to do their part. Thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them, Deu_7:2. If God cast them out, Israel must not take them in, no, not as tenants, nor tributaries, nor servants. Not covenant of any kind must be made with them, no mercy must be shown them. This severity was appointed, [1.] By way of punishment for the wickedness they and their fathers had been guilty of. The iniquity of the Amorites was now full, and the longer it had been in the filling the sorer was the vengeance when it came at last. [2.] In order to prevent the mischiefs they would do to God's Israel if they were left alive. The people of these abominations must not be mingled with the holy seed, lest they corrupt them. Better that all these lives should be lost from the earth than that religion and the true worship of God should be lost in Israel. Thus we must deal with our lusts that was against our souls; God has delivered them into our hands by that promise, Sin shall not have dominion over you, unless it be your own faults; let not us them make covenants with them, nor show them any mercy, but mortify and crucify them, and utterly destroy them.

JAMISON 2-6, "thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them — This relentless doom of extermination

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which God denounced against those tribes of Canaan cannot be reconciled with the attributes of the divine character, except on the assumption that their gross idolatry and enormous wickedness left no reasonable hope of their repentance and amendment. If they were to be swept away like the antediluvians or the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, as incorrigible sinners who had filled up the measure of their iniquities, it mattered not to them in what way the judgment was inflicted; and God, as the Sovereign Disposer, had a right to employ any instruments that pleased Him for executing His judgments. Some think that they were to be exterminated as unprincipled usurpers of a country which God had assigned to the posterity of Eber and which had been occupied ages before by wandering shepherds of that race, till, on the migration of Jacob’s family into Egypt through the pressure of famine, the Canaanites overspread the whole land, though they had no legitimate claim to it, and endeavored to retain possession of it by force. In this view their expulsion was just and proper. The strict prohibition against contracting any alliances with such infamous idolaters was a prudential rule, founded on the experience that “evil communications corrupt good manners” [1Co_15:33], and its importance or necessity was attested by the unhappy examples of Solomon and others in the subsequent history of Israel.

CALVIN, "2.Thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them. Those who think that

there was cruelty in this command, usurp too great authority in respect to Him who is

the judge of all. The objection is specious that the people of God were unreasonably

imbued with inhumanity, so that, advancing with murderous atrocity, they should

spare neither sex nor age. But we must first remember what we shall see hereafter,

i.e., that when God had destined the land for His people, He was at liberty utterly to

destroy the former inhabitants, so that its possession might be free for them. We must

then go further, and say that He desired the just demonstration of His vengeance to

appear upon these nations. Four hundred years before He had justly punished their

many sins, yet had He suspended His sentence and patiently borne with them, if haply

they might repent. That sentence (303) is well known, “The iniquity of the Amorites is

not yet full.” (Genesis 15:16.) After God had shewn His mercy for four centuries, and

this clemency had increased both their audacity and madness, so that they had not

ceased to provoke His wrath, surely it was no act of cruelty to compensate for the

delay by the grievousness of the punishment. And hence appears the foul and

detestable perversity of the human intellect. We are indignant if He does not smile at

once; if He delays punishment our zeal accuses Him of slackness and want of energy;

yet, when He comes forth as the avenger of guilt, we either call Him cruel, or at least

complain of His severity. Yet His justice will always absolve Him; and our calumnies

and detractions will recoil upon our own heads. He commanded seven nations to be

utterly destroyed; that is to say, after they had added sin to sin for 400 years, so that

their accumulation was immense, and experience had taught that they were obstinate

and incurable. It will therefore be said elsewhere, that the land “spewed them out,”

(Leviticus 18:28,) as if it had eased itself, when burdened by their filthiness. If impiety

is intolerable to the lifeless element, why should we wonder that God in His character

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of Judge exercised extreme severity? But if God’s wrath was just, He might surely

choose whatever ministers and executioners of it He pleased; and when He had given

this commission to His people, it was not unreasonable that He should forbid them to

pity those whom He had appointed for destruction. For what can be more preposterous

than for men to vie with God in clemency? and when it pleases the Master to be

severe, for the servants to assume to themselves the right of shewing mercy?

Therefore God often reproves the Israelites for being improperly merciful. And hence

it came to pass that the people, whom they ought to have destroyed, became as thorns

and briars to prick them. (Joshua 23:13, and throughout the book of Judges.) Away,

then, with all temerity, whereby we would presumptuously restrict God’s power to the

puny measure of our reason; and rather let us learn reverently to regard those works of

His, whose cause is concealed from us, than wantonly criticise them. Especially when

He declares to us the just grounds of His vengeance, let us learn to subscribe to His

decrees with the humility and modesty that becomes us, rather than to oppose them in

vain, and indeed to our own confusion.

COFFMAN, ""Then thou shalt utterly destroy them ..." (Deuteronomy 7:2). "Some

people take offense at this, as though it represented sub-Christian ethics. Actually,

they are taking offense at the theology and religion of the whole Bible."[7] What the

physician does when he removes a cancerous member of a human body is exactly

what God is represented as doing here, removing a terribly-infected portion of the

human race to prevent the destruction of all people! God has already once destroyed

all persons, except the family of Noah, because the degeneration of humanity had

reached such a crisis that there was no other way to save Adam's race. Furthermore, as

Kline pointed out, "This very same ethical pattern will prevail in the event of the final

judgment and beyond."[8] There is no Biblical indication whatever that Almighty God

will finally accommodate Himself to the gross immorality of the Adamic creation.

The Israelites acted, not out of their own hatred and fury, "but as the instrument of

divine justice against people whose abominations were an offence to God."[9]

BENSON, "Deuteronomy 7:2. Thou shalt smite and utterly destroy them — That is, in

case they continued obstinate in their idolatry, they were to be destroyed, as nations,

or bodies politic. But if they forsook their idolatry, and became sincere proselytes to

the true religion, they would then be proper objects of forgiveness, as being true

penitents. For, says God himself, by Jeremiah, (Jeremiah 7:8,) At what instant I shall

speak concerning a nation to destroy it, if that nation turn from their evil, I will repent

of the evil which I thought to do unto them. Thou shalt make no covenant with

them — See Exodus 23:32; Exodus 24:12. To make a covenant with and to spare such

incurable idolaters, would have been cruelty to themselves and their posterity.

COKE, "Ver. 2. Thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them— i.e. In case they

continue obstinate in their idolatry, they are to be destroyed as a nation or body

politic: but if they forsook their idolatry, and became converts to the true religion, they

would then be, what God required, penitents, and proper objects of forgiveness; for

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this is a rule laid down in Scripture, and founded in reason. Jeremiah 18:7-8. See Dr.

Sykes's Conn. of Nat. and Rev. Rel. ch. 13.

ELLICOTT, "(2) And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee. . . .—It

would be possible to read, “Then the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, and

thou shalt smite.” Or the sentence might also be divided thus: “When the Lord thy

God shall bring thee in, and shall have delivered the nations from before thee, and

thou hast smitten them, then thou shalt utterly destroy them”—i.e., shalt make them

chêrem, a devoted or accursed thing. Perhaps this last way of dividing the clauses is,

upon the whole, to be preferred. But in any case it should be noted that Jehovah’s

deliverance of the nations into Israel’s hand is to precede their defeat and

extermination. Indiscriminate attack and massacre are not to be thought of. (See for a

further Note on this, Joshua 13) All the operations described in Joshua—the sieges of

Jericho and Ai, the southern campaign and the northern campaign—were alike

undertaken under Divine direction. The same may be said of the battles in Moses’

lifetime, whether against Amalek, Sihon, Og, Arad, or Midian. The same is true of the

judges, and of David’s operations against the Philistines after he came to the throne (2

Samuel 5:19, &c). The principle was acknowledged by Ahab in his attack on Ramoth-

gilead (1 Kings 22).

Thou shalt make no covenant with them.—The reason for this is too obvious to need

comment. If Israelites and idolaters were united—still more if they were intermingled

in marriage—there was an end to the distinction of race and religion—an end to the

supremacy of Israel or the isolation of the people of Jehovah, as exhibiting His Law

and the blessings of His government to mankind. It must be remembered, however,

that the isolation here commanded was only a means to an end; it was not the end

itself. It may be further observed that as soon as the danger of idolatry was at an end,

the isolation of Israel in a great measure ceased. The object of giving the people a land

of their own, and supremacy among the surrounding nations, was to enable them to

develop the religion which was to prepare the way for Christianity. When the religious

principles of the nation were sufficiently fixed to make their political supremacy

unnecessary, this supremacy was taken away.

OBERST, "THOU SHALT UTTERLY DESTROY THEM (v, 2) — Israel was to be

the sole occupant of the land. They were not only to utterly destroy the

seven "ite" tribes, but also to make no covenants or intermarriages. The

temptation, of course, would be for Israel to become lax, soft, and careless

about carrying out this command. So the statement, "nor show mercy

unto them,." Israel started to fulfill this command in good fashion, but,

29

for the most part, treated it with indifference once the twelve tribes were

settled in their respective territories. The seven nations were destroyed

but not "utterly."

Third Millennium Study Bible, "The Lord commands that these nations must be

"totally" destroyed (Deut 7:2, 16; 2:32). Israel was not to make a treaty (berit,

covenant) or have mercy upon these nations. God had told Abraham that conquest of

the land would not take place until "the sin of the Amorites . . . reached its full

measure" (Gen 15:16). God was just in ordering the conquest both because the sins of

the Canaanites were extreme and because their sin defiled the Promised Land, the

region where God's special presence dwelled. Canaanite religious poems describe

their gods as worse than even those of the Greeks and Assyrians. God commanded

holy war as the means of destroying these pagan idolators. Far from ethnocentric, the

Biblical concept of holy war is one of war against evil. This is evident in the fact that if

the Israelites turned away from God, they too would perish (Deut 28:15-68).

3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give

your daughters to their sons or take their

daughters for your sons,

CLARKE, "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.

GILL, "Neither shalt thou make marriages with them,.... Unless they became proselytes, as Rahab, who was married by Salmon, and so those of other nations, as Ruth the Moabitess, and so any captive taken in war; otherwise it was not lawful, bad consequences have followed upon it, which it is the design of this law to prevent; that is, being snared and drawn aside into idolatry, which was the case of Solomon:

thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son; for, according to the Targum of Jonathan, whosoever marries with them, it is as if he married with their idols: and this law, according to the Jewish writers (c), is binding with respect to other nations besides the seven; and whosoever

30

marries any Heathen, of whatsoever nation, is to be beaten.

HENRY, "2. They must make no marriages with those of them that escaped the sword, Deu_7:3, Deu_7:4. The families of the Canaanites were ancient, and it is probable that some of them were called honourable, which might be a temptation to the Israelites, especially those of them that were of least note in their tribes, to court an alliance with them, to ennoble their blood; and the rather because their acquaintance with the country might be serviceable to them in the improvement of it: but religion, and the fear of God, must overrule all these considerations. To intermarry with them was therefore unlawful, because it was dangerous; this very thing had proved of fatal consequence to the old world (Gen_6:2), and thousands in the world that now is have been undone by irreligious ungodly marriages; for there is more ground of fear in mixed marriages that the good will be perverted than of hope that the bad will be converted. The event proved the reasonableness of this warning: They will turn away thy son from following me. Solomon paid dearly for his folly herein. We find a national repentance for this sin of marrying strange wives, and care taken to reform (Ezr_9:1-15, 10; and Neh. 13), and a New Testament caution not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, 2Co_6:14. Those that in choosing yokefellows keep not at least within the bounds of a justifiable profession of religion cannot promise themselves helps meet for them. One of the Chaldee paraphrases adds here, as a reason of this command (Deu_7:3), For he that marries with idolaters does in effect marry with their idols.

COFFMAN, "Many modern scholars gloss over the unbelievably sordid picture of the

immoralities and debaucheries of the pre-Israeli inhabitants of Canaan, simply

because "it is embarrassing" and revolting to relate them.[10] However, "The Ugaritic

religious literature recovered from the Ras Shamra discoveries on the north Syrian

coast (1929-1937) fully authenticates the moral depravity of the Canaanite civilization

around 1400 B.C."[11] Therefore, as Unger pointed out, "It was a question of

destroying them or being destroyed."[12]

"Neither shalt thou make marriages with them ..." (Deuteronomy 7:3). Of course, God

could not allow marriages with such morally-depraved people. To have done so would

have been to advocate the immediate destruction of Israel. This exclusivism of Israel

"was one reason for Judaism's survival. Jewish religion flowed swift and deep because

it was constricted within narrow banks."[13]

That there is a lesson for the Church of God in this is certain. As Oberst put it:

"Perhaps the young people of Moses' day said, "But we will make Israelites out of

those girls!" (as is often done today). But God knew better. His warning still stands to

every young person in the Israel of God, the church. His exhortation still remains, "Be

not unequally yoked together with unbelievers (See 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1).[14]

COKE, "Ver. 3. Neither shalt thou make marriages with them— The reason is added

in the following verse, because there was a danger, if they loved their wives, that they

might be drawn over to their idolatry. On the same account the apostle warns

31

Christians against such unequal matches. 2 Corinthians 6:14. From this verse it is

justly inferred, that the Canaanites might be spared, upon their repentance and

reformation from idolatry; for there could be no occasion for this injunction, if it be

supposed that nothing which breathed was to be saved alive, but all were utterly to be

destroyed. What end could it serve, to forbid intermarriages with a people supposed

not at all to be? See Dr. Sykes as above.

BENSON, "Deuteronomy 7:3. Neither shalt thou make marriages with them — From

this prohibition it has been justly inferred that the Canaanites, as individuals, might be

spared upon their repentance and reformation from idolatry. For on the supposition

that nothing that breathed was to be saved alive, but that all were to be utterly

destroyed, there could be no occasion for this injunction. What end could it answer to

forbid all intermarriages with a people supposed not to exist?

OBERST, "In verses 3 and 4 intermarriage is forbidden on the basis that the

Israelite would be the loser, and turned away to "serve other gods." It

was probably argued then (as it so often is now) by the young people:

"But we will make Israelites out of these girls! We will never serve their

gods!" But God knew better. His warning still stands to every young

person in "the Israel of God," the church. His exhortation remains: "Be

not unequally yoked with unbelievers . . ." See II Cor. 6: 14 — 7:1.

PARKER, "Look a little at the detail. All marriages with the heathen peoples were

forbidden:—"Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt

not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son" (Deuteronomy

7:3). The separation is not final. Within this regulation there is a purpose of purity.

The line central and vital is not to be changed in its direction. God is not now making

eternal statutes and judgments as to the separation of the nations one from another.

His purpose is to have but one nation upon the face of the whole earth—a royal

generation, a peculiar people, a new humanity, headed by a new and eternal Adam.

Meantime, something must be done of a remedial and mitigatory kind. God's

providence must begin where it can. The world was not prepared for the full blaze of

the divine thought and meaning, so even God had to condescend to work in literal

commandment, in striking limitation of human liberty, and in such details as of

necessity occurred in the outworking of individual and social life. Even God is limited

by human conditions, specially by human ignorance, more specially by human sin. He

himself under some circumstances can only "stand at the door and knock."

Meanwhile, the principle is a perpetual guide in Christian conduct. It is still true that

32

things cannot be combined which are of different qualities, which have no essential

and vital relation to one another. Nor is the inculcation or enforcement of this

principle operative on one side only. Both the united people would be miserable. God

is not only caring for those who are his own: he is also caring for those who are

opposed to him—for by all. false alliances and unholy unions both lives are spoiled.

The judgment does not fall upon one only: it falls upon both with tremendous force.

Change the terms, soften them as much as you will, put them into modern form, and

tone them down into modern softness and mellowness,—still there remains the vital

principle that two things not being related to one another vitally and essentially, not in

their innermost and best nature yearning for one another, can never come together in

any form of marriage without involving both sides of the union in unutterable

disappointment and distress.

4 for they will turn your children away from

following me to serve other gods, and the

Lord’s anger will burn against you and will

quickly destroy you.

GILL, "For they will turn away thy son from following me,.... From the pure worship of God, his word, statutes, and ordinances:

that they may serve other gods; worship their idols; that is, the daughters of Heathens, married to the sons of Israelites, would entice them from the worship of the true God to idolatry; so the Targum of Jonathan; as Solomon's wives drew him aside: or "he will turn away thy son" (d); meaning, as Jarchi observes, that the son of an Heathen, that marries the daughter of an Israelite, will turn away the son born of her to idolatry, called here the grandfather's son; though Aben Ezra says this respects the son mentioned in the preceding verse, that is, the son married to an Heathen woman, and not to a son born in such marriage:

so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly; by some immediate judgment striking dead at once; there being nothing more provoking to God than idolatry, that being directly contrary to his being, nature, perfections, honour, and glory, of which he is jealous.

COFFMAN, "Many modern scholars gloss over the unbelievably sordid picture of the

immoralities and debaucheries of the pre-Israeli inhabitants of Canaan, simply

because "it is embarrassing" and revolting to relate them.[10] However, "The Ugaritic

33

religious literature recovered from the Ras Shamra discoveries on the north Syrian

coast (1929-1937) fully authenticates the moral depravity of the Canaanite civilization

around 1400 B.C."[11] Therefore, as Unger pointed out, "It was a question of

destroying them or being destroyed."[12]

"Neither shalt thou make marriages with them ..." (Deuteronomy 7:3). Of course, God

could not allow marriages with such morally-depraved people. To have done so would

have been to advocate the immediate destruction of Israel. This exclusivism of Israel

"was one reason for Judaism's survival. Jewish religion flowed swift and deep because

it was constricted within narrow banks."[13]

That there is a lesson for the Church of God in this is certain. As Oberst put it:

"Perhaps the young people of Moses' day said, "But we will make Israelites out of

those girls!" (as is often done today). But God knew better. His warning still stands to

every young person in the Israel of God, the church. His exhortation still remains, "Be

not unequally yoked together with unbelievers (See 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1).[14]

BENSON, "Deuteronomy 7:4. To serve other gods — That is, there is manifest danger

of apostacy and idolatry from such matches. Which reason doth both limit the

prohibition to such of these as were unconverted, (otherwise Salmon married Rachab,

Matthew 1:5,) and also enlarges it to other idolatrous nations, as appears from 1 Kings

11:2; Ezra 9:2; Nehemiah 13:23.

MEYER, "THE question of marriage is repeatedly considered in these chapters, and

never once is it supposed that the Israelites might bring a heathen partner to the faith

of God's elect; but it is always insisted that the heathen husband or wife will subvert

the faith of the child of Abraham. "Thou shalt not make marriages with them; for they

will turn away thy son from following Me, that they may serve other gods For thou art

an holy people unto the Lord thy God."

The same law holds still. You may suppose that by marrying the ungodly and

irreligious you will be able to convert them to your way of thinking; but you must

remember that regeneration is the work of the Holy Ghost, and He is not likely to lend

His aid in regeneration whilst you are acting in defiance of His distinct prohibitions.

The command of Christ is so clear and positive against His followers entering into an

unequal yoke with unbelievers, that it simply leaves no option for the obedient. With

the child of God, marriage must be "only in the Lord."

In order to make these marriages impossible, Israel was bidden to destroy the nations

of Canaan. Separation from their society and practices was thus enforced. The

slaughter seemed ruthless; but there was no other way of preserving intact the chosen

race, as a peculiar people unto the Lord. Our separation also must be strict even to the

extreme. If we would keep our young people from worldly alliances, we must begin

with their amusements and companionships. There should be every endeavor to

34

promote their happiness and interests; but we must very carefully guard the young

plants from the blight of worldliness.

5 This is what you are to do to them: Break

down their altars, smash their sacred stones,

cut down their Asherah poles[b] and burn their

idols in the fire.

BARNES, "Their groves - Render, their idols of wood: the reference is to the wooden trunk used as a representation of Ashtaroth; see Deu_7:13 and Exo_34:13note.

GILL, "But thus shall ye deal with them,.... The inhabitants of the land of Canaan:

ye shall destroy their altars; on which they sacrificed to their idols:

and break down their images; of their gods, and the statues and pillars erected to the honour of them:

and cut down their groves; sacred to idols, which were usually planted on hills, and about Heathen temples, and under which idols were placed to be worshipped. The Targum of Jonathan calls them trees of their adoration, under which they worshipped; though there was a worship paid to them, not indeed directly to them, or for their sakes, but for the sake of the idols they were sacred to, or were placed under them; so Maimonides (e) says, a tree which at first was planted to be

worshipped is forbidden of any use (or profit); and this is the אשרה, or "grove",

spoken of in the law, a tree planted and lopped, of which a graven image is made for an idol; and so the tree that has been worshipped, though the body of it is, not forbidden, all the shoots and leaves, and the branches, and the fruits it produces all the time it is worshipped, are forbidden to be used: though the word here used sometimes seems to signify, not a grove of trees, but some image itself, since we read of it in the temple, 2Ki_21:7,

and burn their graven images with fire; distinguished from their molten images, which may be meant in a preceding clause, and which are particularly mentioned as to be destroyed as well as these, Num_33:52.

HENRY, "3. They must destroy all the relics of their idolatry, Deu_7:5. Their altars

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and pillars, their groves and graven images, all must be destroyed, both in a holy indignation against idolatry and to prevent infection. This command was given before, Exo_23:24; Exo_34:13. A great deal of good work of this kind was done by the people, in their pious zeal (2Ch_31:1), and by good Josiah (2Ch_34:3, 2Ch_34:7), and with this may be compared the burning of the conjuring books, Act_19:19.

COFFMAN, "The command: (1) to break down their altars (Deuteronomy 7:5); (2) to

dash in pieces their pillars (Deuteronomy 7:5); (3) to cut down their Asherim

(Deuteronomy 7:5); and (4) to burn their graven images with fire (Deuteronomy 7:5)

shows how completely the people were to eradicate paganism from the promised land.

"Pillars ..." These were obelisks, or standing stone columns, connected with the

worship of the Asherim. Several varied opinions about these are current, but the

conviction of this writer is that they were phallic symbols erected to worship the male

principle in the vulgar sexual cults of the Baalim.

This writer has seen startling examples of this in Japan in 1952.

"Asherim ..." "These were representations in wood of the old Semitic goddess

Asherah."[16] There is some doubt of this definition, because the KJV renders this

word "groves," and certainly the groves were an essential feature of the pagan worship

of that day. The Septuagint (LXX) also renders this word "groves."[17]

There seems to be, however, some connection with a pagan goddess. As Cook said,

"The word means trunk of a tree, a representation of the goddess Ashtaroth."[18]

Alexander identified the female deity indicated by these items as "Astarte, the Venus

of the Syrians."[19] It is obvious that a good deal of uncertainty surrounds this word.

It is almost certain that Astarte was the female goddess of the citizens of Tyre, for

Josephus tells us that, when the Philistines overcame Saul and his sons in battle, they

stripped them of their armour and deposited it in the temple of Astarte, the pagan

house of worship that had been constructed by Hiram, the friend of Solomon.[20]4

COKE, "Ver. 5. Destroy their altars—and cut down their groves— See Exodus 34:13.

It is well known, that nothing was more common among idolaters, than consecrated

trees and groves: to cut down those groves was reckoned a heinous crime; see Lucan's

Pharsalia, book 3: ver. 361 of Rowe's translation. Sir Isaac Newton infers from this

passage, that the Canaanites had no temples; for that Moses, in commanding the

Israelites to destroy their sacred places, makes no mention of temples, as he would

have done had there been any in those days. See his Chronol. p. 221.

OBERST, "ALTARS . . . PILLARS , . . ASHERIM . . . GRAVEN IMAGES (v. 5) —

all

were to be destroyed. The pillars or obelisks were idolatrous monuments

36

in Canaanitish and other heathen countries. See 16:22, Lev. 26:1. These

were of different shapes — some being little more than a slab of rock

turned upright, others being carefully squared stone pillars with a larger

base and tapering toward a pointed top. It is apparently this latter form

(obelisk) that is especially meant here. They were usually shrines to Baal.

The Asherim were probably the wooden symbols or shrines of the

goddess Asherah — the goddess of fertility. (Not the same as Ashtoreth,

the female counterpart of Baal). See 12:3, 16:21. Her worship was widely

spread throughout Canaan and Syria. In Babylon her worship and that of

Ashtoreth (Istar) seemed to have merged. "In the West, however,

Asherah and Astoreth came to be distinguished from one another, Asherah

being exclusively the goddess of fertility, whereas Ashtoreth passeth into

a moon-goddess . . . The existence of numerous symbols in each of which

the goddess was believed to be immanent led to the creation of numerous

forms of the goddess herself, which, after the analogy of the Ashtaroth,

were described collectively as the Asherim." (I.S.B.E.) See further under

16:21.

PARKER, "Then the instruction was to deal severely with heathenish institutions and

customs. This is proved by the fifth verse:—"Thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall

destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn

their graven images with fire." That is not the law of this day. It was the only possible

law in the early time. Men must grow into right conceptions of force. There have

always been men who have been impatient with Jesus Christ himself because he did

not go quickly enough to the kingdom. In his own day the people sought to make him

a King "by force," but Jesus Christ would have no kingship thus violently and

prematurely instituted. The kingship of Christ is a necessity of the universe. The very

first courses of the foundations of creation, rightly interpreted, bear upon their

masonry this promise:—Jesus Christ shall reign over the whole creation. But the

fulfilment of that promise belongs to the providence of time. There we enter into an

evolution transcending the imagination and mocking the patience of the most devoted

37

Simeon. The only way in which Israel could deal with the heathen nations was by the

way of destruction, breakage, downcutting, and burning. The period was given up to

that species of force and urgency. We have come to learn that persuasion is mightier

than arms, reasoning is more potent than violence, and prayer will accomplish

victories which are impossible to sword and spear. It would seem to be an easy way to

get rid of idolatry to burn the idol and reduce their altars to ashes. All this species of

inroad might be made upon the idolatry, but idolatry itself would remain untouched,

secure in the citadel of the heart's trust, and hardly less secure in the castle of debased

imagination. Only truth can destroy error; only love can burn all evil; only heaven can

get rid of hell. So the innermost thought remains. The principle of destruction abides

for ever. Everything that is done by the most peaceful and patient servant of God has

in it the quality of destruction, only it is spiritual violence, moral conquest, the victory

of the soul. "Put up thy sword into the sheath:" "for all they that take the sword shall

perish with the sword." Nay, Jesus will not have even embattled angels crowding to

his side to smite with lightning those who assail him. Jesus Christ says,—Let the truth

be spoken in a fair field, and in the long run light will conquer darkness. The

harshness was not arbitrary, but logical. God is represented in the tenth verse in these

terms:—he "repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be

slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face." How such words could be

read with spitefulness of tone!—as if God were some petulant deity, vain and careful

to assiduity about all the decoration of his throne; as if no hand must touch it; as if

intruders would be thrust into the sea or burned in the furnace. There is no such

meaning in the words. The same law applies in nature. It is the law of agriculture as

certainly as it is the law of theology and morals. It is not given to man—poor man—to

overturn the divine decree in any realm of life or action. Whoso would try to invert the

seasons shall find himself without bread in the day when his garners should have been

full; and if some imaginative Moses, gifted with the power of vivid pictorial

description, should say, looking upon the empty barns,—"He repayeth them that hate

him to their face, to destroy them," he would but vindicate a law which is not arbitrary

but gracious—a providential law; and providence is the dawn of grace.

6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your

God. The Lord your God has chosen you out

of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be

his people, his treasured possession.

38

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

A special people - - ,segullah סגלה Septuagint, λαον�περιουσιον, - a peculiar

people, a private property. The words as they stand in the Septuagint are quoted by the apostle, 1Pe_2:9.

GILL, "For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God,.... Not sanctified in a spiritual sense, or having principles of grace and holiness in them, from whence holy actions sprang, at least not all of them; but they were separated from all other people in the world to the pure worship and service of God in an external manner, and therefore were to avoid all idolatry, and every appearance of it:

the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth; for special service and worship, and to enjoy special privileges and benefits, civil and religious; though they were not chosen to special grace here, and eternal glory hereafter; at least not all of them, only a remnant, according to the election of grace; yet they were typical of the chosen people of God in a special sense; who are chosen out of the world to be a peculiar people, to be holy here and happy hereafter; to enjoy communion with God in this life and that to come, as well as to serve and glorify him now and for evermore.

HENRY, "II. Here are very good reasons to enforce this caution.

1. The choice which God had made of this people for his own, Deu_7:6. There was such a covenant and communion established between God and Israel as was not between him and any other people in the world. Shall they by their idolatries dishonour him who had thus honoured them? Shall they slight him who had thus testified his kindness for them? Shall they put themselves upon the level with other people, when God had thus dignified and advanced them above all people? Had God taken them to be a special people to him, and no other but them, and will not they take God to be a special God to them, and no other but him?

JAMISON 6-19, "For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God — that is, set apart to the service of God, or chosen to execute the important purposes of His providence. Their selection to this high destiny was neither on account of their numerical amount (for, till after the death of Joseph, they were but a handful of people); nor because of their extraordinary merits (for they had often pursued a most perverse and unworthy conduct); but it was in consequence of the covenant or promise made with their pious forefathers; and the motives that led to that special act were such as tended not only to vindicate God’s wisdom, but to illustrate His glory in diffusing the best and most precious blessings to all mankind.

CALVIN, "6.For thou art a holy people. He explains more distinctly what we have

39

lately seen respecting God’s gratuitous love; for the comparison of the fewness of the

people with the whole world and all nations, illustrates in no trifling degree the

greatness of God’s grace; and this subject is considerably enlarged upon. Almost the

same expressions will very soon be repeated, and also in the Song of Moses; but there

by way of reproof, whilst here it is directed to a different object, as is plain from the

context, viz., that they might be, by so great a blessing, laid under obligation to devote

themselves and their services to God. He begins by declaring the end of their election,

viz., that God had deigned to bestow this peculiar honor upon them that He might

acquire unto Himself a holy people, pure from all pollutions, and then, by adding the

circumstance I have adverted to, he magnifies the excellence of the benefit. From his

argument drawn from their dignity, that they ought therefore to labor after holiness,

we gather, that in proportion to the abundance of grace with which any one is endued,

he is solemnly bound to live piously and justly. For God does not wish the gifts he

bestows upon us to lie idle, but to produce their appropriate fruits; and we must

especially remember that when He adopts us, and gathers us into His Church, we are

not “called to uncleanness,” but to purity of life, and to shew forth the praises of him

who hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.” ( 1 Thessalonians 4:7,

and 1 Peter 2:9.) The Hebrew word סגלה, segullah, which we translate “peculiaris,”

special, some understand to mean a “treasure,” or a precious and desirable thing, as

was stated on Exodus 19:0. Undoubtedly it appears from many passages that gold,

silver, pearls, and the like, are designated by this word; but substantially it is agreed

that this title is given to the elect people, because God delights Himself in them; and

herein His incomparable goodness shines forth, that He so highly esteems such

miserable and worthless creatures, (homunciones.) Hence, too, it appears that by His

holy calling He, as it were, creates out of nothing “things which are not,” that they

may excel every earthly being.

COKE, "Ver. 6-11. The reasons are here given for such cautious avoiding whatever

might offend God. For, 1. They were a chosen generation to show forth his praises,

and therefore bound to answer the gracious designs of God. There was in them no

cause moving God to such peculiar regard, but his own sovereign choice and love; for

they were the fewest in number, and had proved themselves sufficiently perverse and

ungrateful in their conduct. He adds the promise made to their fathers, for whose sake

they were beloved. Note; The promises of God in Jesus Christ are the only obligations

we have upon him for his regard to us. 2. They would find their account herein; for

God would be their friend if they loved and cleaved to him, but a mortal enemy if they

turned from him, and shewed by their disobedience the enmity of their hearts against

him. Hence learn, (1.) That godliness is the greatest gain, as attended with His love

whose favour is better than life itself. (2.) That love and obedience are inseparable.

(3.) That every wilful sinner is in heart a hater of God. (4.) That they who live at

enmity with God bring down inevitable ruin upon their souls.

ELLICOTT, "(6) An holy people.—Not merely “a holy nation” (as in Exodus 19:6),

40

but “a holy people” i.e., a state of which holiness to Jehovah was the very constitution.

If God pleased to establish such a state, manifestly its laws could allow no toleration

of anything displeasing to Him. And it is also manifest that nothing but Divine

revelation would authorise the establishment of such a constitution.

A special people.—The same word with the “peculiar treasure” of Exodus 19:5 and

the “jewels” of Malachi 3:17. The private property of King David is described by the

same word (1 Chronicles 29:3), “mine own proper good.” (See also Deuteronomy

14:2; Deuteronomy 26:18; Psalms 135:4 )

Third Millennium Study Bible, "Moses looked to the past and pointed out that God

had chosen his people to be holy (Deut 7:6), separate from the Canaanites. Moses had

in mind the election of the nation of Israel to be in a covenant relationship with God,

not election to salvation. The election of the nation of Israel (Deut 7:6-7) was

grounded in God's covenant of love with the nation's forebears and not in any intrinsic

value or goodness of the nation of his choice (see Deut 7:7-8). God's election of Israel

was based on his oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (see Deut 6:10). In New

Testament times, his election of the Church is based on his oath to Jesus, the son of

Abraham and the Son of God (Psa 110:4; Heb 7:20-28).

7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and

choose you because you were more numerous

than other peoples, for you were the fewest of

all peoples.

BARNES, "The fewest of all people - God chose for Himself Israel, when as yet but a single family, or rather a single person, Abraham; though there were already numerous nations and powerful kingdoms in the earth. Increase Deu_1:10; Deu_10:22 had taken place because of the very blessing of God spoken of in Deu_7:8.

GILL, "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you,.... He had done both, and the one as the effect and evidence of the other; he loved them, and therefore he chose them; but neither of them:

because ye were more in number than any people; not for the quantity of

41

them, nor even for the quality of them:

for ye were the fewest of all people; fewer than the Egyptians, from whence they came, and than the Canaanites they were going to drive out and inherit their land, Deu_7:1. Those whom God has loved with an everlasting love, and as a fruit of it has chosen them in Christ before the world began to grace and glory, holiness and happiness, are but a small number, a little flock; though many are called, few are chosen; nor are they better than others, being by nature children of wrath even as others, and as to their outward circumstances the poor of this world.

HENRY, "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you,.... He had done both, and the one as the effect and evidence of the other; he loved them, and therefore he chose them; but neither of them:

because ye were more in number than any people; not for the quantity of them, nor even for the quality of them:

for ye were the fewest of all people; fewer than the Egyptians, from whence they came, and than the Canaanites they were going to drive out and inherit their land, Deu_7:1. Those whom God has loved with an everlasting love, and as a fruit of it has chosen them in Christ before the world began to grace and glory, holiness and happiness, are but a small number, a little flock; though many are called, few are chosen; nor are they better than others, being by nature children of wrath even as others, and as to their outward circumstances the poor of this world.

CALVIN, "7.The Lord did not set his love upon you. He proves it to be of God’s

gratuitous favor, that He has exalted them to such high honor, because He had passed

over all other nations, and deigned to embrace them alone. For an equal distribution of

God’s gifts generally casts obscurity upon them in our eyes; thus the light of the sun,

our common food, and other things, which all equally enjoy, either lose their value, or,

at any rate, do not obtain their due honor; whilst what is peculiar is more conspicuous.

Moreover, Moses takes it for granted, that there was nothing naturally in the people to

cause their condition to be better or more distinguished; and hence infers, that there

was no other reason why God should choose them, except His mere choice of them.

We have elsewhere observed, that by this His love, whatever men would bring of their

own is excluded or annihilated. It follows, therefore, that the Israelites could never be

sufficiently grateful to God, since they had been thus liberally dealt with by Him,

without any desert of their own.

COKE, "Ver. 7, 8. The Lord did not set his love upon you, &c.— To preserve them

from pride and a conceit of their own greatness, Moses here advises them to

remember, that it was not their numbers, their strength, or external grandeur, it was

not any merit or qualification of their own, which had caused the Lord thus to choose

and distinguish them. These great promises were made to their forefathers when they

were a small family, and of little consideration in the world. The eminent virtues of

those forefathers, or rather the free bounty and mere good pleasure of God, ver. 8 were

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the sources of those peculiar privileges; just as, out of his free, unmerited goodness,

God makes one species of creatures more excellent than another, and bestows

different gifts and advantages upon different individuals of the same species. God

loved them, says Grotius, in remembrance of their fathers, and of the oath which he

sware to them; and this, says he, is the election whereof St. Paul speaks, Romans

11:28. With respect to the election, they are beloved for the father's sake.

ELLICOTT, "Ye were the fewest of all people.—It may be observed that the

development of the Moabites, Ammonites, Ishmaelites, and Edomites (all, like Israel,

descended from Terah), was far more rapid than that of the chosen line. Abraham had

twelve grandsons through Ishmael, but only the same number of great grandsons

through Isaac and Jacob. Edom, Moab, and Ammon all preceded Israel in the conquest

of territory. Kings reigned in Edom “before there reigned any king over the children of

Israel” (Genesis 36:31). It was only “when the time of the promise drew nigh” that

“the (chosen) people grew and multiplied in Egypt.” The Scripture is throughout

consistent in representing their development as due to the special providence of God.

(See also on Deuteronomy 10:22.)

BENSON, "Deuteronomy 7:7-8. The fewest — To wit, at that time, when God first

declared his choice of you for his peculiar people, which was done to Abraham. For

Abraham had but one son concerned in this choice and covenant, namely, Isaac, and

that was not till he was in his hundredth year; and Isaac was sixty years old ere he had

a child, and then had only two children; and though Jacob had twelve sons, yet it was

a long time before they made any considerable increase. Nor do we read of any great

multiplication of them until after Joseph’s death. The Lord loved you — It was his

free choice, without any cause or motive on your part.

OBERST, "FOR YE WERE THE FEWEST OF ALL PEOPLES (v. 7) — In Gen.

46:27

we are told, "all the souls of the house of Jacob, that came into Egypt,

were threescore and ten." And yet, through this handful of people, God

began to show his great power, Had a large nation accomplished that

Israel did, human power might be credited, But God's love for Israel plus

his eternal design in bringing the Messiah into the world, enabled Israel

to accomplish great things. Great numbers are often not necessary for

God to accomplish his purposes!

JOE TEMPLE, "All of these verses, were we to sum them up in one simple phrase,

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demand total destruction of the seven nations which are listed in verse 1—total

destruction. We will notice the reason for it in this chapter before we get through, and

we might set some of your minds at ease by saying that, even though God demanded

total destruction, the Israelites did not obey. They did not totally destroy these nations,

but that will come out in further discussions as we go along. The problem is, how

could a just God demand total destruction of any people? Where is God's love? Where

is God's understanding? How barbaric. How unreasonable. We could go on, for much

has been written about this problem to which we refer—men's finding it impossible to

reconcile such passages as this in the Old Testament with the love and the justice of

God.

Let us establish at the outset that God demanded no more of these Israelites than He

Himself would do, for in the chapter we have read in your hearing, you will notice this

description given of God in verses 9-10:

Deuteronomy 7:

9 Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which

keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to

a thousand generations;

10 And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be

slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.

The first part of this paragraph does not present a problem to most people. They like

to talk about the faithfulness of God. They like to talk about the fact that God keeps

covenant and mercy with those who love Him. They like to emphasize that God keeps

His commandments even to a thousand generations. But when they come to verse 10,

they somehow or other want to back up and think about a different kind of God

because verse 10 tells us that God is not any more slack in repaying evil than He is

slack in keeping promises of blessing. The Bible says that the Lord is not slack

concerning His promises as some men count slackness, and everybody knows that that

means that God will keep His word. You can depend upon it. We would remind you

that the same God is not slack in relation to just retribution, for if God excused sin, it

would make Him a party to sin. If God smiled upon evil, it would make Him a partner

in that evil. He would be violating the very laws which He had written, and in

violating those very laws which He had written, He would be establishing a

precedence whereby it would be impossible for Him to even keep the promises which

He had made.

The problem concerning total destruction in these seven nations can be resolved in the

minds of intelligent people if they keep in mind two statements which are presented

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here in verse 9: “Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God…” That is the first

statement. “Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God…” That one simple

statement gives the biblical explanation for God's doing what He does without

explaining to man why He does it. Someone may say, “I don't like that explanation.”

Well, I am sorry. That is the explanation which God's Word gives and you might as

well recognize in your own minds that God is true and honest and upright and every

man is a liar or else just reject the entire Word of God.

The Apostle Paul takes this same thing in relation to the nation of Israel in relation to

God's setting aside Israel and bringing in other nations to carry on His will and

purpose. He faced it in relation to Esau and Jacob. He faced it in relation to God's

dealing with Pharaoh. He answered it in this manner. Notice Romans, chapter 16,

verse 9:

All of this could be summed up in one phrase: “The sovereignty of God.” God is Who

He is. Therefore we have no right to question what He does. We may wonder about

some of the things that He does. We would like to know why, but we should never

question the judgments and the wisdom of God. This may sound like an archaic

teaching to some and it may sound rather foolish to others, and people are inclined to

say that God expects us to be simply robots doing what He says without question. In

the final anaylis, God expects us to recognize His sovereignty and know that what He

does, He does, and He is not obligated to give an explanation to anyone. In the

sovereignty of God, He has a right to order the destruction of people.

Having said that, I must say that if we are going to present the whole truth that is

found in the Word of God, that God would never order the destruction of people as

dictators order the destruction of people. That is for the furtherance of His own

purposes. God would never order the destruction of people as earthly rulers have

ordered the destruction of people and then discover that they had made an error. For

example, in a like situation, but one not quite so serious, is the chastening of the Lord.

In chapter 12 of Paul's letter to the Hebrews, the apostle represents the fact that God

chastens everyone whom He receives, but he hastens to add that the chastening is

different than the chastening which earthly parents give their children, for earthly

parents give their children chastening and oftentimes are mistaken in the chastening.

But God never is, and when God orders the destruction of an entire people, you can be

sure that He has a reason for it.

The reason for this particular order for destruction lies within the Canaanites

themselves. Their sins were such that God could tolerate them no longer upon the

earth, and He but used the Israelites as instruments in His hands for their destruction

and removal. That we know without doubt that this is true is verified by what God

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told Abraham in the book of Genesis. You will recall that God told Abraham that he

and his descendants were going to inherit the land of Canaan, this very land on the

borders of which the present generation was cast while Moses was presenting this

particular discourse at which we look. But God said to Abraham in Genesis, chapter

15:

Genesis 15:

13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in

a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred

years;

14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall

they come out with great substance.

15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old

age.

16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the

Amorites is not yet full.

What was it God said to Abraham? “Abraham, I am going to give you the land of

Canaan, but I can't give it to you today. As a matter of fact, I won't be able to give it to

you for something over 400 years, and the reason is the Amorites, the Canaanites,

have not yet relinquished their control of it, but in that length of time, they will have.”

God, in his sovereign omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence knew that the

Canaanites would have sinned away their day of grace and forfeited their right to the

land.

So in answer to the problem which is presented to the minds of many in this first verse

and its related verses, may I say that God is not doing anything wrong, and there is no

real problem if it is interpreted in the light of God's Word.

No Political Alliances

We want to get on with our chapter. At the beginning of this discussion, we said that

in this chapter we are going to find some things which Israel, as a nation, was

prohibited from doing in order that they might be able to create an atmosphere in

which the obedience to God's Word would be easier. If you will look down at verse 2

again, noticing particularly the last statement. He said: “Do not make any political

alliances with the people of the land of Canaan. If you do, you will not be able to obey

God's Word thoroughly.” We will see, when we get over to the book of Joshua, that

they did the very thing that God told them not to do. They made some alliances with

the Gibeonites and they had trouble no end because of it. Make no political alliances.

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That was the first prohibition that God enjoined upon them if they were to create an

atmosphere in which the Word of God could be fully and completely obeyed.

8 But it was because the Lord loved you and

kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that

he brought you out with a mighty hand and

redeemed you from the land of slavery, from

the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

CLARKE, "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.

GILL, "But because the Lord loved you,.... With an unmerited love; he loved them, because he loved them; that is, because he would love them; his love was not owing to any goodness in them, or done by them, or any love in them to him, but to his own good will and pleasure:

and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers; the promise he had made, confirmed by an oath:

hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand; out of the land of Egypt:

and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen; where they were bondmen to the Egyptians:

from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt; who detained them, and refused to let them go.

HENRY, "God fetched the reason of it purely from himself, Deu_7:8. [1.] He loved you because he would love you. Even so, Father, because it seemed good in thy eyes. All that God loves he loves freely, Hos_14:4. Those that perish perish by their own merits, but all that are saved are saved by prerogative. [2.] He has done his work

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because he would keep his word. “He has brought you out of Egypt in pursuance of the oath sworn to your fathers.” Nothing in them, or done by them, did or could make God a debtor to them; but he had made himself a debtor to his own promise, which he would perform notwithstanding their unworthiness.

CALVIN, "8.Because he would keep the oath. The love of God is here referred back

from the children to the fathers; for he addressed the men of his own generation, when

he said that they were therefore God’s treasure, because He loved them; now he adds

that God had not just begun to love them for the first time, but that He had originally

loved their fathers, when He chose to adopt Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But although

he more clearly proves that the descendants of Abraham had deserved nothing of the

kind, because they are God’s peculiar people only by right of inheritance, still it must

be remarked that God was induced to be kind to Abraham by no other cause than mere

generosity. A little further on, therefore, he will say that those who then survived were

dear to God, because He had already loved their fathers. But now he still further

commends the goodness of God, because He had handed down His covenant from the

fathers to the children, to shew that He is faithful and true to His promises. At the end

of the verse, he teaches that the deliverance of the people was both an effect and a

testimony of that grace.

COFFMAN, ""Because the Lord loved you ..." (Deuteronomy 7:8). Alexander's

comment on this is:

"Instead of saying, he hath chosen you out of love to your fathers, as in Deuteronomy

4:37, Moses brings out in this place love to the people of Israel as the Divine motive,

not for choosing Israel, but for leading it out and delivering it from the slave-house in

Egypt."[21]

The word "love" in such passages does not indicate an emotional state such as is

normally associated with the word. It merely means "doing right by," or "honoring his

promises to" Israel. Jacob loved Rachel and hated Leah, in the emotional sense, but he

surely "loved" Leah also in the sense of fulfilling his duty toward her, for she was the

mother of six of the Twelve Patriarchs.

PARKER, ""The Lord loved you."—Deuteronomy 7:8

The word love is an Old Testament word.—It would not be difficult to show that the

tenderest expressions ever used by heaven to earth are reported not in the New

Testament but in the Old.—It is not enough for the people to know that their Lord is

almighty, because power may become a terror.—Not only power belongeth unto God

but also mercy: this is the complete aspect of the divine nature.—That the Lord loved

Israel was shown by long-suffering, by hopeful patience, by pouring down blessing

upon blessing, notwithstanding the ingratitude of the people; it would seem as if even

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sin itself was hardly allowed to block out the light of heaven.—The love of God is the

true interpretation of the history of man in all its movement towards nobility and

spiritual sovereignty and rest.—Nothing but love could account for the continuance of

the world under all its sinfulness and ingratitude.—It is love that explains the greatest

revelations of God.—It is love that explains the Cross of Jesus Christ.—It is love that

explains the assured progress of redeemed and sanctified souls.—The love of God"

excludes all other claims to his attention and interest: thus we are not allowed to say

that God's favours come to us on account of our merit, or ancestry, or excellence

above others; whatever we have is of the free mercy and love of God.—The love

which explains all the past is the surest guarantee of all the future.—Love never

changes.—What is true of divine love in the soul is true of that same love in God

himself; it hopeth all things, endureth all things, believeth all things, it never faileth.—

It is our joy to believe in a God of love; nay, in our highest moods we do not regard

love as an attribute of God, but we say God himself is love.—Love does not exclude

discipline.—Love does not exclude anger.—But on the other side, neither discipline

nor anger changes or diminishes the love of God.—"Good when he gives, supremely

good; not less when he denies."

9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is

God; he is the faithful God, keeping his

covenant of love to a thousand generations of

those who love him and keep his

commandments.

GILL, "The only true and living God, and not the idols of the Gentiles, who are false and lifeless ones, and therefore not the proper objects of adoration:

the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy; as appeared by fulfilling the promise made to their fathers, in bringing them out of Egypt, and now them to the borders of the land of Canaan given them for an inheritance:

with them that love him, and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations; see Exo_20:6 which are not the causes or conditions of his covenant and mercy, nor of his keeping them, but descriptive of the persons that enjoy the

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benefit thereof.

HENRY, "3. The tenour of the covenant into which they were taken; it was in short

this, That as they were to God so God would be to them. They should certainly find

him, (1.) Kind to his friends, Deu_7:9. “The Lord thy God is not like the gods of the

nations, the creatures of fancy, subjects fit enough for loose poetry, but no proper

objects of serious devotion; no, he is God, God indeed, God alone, the faithful God,

able and ready not only to fulfil his own promises, but to answer all the just

expectations of his worshippers, and he will certainly keep covenant and mercy,” that

is, “show mercy according to covenant, to those that love him and keep his

commandments” (and in vain do we pretend to love him if we do not make

conscience of his commandments); “and this” (as is here added for the explication of

the promise in the second commandment) “not only to thousands of persons, but to

thousands of generations - so inexhaustible is the fountain, so constant are the

streams!”

CALVIN, "9.Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God. The verb (220) might

have been as properly translated in the future tense; and, if this be preferred, an

experimental knowledge, as it is called, is referred to, as if he had said that God would

practically manifest how faithful a rewarder He is of His servants. But if the other

reading is rather approved, Moses exhorts the people to be assured that God sits in

heaven as the Judge of men, so that they may be both alarmed by the fear of His

vengeance, and also attracted by the hope of reward. This declaration, however, (221)

was appended to the Second Commandment, and there expounded; for since it is

comprehended in the Decalogue, it was not right to separate it from thence; but since

it is now repeated in confirmation of the whole Law, it is fitly inserted in this place. It

will not be amiss, nevertheless, slightly to advert to what I there more fully explained.

The promise stands first, because God chooses rather to invite His people by kindness

than to compel them to obedience from terror. The word mercy is coupled with the

covenant, that we may know that the reward which believers must expect, does not

depend on the merit of their works, since they have need of God’s mercy. We may,

however, thus resolve the phrase — keeping the covenant of mercy — or the covenant

founded on mercy — or the mercy which He covenanted.

When it is required of believers that they should love God before they keep His

Commandments, we are thus taught that the source and cause of obedience is the love

wherewith we embrace God as our Father. With respect to the “thousand generations,”

it is better that we should refer to the Second Commandment, because it is a point

which cannot be hurried over in a few words.

COFFMAN, ""The faithful God ..." (Deuteronomy 7:9). Davies properly understood

this as being equivalent to "the true God," the only God, quoting 4:37 as supporting

this.[22]

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A few thoughts on the faithfulness of God are in order. In putting Israel into

possession of Canaan so many centuries after the promise to Abraham, and at such

cost in miracle and divine manipulation of human events, "God gave Israel

irrefragable proof of His covenant-keeping faithfulness."[23] Just look at what God

did:

1. He promised Abraham to deliver Canaan to his seed.

2. When it became apparent that the Israelites would be swept into unity with the

pagan nations around them (in the times of Judah), he arranged to make Israel

unpopular by moving the whole nation of the keepers of sheep into Egypt, where they

were despised. There they became a cohesive, strong, and powerful people, and were

enslaved.

3. Against the mightiest nation on earth, God delivered His judgments in the form of

ten great plagues, delivered the people across the Red Sea, drowning Pharaoh and his

whole army at the same time.

4. He nourished and guided them in the wilderness, in spite of their repeated

rebellions.

5. And NOW, some half-a-millennium later, He will actually deliver Canaan to the

children of Abraham as He had promised so many centuries earlier! No wonder He is

referred to here by Moses as "the faithful God."

COKE, "Ver. 9. Know, therefore, that the Lord thy God— Moses here reminds them,

that as God's choosing them for his peculiar people was a matter of mere favour, to

which they had no more right than any other nation of the world, so they should

consider the fidelity of God, and beware of abusing their privileges; assuring them,

that as the divine goodness and veracity would abundantly appear to them and their

posterity if they religiously observed the conditions of the covenant, so would his

justice, ver. 10 in making all such as should ungratefully violate them live to see the

sad effects of their impiety. Though it be said in general terms, that God repayeth

them who hate him—to destroy them; yet the context shews, that it is to be understood

chiefly in relation to the Jews, who were under an extraordinary providence, and

visited with temporal rewards or punishments, according to their obedience or

disobedience. To their face, according to the sense which Onkelos gives it, signifies in

this life; "they shall see in this life the just punishment of their idolatry." By the haters

of God, ver. 10 are principally meant idolaters. See Exodus 20:5. The history of the

world, however, bears this attestation to the justice of Providence, that nations in

general are exalted by prosperity, or brought low by adversity, according as the spirit

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of piety and virtue prevails among them.

MACLAREN, "GOD'S FAITHFULNESS

‘Faithful,’ like most Hebrew words, has a picture in it. It means something that can be (1) leant on, or (2) builded on.

This leads to a double signification-(1) trustworthy, and that because (2) rigidly observant of obligations. So the word applies to a steward, a friend, or a witness. Its most wonderful and sublime application is to God. It presents to our adoring love-

I. God as coming under obligations to us.

A marvellous and blessed idea. He limits His action, regards Himself as bound to a certain line of conduct.

1. Obligations from His act of creation.

‘A faithful Creator,’ bound to take care of those whom He has made. To supply their necessities. To satisfy their desires. To give to each the possibility of discharging its ideal.

2. Obligations from His past self.

‘God is faithful by whom ye were called,’ therefore He will do all that is imposed on Him by His act of calling.

He cannot begin without completing. There are no abandoned mines. There are no half-hewn stones in His quarries, like the block at Baalbec. And this because the divine nature is inexhaustible in power and unchangeable in purpose.

3. Obligations from His own word.

A revelation is presupposed by the notion of faithfulness. It is not possible in heathenism. ‘Dumb idols,’ which have given their worshippers no promises, cannot be thought of as faithful. By its grand conception of Jehovah as entering into a covenant with Israel, the Old Testament presents Him to our trust as having bound Himself to a known line of action. Thereby He becomes, if we may so phrase it, a constitutional monarch.

That conception of a Covenant is the negation of caprice, of arbitrary sovereignty, of mystery. We know the principles of His government. His majestic ‘I wills’ cover the whole ground of human life and needs for the present and the future. We can go into no region of life but we find that God has defined His conduct to us there by some word spoken to our heart and binding Him.

4. Obligations from His new Covenant and highest word in Jesus Christ.

‘He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.’

II. God as recognising and discharging these obligations.

That He will do so comes from His very nature. With Him there is no change of disposition, no emergence of unseen circumstances, no failure or exhaustion of power.

That He does so is matter of fact. Moses in the preceding context had pointed to facts of history, on which he built the ‘know therefore’ of the text. On the broad scale the whole world’s history is full of illustrations of God’s faithfulness to His promises and His threats. The history of Judaism, the sorrows of nations, and the complications of national events, all illustrate this fact.

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The personal history of each of us. The experience of all Christian souls. No man ever trusted in Him and was ashamed. He wills that we should put Him to the proof.

III. God as claiming our trust.

He is faithful, worthy to be trusted, as His deeds show.

Faith is our attitude corresponding to His faithfulness. Faith is the germ of all that He requires from us. How much we need it! How firm it might be! How blessed it would make us!

The thought of God as ‘faithful’ is, like a precious stone, turned in many directions in Scripture, and wherever turned it flashes light. Sometimes it is laid as the foundation for the confidence that even our weakness will be upheld to the end, as when Paul tells the Corinthians that they will be confirmed to the end, because ‘God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son’ (1Co_1:9). Sometimes there is built on it the assurance of complete sanctification, as when he prays for the Thessalonians that their ‘whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord’ and finds it in his heart to pray thus because ‘Faithful is He that calleth you, who will also do it’ (1Th_5:24). Sometimes it is presented as the steadfast stay grasping which faith can expect apparent impossibilities, as when Sara ‘judged Him faithful who had promised’ (Heb_11:11). Sometimes it is adduced as bringing strong consolation to souls conscious of their own feeble and fluctuating faith, as when Paul tells Timothy that ‘If we are faithless, He abideth faithful; for He cannot deny Himself’ (2Ti_2:13). Sometimes it is presented as an anodyne to souls disturbed by experience of men’s unreliableness, as when the apostle heartens the Thessalonians and himself to bear human untrustworthiness by the thought that though men are faithless, God ‘is faithful, who shall establish you and keep you from evil’ (2Th_3:2-3). Sometimes it is put forward to breathe patience into tempted spirits, as when the Corinthians are comforted by the assurance that ‘God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able’ (1Co_10:13). Sometimes it is laid as the firm foundation for our assurance of pardon, as when John tells us that ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins’ (1Jn_1:9). And sometimes that great attribute of the divine nature is proposed as holding forth a pattern for us to follow, and the faith in it as tending to make us in a measure steadfast like Himself, as when Paul indignantly rebuts his enemies’ charge of levity of purpose and vacillation, and avers that ‘as God is faithful, our word toward you is not yea and nay’ (2Co_1:18).

BI, "Them that love Him and keep His commandments.

Love God, and keep His commandments

The love of God, according to the Scripture notion of it, is a duty easy to be comprehended. And the text before us, which attaches so great a reward to this grace, does, at the same time, show us what it means in saying that God keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments. For the latter words fix and ascertain the meaning of the former, and give us to understand that he who keepeth God’s commandments is he that loveth Him. Nor are the laws and commandments of God, by the keeping of which is evidenced our love of Him, so hard to be understood. For He hath marked out the great lines of our duty by His works of creation and providence, and hath clearly filled them up in His holy Scriptures. “By these He hath showed thee, O man, what is good.” I proceed to the main design of this discourse, which is, to lay before you the reasons and motives of loving and obeying God, which the text offers, from His nature and promises. The name of God implies all that is excellent and adorable; and here, in the first place, by

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the title of Lord added to it, directs our view to His dominion and sovereignty, by which He hath a right to our submission and obedience. We were created by His power, and are sustained by His providence We are born the subjects of His kingdom, which ruleth over all; and are the children of the family of which He is the great Father and Lord; who allots to everyone his rank and condition in it, and expects from all an account of their works. Our passage through life is compared to a voyage over a great ocean where we must wander and be lost, without somewhat to direct us through it. But our safe and certain direction is the law of God, in which we have not less reason to rejoice than “they who go down to the sea in ships and do business in great waters” have in beholding and observing the signs and constellations by which they govern their course over the face of the deep. For mariners, who sail in such tempestuous weather that neither sun nor stars in many days appear, are not in a state of greater perplexity and danger than man would be left in without the laws and commandments which God has set forth, as so many lights and signs from heaven to guide him securely through this voyage of life. We read that, in certain climates of the world, the gales that spring from the land carry a refreshing smell out to sea, and assure the watchful pilot that he is approaching to a desirable and fruitful coast when as yet he cannot discern it with his eyes. And, to take up once more the comparison of life to a voyage, in like manner it fares with those who have steadily and religiously pursued the course which heaven pointed out to them. We shall sometimes find by their conversation towards the end of their days, that they are filled with hope, and peace, and joy, which, like those refreshing gales and reviving odours to the seaman, are breathed forth from paradise upon their souls, and give them to understand with certainty that God is bringing them unto their desired haven. But to return to our proper argument. The wisdom of God is incapable of being misled itself, and His goodness of misleading us; and therefore the precepts which He hath given for the government of our lives must be excellently framed to the perfection and happiness of our nature. His laws, which enjoin the worship and honour of Himself, which command us to honour our parents, to do justice, and to love mercy, which forbid us to injure the life, the peace, the property of our neighbour, are evidently framed for the general good of mankind. And this we are mostly willing to allow. But there are some cases which the laws of God treat as sinful, wherein we are fondly apt to imagine that the injunction is rigorous which forbids us to follow the bent of our inclinations, when, as appears to us, no injury is done to others. Yet God is gracious, alike in His restraints and in His allowances. Some things which He hath forbidden prove injurious to others, if not directly, yet in their consequences. Some waste our time, divert our thoughts from worthy objects, and prevent our usefulness, to which God and society have a right; some consume our substance, to which our families, or the poor, have a claim; some impair the health of the body, which we have no right to destroy, and which, being lost, men become uncomfortable to themselves, dissatisfied with others, and disposed, perhaps, even to repine against that providence which hath left them to reap the fruits of their own folly. In the meanwhile those better principles and purer sentiments of the mind, without which religion and virtue cannot subsist, grow weak and faint, or are blotted out. Evil courses, in the expressive language of Scripture, “take away the heart”; that is, they deprive men of their judgment and darken their understanding; it may be, in the affairs of the world, but most undoubtedly in those things which are spiritually discerned. We are in this life as children in a state of education, training up for another condition of being, of which, at present, we know but little; only, we are assured that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”; that its enjoyments are of a spiritual nature, corresponding more with the faculties of the soul than with the present constitution of the body. The restraints, therefore, under which we are laid, and which seem grievous to us, as children, are

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parts, no doubt, of a wise and gracious discipline, which is to qualify us for a heavenly inheritance, and is so necessary a preparation for it that we cannot otherwise see God or enter into the joy of our Lord. Reason, therefore, in some particulars, and in others faith, which is the evidence of things not seen, will assure the mind of the Christian that every branch of the law of God is most worthy to be honoured and obeyed, as proceeding from infinite loving kindness and goodness to man. Is anyone, then, who professes himself the servant of the Lord, called by Him to a trial of his obedience, wherein some hardship or peril must be undergone? Let him call to mind how much harder trials they who loved and feared God formerly have undergone; let him consider how great things men of noble and ingenuous natures will do, even for an earthly commander; and let him recollect that he is serving a Master who never faileth to succour those who trust in Him, and in whose service he cannot lose the promised reward. For He is the faithful God who keepeth covenant and mercy. And here I am led to the last observation proposed, namely, the encouragement to obedience arising from this consideration, that the Almighty is our Deliverer, who hath visited and redeemed His people by His blessed Son Jesus Christ. (T. Townson, D. D.)

TODAY IN THE WORD

He is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. - Deuteronomy 7:9

After nearly two decades of work, University of Chicago professor Phil Eaton recently created what might be the world’s most powerful non-nuclear explosive. Named one of the most important discoveries of the year 2000 by the American Chemical Society, “octanitrocubane,” as it is called, appears to be about 20 percent more powerful than HMX, currently, one of the most powerful explosives. Pioneered by Eaton, the techniques used to synthesize octanitrocubane have also proved useful in medicine and agriculture. But its most obvious application is military, and it may lead to the production of lighter, more powerful weapons.

When it came to military might, Moses told the Israelites to trust in God, not weapons. He would be the One who would conquer the land for them. They should put their faith not in their spears or their courage, but in their almighty Lord.

During the conquest, the Israelites were to practice “total destruction”--no treaties, no mercy, no intermarriage, no idolatry. The nation was to shun any form of political, social, or religious association with the Canaanites. God wanted to safeguard His “treasured possession” (7:6) from being contaminated by their evil, in particular their idolatry, which would bring on His anger and judgment (Dt 7:16, 25, 26; 8:19, 20; cf. Deut 20:17, 18).

We know that was God’s judgment on the Canaanites for their wickedness (Deut 9:4, 5). The total destruction represented an offering made by Israel to God--the destroyed things were completely devoted to Him, somewhat like a burnt offering.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY

What’s the biggest problem you have in your life these days? Give it over to God to be

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conquered!

PARKER, ""The faithful God."—Deuteronomy 7:9

Considerable instruction is supplied by noting the qualifying terms which are often attached to the divine name.—We read of the living God, the mighty God, the glorious Lord God, and in the text of the faithful God.—Sometimes the qualifying terms are rather repellent than attractive, as, for example, "the great and terrible God," and in Daniel we read of the "great and dreadful God."—These terms do not occur in the New Testament, yet even in the later books of revelation God is described as "a consuming fire," and in the Apocalypse we read of "the wrath of the Lamb," so that there is a line of consistency in the Old Testament and the New as regards the description of the character of God.—Perhaps there is no word which is more profoundly comfortable than the word "faithful" as applied to the divine Being.—It would appear as if "love" were more attractive and soothing, but this is an appearance only. Faithfulness is love; without faithfulness love itself would be impossible, because it would become a mere sentiment, liable to be cooled and changed by passing circumstances. It should be observed that even in the Old Testament, in the very text in which the divine Being is described as the great and terrible God, he is further described as "keeping covenant and mercy for evermore with them that love him and observe his commandments."—God is not the less loving because he is "great and terrible."—The Apostle Paul is very fond of applying the word "faithful" to God and to Jesus Christ, thus: "Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it."—"The Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil."—"God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able."—"God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord."—The Apostle John, too, in a remarkable passage, avails himself of the same descriptive term: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins."—Thus forgiveness itself is an expression of faithfulness and justice, and therefore may be accepted as essential and everlasting.—If God is faithful himself, he expects faithfulness in others.—He praises faithfulness in those who have completed their course of life honourably: "Well done, good and faithful servant."—He would see himself in others.—Faithfulness means consistency, permanency, reality of thought and service, and is absolutely intolerant of all fickleness, self-regard, men-pleasing, and time-serving.—"Be thou faithful unto death."

10 But those who hate him he will repay to

their face by destruction;

he will not be slow to repay to their face

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those who hate him.

BARNES, "Repayeth them that hate him to their face - i. e., punishes His enemies in their own proper persons.

GILL, "And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them,.... Openly, publicly, and at once, they not being able to make any resistance. Onkelos interprets it in their lifetime, and so Jarchi which agrees with the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem: "or to his face"; (f) the face of God; that is, he will punish them that hate him to his face, who are audacious, bold, impudent sinners; sinners before the Lord, as the men of Sodom were, Gen_13:13,

he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face; not defer the execution of his judgment and vengeance, which may seem to slumber and linger, but will quickly and openly bring it upon the sinner; this also the Chaldee paraphrases explain as before.

HENRY, "Just to his enemies: He repays those that hate him, Deu_7:10. Note, [1.] Wilful sinners are haters of God; for the carnal mind is enmity against him. Idolaters are so in a special manner, for they are in league with his rivals. [2.] Those that hate God cannot hurt him, but certainly ruin themselves. He will repay them to their face, in defiance of them and all their impotent malice. His arrows are said to be made ready against the face of them, Psa_21:12. Or, He will bring those judgments upon them which shall appear to themselves to be the just punishment of their idolatry. Compare Job_21:19, He rewardeth him, and he shall know it. Though vengeance seem to be slow, yet it is not slack. The wicked and sinner shall be recompensed in the earth, Pro_11:31. I cannot pass the gloss of the Jerusalem Targum upon this place, because it speaks the faith of the Jewish church concerning a future state: He recompenses to those that hate him the reward of their good works in this world, that he may destroy them in the world to come.

CALVIN, "10.And repayeth them that hate him. There is no mention here made of the

vengeance “unto the third and fourth generation? (222)

Those who expound the passage that God confers kindnesses on the wicked, whilst

they are living in this world, (223) that He may at length destroy them in final

perdition, wrest the words too violently. Nor is the opinion of others probable, that

God repays the wicked with the reward of hatred, in His face, or anger. I therefore

interpret it to mean the face of those to whose disobedience God opposes Himself

when He humbles their arrogance; for He alludes to their pride and audacity, because

they do not hesitate to provoke God, as if He were without the courage or the power to

contend with them. He declares, then, that their impudence and brazen front shall

avail them nothing, but that He will cast down the impertinence of their countenance,

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and the insolence of their forehead; and signifies that they shall as certainly feel the

judgment which they despise, as if He presented it before their eyes. He adds,

moreover, that He will not deal towards the wicked with the clemency which he uses

towards His children; for He so chastises them that His correction is always profitable

for their salvation, whilst He denounces deadly punishment against the former; for

although He seems to deal alike with both, when He inflicts temporal punishment,

still, that which is but a medicine for believers, is to the reprobate a foretaste of their

eternal destruction. What He says, however, as to taking vengeance without delay,

does not seem to accord with other passages of Scripture, in which He declares

Himself to be slow to anger, kind, and long-suffering. Besides, it seems also to be

contradicted by experience, since He does not immediately hasten to inflict

punishment, but proceeds slowly, so as to compensate by His severity for the slowness

with which He acts. But we must remember what He says in Psalms 90:4, that a

thousand years in His sight are but as a single day; and consequently, when we think

that He delays, He is, in His infinite wisdom, hastening as much as is necessary. He

seems, indeed, to take no notice for a time, that He may thus invite men to repent; but

still He declares that He will not delay, but that He will come suddenly, like a

whirlwind, to hasten His judgments, lest the ungodly should grow drowsy from their

security. Let us, therefore, learn quietly and patiently to wait for the fit season of His

vengeance.

COFFMAN, ""He will repay him to his face ..." (Deuteronomy 7:10). Alexander gave

the meaning of this unusual clause thus: "It means openly, manifestly, during this

present life, and so that the hater of God should know and feel that he had been

smitten of God."[24] The principle that God will indeed speedily avenge Himself

upon His enemies (and it would seem especially upon those enemies who are in some

way an actual threat to the kingdom of God) is taught unequivocally in the N.T., as

well as here. A very similar promise is in Luke 18:7, a passage which Dummelow

affirmed "was literally fulfilled in the calamities which overtook the Jews and the

heathen persecutors of the early Christians."[25] Lactantius has twenty pages of the

most interesting events concerning the awful punishments, judgments, and miseries,

which befell the famed persecutors of the church, namely, Nero, Domitian, Decius,

Valerian, Aurelian, Diocletian, etc."[26]

BENSON, "Deuteronomy 7:10. Them that hate him — Not only those who hate him

directly and properly, (for so did few or none of the Israelites to whom he here

speaks,) but those who hate him by implication and consequence; those who hate and

oppose his people and word; those who wilfully persist in the breach of his

commandments. To their face — That is, openly, and so as they shall see it, and not be

able to avoid it. Slack — So as to delay it beyond the fit time or season for vengeance,

yet withal he is long-suffering, and slow to anger.

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11 Therefore, take care to follow the

commands, decrees and laws I give you today.

GILL, "Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments,.... The laws, moral, ceremonial, and judicial, urged thereunto both by promises and threatenings, in hopes of reward, and through fear of punishment:

which I command thee this day, to do them; in the name of the Lord, and by his authority; by virtue of which he made a new declaration of them to put them in mind of them in order to observe them.

JAMISON 11-26, "Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day — In the covenant into which God entered with Israel, He promised to bestow upon them a variety of blessings so long as they continued obedient to Him as their heavenly King. He pledged His veracity that His infinite perfections would be exerted for this purpose, as well as for delivering them from every evil to which, as a people, they would be exposed. That people accordingly were truly happy as a nation, and found every promise which the faithful God made to them amply fulfilled, so long as they adhered to that obedience which was required of them. See a beautiful illustration of this in Psa_144:12-15.

12 If you pay attention to these laws and are

careful to follow them, then the Lord your God

will keep his covenant of love with you, as he

swore to your ancestors.

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CLARKE, "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.

GILL, "Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep and do them,.... Attentively listen to the declaration made of them, and be careful to observe them:

that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers; to bring them into the land of Canaan, and continue them in it; yea, to send the Messiah to them, and bring him the salvation of Israel out of Zion; see Luk_1:68.

HENRY, "Here, I. The caution against idolatry is repeated, and against communion with idolaters: “Thou shalt consume the people, and not serve their gods.” Deu_7:16. We are in danger of having fellowship with the works of darkness if we take pleasure in fellowship with those that do those works. Here is also a repetition of the charge to destroy the images, Deu_7:25, Deu_7:26. The idols which the heathen had worshipped were an abomination to God, and therefore must be so to them: all that truly love God hat what he hates. Observe how this is urged upon them: Thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; such a holy indignation as this must we conceive against sin, that abominable thing which the Lord hates. They must not retain the images to gratify their covetousness: Thou shalt not desire the silver nor gold that is on them, nor think it a pity to have that destroyed. Achan paid dearly for converting that to his own use which was an anathema. Nor must they retain them to gratify their curiosity: “Neither shalt thou bring it into thy house, to be hung up as an ornament, or preserved as a monument of antiquity. No, to the fire with it, that is the fittest place for it.” Two reasons are given for this caution: - 1. Lest thou be snared therein (Deu_7:25), that is, “Lest thou be drawn, ere thou art aware, to like it and love it, to fancy it and pay respect to it” 2. Lest thou be a cursed thing like it, Deu_7:26. Those that make images are said to be like the, stupid and senseless; here they are said to be in a worse sense like them, accursed of God and devoted to destruction. Compare these two reasons together, and observe that whatever brings us into a snare brings us under a curse.

II. The promise of God's favour to them, if they would be obedient, is enlarged upon with a most affecting copiousness and fluency of expression, which intimates how much it is both God's desire and our own interest that we be religious. All possible assurance is here given them,

1. That, if they would sincerely endeavour to do their part of the covenant, God would certainly perform his part. He shall keep the mercy which he swore to thy fathers, Deu_7:12. Let us be constant in our duty, and we cannot question the constancy of God's mercy.

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CALVIN, "12.Wherefore it shall come to pass. God appears so to act according to

agreement, as to leave (His people) no hope of His favor, unless they perform their

part of it; and undoubtedly this is the usual form of expression in the Law, in which

the condition is inserted, that God will do good to His people if they have deserved it

by their obedience. Still we must remember what we have elsewhere seen, that, after

God has so covenanted with them, He Himself, in order that His promise may not be

made of none effect, descends to the gratuitous promise of pardon, whereby He

reconciles the unworthy to Himself. Thus the original covenant only avails to man’s

condemnation. But when salvation is offered to them gratuitously, their works at the

same time become pleasing to God. Inasmuch, however, as the cause of reward is

unconnected with men and their works, all calculation of merit is out of the question:

still it is profitable to believers that a reward should be promised them if they walk in

the commandments of God; since, in His inestimable liberality, He deals with them as

if they did something to deserve it.

In conclusion, Moses enumerates some of the proofs of God’s favor, such as

fecundity, and an abundance of the fruits of the earth. It is questionable whether by

what is added at the end respecting the diseases of Egypt, he means the boils which

were generated by the scattered ashes, (Exodus 9:8,) or the lice which infested both

man and beast, (Exodus 8:17,) or whether he extends them to those diseases which

had prevailed long before the departure of the people. I am disposed to embrace the

latter opinion; (224) for in Deuteronomy 28:27, after mentioning “the botch of Egypt,”

he adds “emerods, and the scab, and the itch:” it is, therefore, probable that the

Egyptians were subject to various maladies, from which Moses declares that the

people should be free by special privilege, if only they obeyed God’s Law.

COFFMAN, "Physical and material prosperity were the rewards promised to the

covenant people of the O.T. Great as these rewards assuredly were, the spiritual

rewards of the new covenant are far superior. Also, the N.T. abundantly teaches that

many of the old physical and material rewards of the O.T. are likewise given unto the

faithful under the new covenant. Has not God promised to be with His people,

"always, even unto the end of the world?"

A significant aspect of the teaching here regarding the fruitfulness of body, land,

cattle, etc., is that all such fruitfulness is attributed to God alone, and this is just the

opposite of the claims of the cultists of Canaan who attributed the fruitfulness of their

fields and the fertility of themselves and of their cattle to their sex gods and goddesses

which they worshipped with such abominable rites.

Wonderful as the grace of God assuredly is, it should be noted that all of the blessings

here promised were contingent, absolutely, upon Israel's fidelity to the holy covenant.

"Even the elect, may become faithless, and so become reprobate!"[27] Thus, it came

about that 24,000 of the elect who came up out of Egypt committed fornication in a

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single day, lost their lives, and, of course, were denied entry into Canaan. "Let him

that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." (1 Corinthians 10:12).

CONSTABLE, "Verses 12-26

Obedience would bring blessing. Moses enumerated the blessings for remaining

completely devoted to God and refusing to practice idolatry (Deuteronomy 7:13-16).

Grain, wine, and oil (Deuteronomy 7:13) represent the three principle food products

of Canaan. [Note: S. R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on

Deuteronomy, p. 103.] The Israelites could obtain encouragement in battle by

remembering God's past faithfulness (Deuteronomy 7:17-21). God told the Israelites

He would drive out the Canaanites gradually (Deuteronomy 7:22). He would not

allow them to destroy the Canaanites totally until they had grown large enough

numerically to care for the land adequately (cf. Exodus 23:27-33). This gradual

extermination would be hard for the Israelites in that the temptations to idolatry would

abound on every hand. Nevertheless it would be better for them than sudden

annihilation of their enemies because in that case the land would become wild and

unmanageable. The Israelites were not to take the gold and silver from the Canaanite

idols for themselves (Deuteronomy 7:25). The whole idol was under the ban (Heb.

herem), and they were to destroy it and give the precious metals to God for His use.

They would do this by bringing these offerings to the tabernacle.

Believers should not make defiling alliances with unbelievers who are pursuing lives

of rebellion against God but should oppose their actions (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:14-18).

MEYER, " WHAT THE LORD DOES FOR HIS PEOPLE

Deu_7:12-26

The promises to obedience are enlarged upon with touching copiousness. Love, blessing, keeping, peace, multiplication, fruit and health lie along the narrow pathway entered by the strait gate of the Cross. However forbidding its entrance, it “leadeth unto life.” May Christ secure in us this obedience which He, too, demands and achieves by His Spirit! Joh_14:15.

Whatever be the strength of the Amalekites and Hittites of the heart, let us not fear. We have been “reconciled by His death” and shall be “saved by His life,” Rom_5:10. “Little by little” is the law of progressive sanctification. The Holy Spirit shows us the next portion to be taken and the enemies that resist our prayers. But as we advance, they are driven out, Isa_54:17.

We resemble what we admire. Let us set our affections above. To abhor the evil and pursue the good casts a glory on our face. Compare Deu_7:26; Psa_115:8; 2Co_3:18.

PARKER, "But was the election itself arbitrary, fixed, and wholly independent of the spirit and conduct of those who were elected? The answer is given in the twelfth verse:—"Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep,

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and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers." So election has been misunderstood. Men have not been slow to say,—Once in grace always in grace; being born again we may do what we please; we are not now under the law; we are Jews no more; we are free to sin. Nowhere is that doctrine taught in the Old Testament or in the New. The contrary doctrine is put in every possible variety of words, and is vindicated by every possible variety of event and circumstance in human history. We are committed to the law which demands righteousness. Over all controversies and all endeavours to escape restraint and prohibition there rises this great inquiry,—"What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" That is Christian life,—not some metaphysical mystery which has no practical exemplification, but a profound spiritual mystery which proves itself by conduct as mysterious in its nobleness as its origin is mysterious in its divinity. There are two mysteries in the Christian life: the mystery of its beginning and the mystery of its maintenance,—the mystery of spirit and the mystery of conduct. Whenever a man, smitten on the one cheek, turns the other also, he sustains and completes the mystery of regeneration. The man who is living on metaphysical conceptions, and dreaming away his life in theological contemplation, without unfolding the mysteries of grace in the mysteries of conduct, has abused the covenant, and has committed high treason against the throne of God.

13 He will love you and bless you and increase

your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your

womb, the crops of your land—your grain,

new wine and olive oil—the calves of your

herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land

he swore to your ancestors to give you.

BARNES, "Flocks of thy sheep - Render it instead: “the ewes of thy sheep.” The phrase is unique to Deuteronomy. The Hebrew word for “ewes” is the plural form of Ashtoreth, the well-known name of the “goddess of the Zidonians” 1Ki_11:5. This goddess, called by the Classical writers “Astarte,” and identified with “Venus,” represented the fruitfulness of nature.

GILL, "And he will love thee,.... As he has done, and rest in his love, and give

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further instances and proofs of it:

and bless thee, and multiply thee; that is bless thee with a multiplication of offspring, which was what was often promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that their seed should be as the stars of heaven, the dust of the earth, and the sand of the sea:

he will also bless the fruit of thy womb; not only give strength to conceive, but carry on the pregnancy, preserve the foetus, and prevent miscarrying:

and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil; which were the principal produce of it:

the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep: their larger and lesser cattle, oxen and sheep: in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee; the land of Canaan, given in promise, and that established by an oath.

HENRY, "2. That if they would love God and serve him, and devote themselves and theirs to him, he would love them, and bless them, and multiply them greatly, Deu_7:13, Deu_7:14. What could they desire more to make them happy? (1.) “He will love thee.” He began in love to us (1Jo_4:10), and, if we return his love in filial duty, then, and then only, we may expect the continuance of it, Joh_14:21. (2.) “He will bless thee with the tokens of his love above all people.” If they would distinguish themselves from their neighbours by singular services, God would dignify them above their neighbours by singular blessings. (3.) “He will multiply thee.” Increase was the ancient blessing for the peopling of the world, once and again (Gen_1:28; Gen_9:1), and here for the peopling of Canaan, that little world by itself. The increase both of their families and of their stock is promised: they should neither have estates without heirs nor heirs without estates, but should have the complete satisfaction of having many children and plentiful provisions and portions for the

COFFMAN, "Deuteronomy 7:13. There is a very strange thing in this verse, in that

the Hebrew word for ewes "is the plural form of Ashtoreth. This goddess, called by

the classical writers Astarte, is identified with Venus, and represents the fruitfulness

of nature."[28]

14 You will be blessed more than any other

people; none of your men or women will be

childless, nor will any of your livestock be

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without young.

GILL, "Thou shalt be blessed above all people,.... Even with temporal blessings, besides those of a religious kind; they having the oracles of God, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises, Rom_3:1,

there shall not be male or female barren among you; which to be was reckoned a reproach, and the contrary a blessing, Luk_1:25 Psa_128:3.

or among your cattle; the Targum of Jonathan is, nor thy beasts barren of wool, and milk, and lambs.

15 The Lord will keep you free from every

disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible

diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict

them on all who hate you.

BARNES, "There seems to be here not so much as a reference to the plagues inflicted miraculously by God on Egypt (compare Exo_15:26), as to the terrible diseases with which, above other countries, Egypt was infested. Compare Deu_28:27, Deu_28:35. It is not without significance that Egypt, which represents in Scripture the world as contrasted with the Church, should thus above other lands lie under the power of disease and death.

GILL, "And will take away from thee all sickness,.... Bodily sickness and diseases, prevent the coming of them, or remove them when come:

and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt which thou knowest upon thee; meaning either the plagues that were inflicted upon them to oblige them to let the Israelites go, of which they had perfect knowledge; or else some noxious and nauseous diseases, which were common among, and peculiar to, the Egyptians, particularly what is called the botch of Egypt; see Exo_15:26, likewise the leprosy; See Gill on Lev_13:2; see Gill on Deu_28:27.

but will lay them upon all them that hate thee; with which God sometimes punishes his and his people's enemies; see Jdg_5:9.

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HENRY, "3. That, if they would keep themselves pure from the idolatries of Egypt, God would keep them clear form the diseases of Egypt, Deu_7:15. It seems to refer not only to those plagues of Egypt by the force of which they were delivered, but to some other epidemical country disease (as we call it), which they remembered the prevalency of among the Egyptians, and by which God had chastised them for their national sins. 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 to mortify the sin of our souls.

COFFMAN, "Deuteronomy 7:15. This has God's promise that He would protect Israel

against the diseases with which He had afflicted the Egyptians. This corresponds to

the promise God had made previously in Exodus 15:26. As to what those diseases

were, Davies identified these as: "dysentery, elephantiasis, and ophthalmia";[29] and

to these Jamieson added, "smallpox and the plague."[30] It is amazing that in this

verse disease appears as something that God sent upon sinful people as punishment. In

harmony with that view, a number of respected medical authorities have expressed the

opinion that the dreadful malady - AIDS - is a direct judgment of God upon the sin

with which the disease is undoubtedly associated.[31]

ELLICOTT, "(15) Evil diseases.—The word for diseases here used is found only in

Deuteronomy (see Deuteronomy 28:60). It must not be forgotten that the law of

Moses was in many of its details a sanitary quite as much as a moral code. Some of

the associations of this word and the root from which it is derived would seem to

point to those “languors” and “infirmities” which arise from neglect and violation of

the laws of God, both moral and physical.

BENSON, "Deuteronomy 7:15. The diseases of Egypt — Such as the Egyptians were

infected with, either commonly, or miraculously. It seems to refer not only to the

plagues of Egypt, but to some other epidemic diseases, which they remembered to

have prevailed among the Egyptians, and by which God had chastised them for their

national sins. The leprosy, and other cutaneous distempers, were frequent in Egypt.

The Scriptures also mention the botch of Egypt, as a disease common in that country,

Deuteronomy 28:27. Diseases are God’s servants, which go where he sends them, and

do what he bids them.

16 You must destroy all the peoples the Lord

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your God gives over to you. Do not look on

them with pity and do not serve their gods, for

that will be a snare to you.

GILL, "And thou shall consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee,.... All the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, which the Lord should deliver into their hands; them they were not to spare, but utterly destroy men, women, and children:

thine eye shall have no pity upon them; See Gill on Deu_7:2,

neither shall thou serve their gods, for that will be a snare unto thee; which will bring into utter ruin and destruction; see Exo_23:33.

HENRY, "4. That, if they would cut off the devoted nations, they should cut them off,

and none should be able to stand before them. Their duty in this matter would itself

be their advantage: Thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall

deliver thee - this is the precept (Deu_7:16); and the Lord thy God shall deliver them

unto thee, and shall destroy them - this is the promise, Deu_7:23. Thus we are

commanded not to let sin reign, not to indulge ourselves in it nor give countenance to

it, but to hate it and strive against it; and then God has promised that sin shall not

have dominion over us (Rom_6:12, Rom_6:14), but that we shall be more than

conquerors over it. The difficulty and doubtfulness of the conquest of Canaan having

been a stone of stumbling to their fathers, Moses here animates them against those

things which were most likely to discourage them, bidding them not to be afraid of

them, Deu_7:18, and again, Deu_7:21.

CALVIN, "16.And thou shalt consume all the people. It is plain from the second part

of the verse wherefore He commands the people of Canaan to be destroyed, when He

forbids their gods to be worshipped. This precept, therefore, corresponds with the

others, where He dooms in like manner these nations to utter destruction. I now pass

over what I have explained elsewhere, i.e., that the vengeance which God exercised

against these obstinate and ten-times lost people cannot be ascribed to cruelty. For

since 400 years ago it had been said to Abraham that their iniquity was not yet full,

they could not be treated with severity equal to their deserts, when they had so

licentiously and wickedly abused God’s long-suffering. But we must take notice of

God’s design in so particularly enjoining on the Israelites utterly to destroy whatever

should be found there; for besides that He had once doomed them all to the

destruction they merited, He would have the land also, in which His name was to be

invoked, purged from all pollutions. Now, if any of the old inhabitants had survived,

they would soon have endeavored to revive their corruptions, and since the Israelites

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were otherwise more disposed than enough to superstition, they would easily have

been attracted to the worship of idols. This, then, is the reason why God forbids them

to shew these people any humanity or clemency, as I have reminded you to be clear

from the context; for these things stand in connection, that they should not spare the

nations nor worship their gods. The reason which is subjoined, “for it will be a snare

or stumblingblock to you,” must be extended to the whole context, viz., that it would

be fatal to the Jews if they should spare the nations which would allure them to

impiety.

COFFMAN, ""That will be a snare unto thee ..." (Deuteronomy 7:16). The Hebrew

Scriptures have many references to the devices by which men captured animals and

birds, and "snare" is surely one of the favorite metaphors of the sacred writers.

"It was a noose made of hair for small birds, and of wire for larger birds. The snares

were set in a favorable location and grain was scattered to attract the feathered

creatures. The birds accepted the bribe of good feeding and walked into the snare not

suspecting any danger. For this reason, the snare became particularly applicable to

describing a tempting bribe offered by men in order to lead their fellows into

trouble."[32]

There are at least fifteen Biblical instances of the use of this remarkable metaphor.

ELLICOTT, "(16) Thou shalt consume (literally, eat up) all the people which the Lord

thy God shall deliver thee.—When delivered to Israel, they are delivered for

execution; but the time of delivery is in the hand of Jehovah. (Comp. the words of

Caleb and Joshua in Numbers 14:9 : “They are bread for us: their shadow is departed

from them, and the Lord is with us.”)

BI, "Thou shalt consume all the people.

The destruction of the Canaanites

I. The destruction of the Canaanites was in conformity with the ordinary procedure of God in the moral government of the world. If He choose, in punishing sinners, to visit at one time with a flood of waters, at another with fire from heaven, at another with a deadly epidemic, at another with the scourge of war, who shall dare to question the propriety of His choice in the weapons of destruction?

II. The destruction of the Canaanites was in punishment of sin and as such was just towards themselves. The vilest practices were rife among the people. Their very religion was a system of sorcery, sensuality, and depravity. The traces of ancient Syrian worship exhibit the vilest features of pagan idolatry. Their very gods were demons (Psa_106:37). Human sacrifices were offered at their shrines. The grossest abominations were practised in their orgies. If such, then, was the light, what would the darkness be? In other words, if this was the religion of the country, what would the vices of the people be?

III. The destruction of the Canaanites was a spiritual safeguard to the Israelites. We are tempted to ask whether it was well that the Israelites should be made the executioners of God’s wrath upon their brother man. Would they not be tempted to lose sight of their subordination to God’s purpose, and to take up the cause with

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feelings of proper fanaticism? Again, would not the part to which they were called tend to foster in them cruelty and recklessness of human life? On the contrary, we find that the snare of the Israelites lay in the opposite direction, and that they were ever more ready to spare than to slay. No token appears of any tendency to rapacity or violence having been impressed upon the national mind, while the salutary lessons that were thus taught them are apparent. In no way could the Israelites have been so forcibly convinced of the hatefulness of idolatry and impurity as when they themselves were made God’s ministers of vengeance against the crying evils. They were thus made witnesses against themselves should they ever adopt like abominations.

IV. The destruction of the Canaanites was necessary for the moral preservation of the world. Clearly it was an act of mercy to the little children of the Canaanites, who were cut off before they knew between good and evil. To the Israelites the extirpation of these nations was an act of mercy. Even crippled and curtailed as the Canaanites were, their influence for evil was too strong; but had they remained in larger bodies, and especially had the women been spared, piety would soon have become unknown among the people of God. But if the destruction of the Canaanites was an act of mercy to Israel, and necessary for their spiritual safely, it follows that it was not less a mercy to the whole world, and necessary for the preservation of the spiritual life of the entire family of mankind. The Church of the present day is but the continuation of the Church of the wilderness. Had that been destroyed, the materials of which the Saviour at His coming built the Church of the New Testament would not have been in existence. The impediments in the way of the Gospel would have been tenfold. To the present day the early ruin of the faith of God’s people which would have resulted from the general toleration of the Canaanites would have borne its bitter fruits.

V. The destruction of the Canaanites has a deep symbolical and practical lesson for us all. God changes not; the same principles direct His dealings now as then. The flesh must be mortified and subdued. See Jesus, our Joshua, stretches forth the spear. He commands the conflict; onward, then, and conquer. (G. W. Butler, M. A.)

The Christian failure and its reasons

Though the Israelites have passed out of Egypt and beyond the Red Sea and through the wilderness, they have not passed beyond the domain of struggle and duty; they must go on to possess the land. In its southeastern border dwell the Moabites; north of them are the Amorites, strongly intrenched; above them the Hittites; on the west side, beyond the Jordan, are the Anakim; above these, a mighty nation, the Canaanites; near them the Perizzites, etc.

I. The thing to be done. Too much is our Christianity over-anxious about its beginnings and too careless about its subsequent growth and reach. We are all the time seeking just to get people out of Egypt, we are all the time too unconcerned as to whether these people go on to conquer Canaan for the Lord. Having “come to Jesus,” the reign of Jesus is to be extended inwardly over the entire soul, outwardly over the entire life. Canaan reached was not Canaan conquered. The converted man is not yet a sanctified man. Evil pride, vanity, jealousy, covetousness, passionateness, discontent, bad habits, etc.

Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites enough are yet resident in even the converted soul.

II. The force by which this conquest is to be accomplished. “And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee.” The soul and God—these are the forces of conflict.

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III. Some reasons for the Christian failure.

1. Ceasing of battle. After a while some of the Israelites stopped struggling against the aliens.

2. Fear. These Israelites would not struggle against certain of the aliens, because they had chariots of iron. So some bad habit frightens a Christian from struggle.

3. Success of a sort. “And it came to pass when Israel was strong they put the Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out.” Many a man, professedly Christian, dares not attempt to be the Christian he knows he ought to be because, successful in worldly affairs, his worldly interests will not let him. So he salves his conscience by putting his questionable gain “under tribute”; gives it, or a portion of it, in charity, etc.

IV. Result. “Will be a snare unto thee.” Was their failure not a snare? Call to mind the history of the Israelites, the destruction of the ten tribes. The only proof of a real Christianity is a continually advancing self-conquest. (Homiletic Review.)

OBERST, "NEITHER SHALT THOU SERVE THEIR GODS; FOR THAT WILL BE A

SNARE UNTO THEE (v. 16)' — The Hebrew word for "snare" (moquesk)

Baumgartner's Lexicon defines as "bait, lure {of fowler), bird-trap," "The

snares were set in a favorable location and grain scattered to attract the

attention of feathered creatures. They accepted the bribe of good feeding

and walked into the snare, not suspecting danger. For this reason the

snare became particularly applicable in describing a tempting bribe

offered by men to lead their fellows into trouble . . ." (I.S.B.E.)

17 You may say to yourselves, “These nations

are stronger than we are. How can we drive

them out?”

GILL, "If thou shall say in thine heart,.... Should have secret thoughts arise in the heart, misgivings of heart, fears and doubts there, which, though not outwardly expressed, might be inwardly retained:

these nations are more than I; seven to one, and perhaps anyone of them as powerful as Israel:

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how can I dispossess them? of the land they inherit, and take possession of it.

BI 17-18, "Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well remember what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh.

Encouragement for the Christian warrior

To a man about to journey into a strange country nothing gives more comfort or confidence than if there be put into his hand, by way of guide through it, a book written by someone who has travelled that country before him. He will read that book not for entertainment, but instruction; that he may learn beforehand how to make his way, what to take with him, what to beware of, and whither to betake himself for rest and refreshment on the way. In like manner the Bible has been given us to make us acquainted with the way itself, with the difficulties and the dangers of it, with the enemies that we shall meet with in it, and our only way of overcoming them.

I. The spiritual state here represented. The Jewish Church in the wilderness may be here regarded as a type or figure of the Church of Christ in the world, and the case of each member of the one as prefiguring in some particulars the condition of each believer in the other. But like as Israel, though free from Egypt and from all fear of being carried thither again, notwithstanding, had not overcome all enemies, but was to fight his way against them and never give them quarter, but fight on till they were utterly destroyed; so now is the believer in Christ called to fight the good “fight of faith, and lay hold upon eternal life.” We may perceive, then, that the situation of Israel when Moses addressed them in the words of the text, represents to us the present state of the follower of Christ, and the warfare which he has to war under Christ as his captain against the enemies of his salvation.

II. The fears which commonly attend this state. The strength and number of the enemies whom Israel had to fight was well known to that people; but the Lord Himself had repeatedly put them in mind of it, saying continually, after He had numbered them over, that they were “seven nations greater and mightier than Israel.” But why did God say so? Was it to make them afraid of these nations? No; but to enliven their faith and exercise their dependence upon God. It was quite true, and a notorious truth, that those nations were in point of strength and number quite an overmatch for Israel; so that it was impossible for him in his own strength to dispossess them. It was also true that, till they were dispossessed, the land of promise could not be enjoyed; so that these two considerations, the strength end number of the enemies of Israel and his own weakness, were the more immediate causes of his fears. The fears often felt by the Christian are much of the same kind. His enemies are of three kinds—the world, the flesh, and the devil: mighty all of them, and many; for the world and the flesh and the devil have marshalled under them whole hosts of enemies, of whom anyone, encountered by the Christian in his own strength, would be too strong. And oh I should he compare himself with them, what painful cause has he for the acknowledgment, “These are more than I!” It is in such a ease too natural for him to look within himself, and, pausing upon what he finds there, ask, almost in despair, “How can I dispossess them?” But mark how graciously the Lord anticipates, prevents such fears: “If thou shalt say in thine heart (He too well knows His people will say so), These nations am more than I: how can I dispossess them?”—this is their—

III. Encouragement. “Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well remember,” etc. What God had done to Egypt and her king, Israel had seen and knew: it was because of this that they were then where they were, and that they were not in Egypt

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now; and God calls upon them to remember, for encouragement, what they had been in time past, “Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt”; and what had been done for their deliverance, and who had been the doer of it, Himself, the Lord their God: thus every word appears to have an emphasis intended to encourage them against their fears. Now, this encouragement, which God addressed to them, may serve as a figure of that which forms the encouragement of every Christian; for it is now the privilege of every Christian to look, for his encouragement, at the redemption wrought for him by Christ. Under all his fears he should remember what a wretched, lost condition Christ redeemed His people from, and how and why He did it. That state is thus described in Eph_2:1. This was the state of every one of us by nature. And how were they set free from it? By no less an act of love than the death of God’s own Son in His dead people’s stead (Rom_5:6). We see, then, that the encouragement of a true Christian, under all his fears and against all the enemies of his soul, is in that sure covenant and rich provision of all things his soul can need, through that redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Does he find the world too strong for him; does he dread the rage and malice of its children who are set against him, or the snares and perils which the God of this world sets about his path? Or does he tremble at that overwhelming crowd of cares which comes upon him daily with his first waking thought? Let him not be afraid of these things, but let him well remember what Christ did for him when he was dead in trespasses and sins; and thus strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, let him cast all his care on God. Does he dread the power of his own corruptions, and ask, “How can I dispossess them? Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Let him faithfully remember the encouragement suggested by the text, and he shall soon say also with the apostle, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Or lastly, is he troubled by the fear of death, “the last enemy that shall be destroyed”? Christ, his Redeemer, through His own death, hath abolished death by destroying him that had the power of death—that is, the devil. In short, the Christian’s “life is hid,” and so kept safe from every enemy, “with Christ in God.” (F. F. Clark, B. A.)

CALVIN, "17If thou shalt say in thine heart. Since it was a matter of great difficulty to

destroy such a multitude of men, and despair itself would drive them to madness, so

that it would be frivolous for the Israelites to cut off all hope of mercy, God

anticipates their fear, and exhorts them to the strenuous execution of His sentence.

From whence we gather some useful instruction; whenever God commands anything

which exceeds our power, we must still obey and boldly break through whatever

obstacles present themselves to impede us. In all arduous matters, therefore, let this

doctrine come to our aid, that whatever is contrary to God’s will may easily be

annihilated by His almighty power. But since terror, presented to our eyes,

immediately so lays hold of all our senses that we lie as it were torpid, God recalls to

the recollection of the Israelites what abundant grounds of confidence He had supplied

them with. For all the miracles He had wrought were so many proofs of His invincible

power; and hence they should conclude that nothing was to be dreaded, provided God

should go before them, and that, therefore, being assured of victory, they should not

descend to any treaties.

COFFMAN, "Concerning "the hornets" mentioned in Deuteronomy 7:20, we like the

comment of Wright in the Interpreter's Bible, that the question of whether these were

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literally hornets or if this is a metaphor for some other type of opposition, "is not

clear!"[33] We say "Amen" to that! Some commentators have voiced the opinion that,

"There is no ground for interpreting the hornets literally; the reference symbolizes

some form of God's activity on behalf of Israel."[34] An opposing view is that of

Oberst who said, "I take these verses literally, believing that God actually did use

wasps or hornets to assist Israel in battle. Why couldn't he?"[35] W. L. Alexander

mentioned the fact that the Roman Emperor Julian was compelled to change the route

of his retreat from Parthia "by a host of flies and gnats."[36] It appears to us that

believers may choose either of these viewpoints. However, we should reject outright

the know-it-all scholars who have taken the options away from us and changed the

translation to conform to what they suppose the sacred author meant. Smith-

Goodspeed, for example, rendered "leprosy" here instead of hornet; the Torah renders

it as "plague"; Lamsa gives us "raiders"; and Baumgarmer translates it "depression and

discouragement."[37] Needless to say, such renditions are not translations at all, but

opinions of scholars passed off to the non-suspecting public as "the Word of God."

For those who prefer the metaphorical interpretation of the hornets, perhaps the best

support of such a view is found in Peter Lange's comment. (See the Bible commentary

by Peter Lange).

OBERST, "IF THOU SHALT SAY IN THY HEART, THESE NATIONS ARE

MORE

THAN I (v. 17) — The very attitude that had kept them out of the

promised land before (1:26-33, Num. 13:32—14:4)

HOW CAN I dispossess them? (v. 17) — One cannot read these

lines without thinking of the many "impossible" and apparently insur-

mountable difficulties that sometimes face the people of God today. And

doubtfully the question is asked, "How can I do it? How can I overcome

it? The answer is, YOU can't! "But God is able." This does not mean idly

sitting back and supposing that "all will work out." But it does mean

simply doing what we can in the Lord's work, with a child-like faith in

our Master, knowmg that we labor for "him that is able to do exceeding

abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that

worketh in us" (Eph, 3:20).

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18 But do not be afraid of them; remember

well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh

and to all Egypt.

GILL, "Thou shalt not be afraid of them,.... Neither on account of their number, nor their strength:

but shall well remember what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt; a people more numerous and potent than the Canaanites, among whom the Lord wrought such wonderful things by his power, which obliged them to let Israel go; and his power was now the same, he could do as great things to the Canaanites as he had to the Egyptians; and as he had delivered them out of the hands of the Egyptians, he could as easily deliver the Canaanites into their hands, and put them into the possession of their country.

HENRY, " Let them not be disheartened by the number and strength of their

enemies: Say not, They are more than I, how can I dispossess them? Deu_7:17. We

are apt to think that the most numerous must needs be victorious: but, to fortify

Israel against this temptation, Moses reminds them of the destruction of Pharaoh

and all the power of Egypt, Deu_7:18, Deu_7:19. They had seen the great

temptations, or miracles (so the Chaldee reads it), the signs and wonders, wherewith

God had brought them out of Egypt, in order to his bringing them into Canaan, and

thence might easily infer that God could dispossess the Canaanites (who, though

formidable enough, had not such advantages against Israel as the Egyptians had; he

that had done the greater could do the less), and that he would dispossess them,

otherwise his bringing Israel out of Egypt had been no kindness to them. He that

begun would finish. Thou shalt therefore well remember this, Deu_7:18. The word

and works of God are well remembered when they are improved as helps to our faith

and obedience. That is well laid up which is ready to us when we have occasion to use

it.

ELLICOTT, "(18) Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well remember . . .

Egypt.—No free nation could ever have the same ground for terror as a nation of

slaves rising up against its masters. If Israel had been delivered by Jehovah in that

position, it was a security for all time that He would give them the victory in every

enterprise He called them to undertake.

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19 You saw with your own eyes the great

trials, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand

and outstretched arm, with which the Lord

your God brought you out. The Lord your God

will do the same to all the peoples you now

fear.

GILL, "The great temptations which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders,.... The miracles wrought in Egypt; see Deu_4:34.

and the mighty hand, and stretched out arm, whereby the Lord thy God brought thee out; that is, out of Egypt, which was an instance and proof of his almighty power:

so shall the Lord thy God do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid; not perform the same miraculous operations among them, but exert the same power in the destruction of them, and in dispossessing them of their land, as in destroying the Egyptians, and delivering Israel from among them.

ELLICOTT, "(19) The great temptations.—The several repetitions of the summons to

Pharaoh that he should let Israel go, accompanied and enforced by plagues, may well

be called “temptations” in the sense of trials of his character. The word “temptation”

in the sense of “inducement to sin” is very rare, if not absolutely wanting, in the Old

Testament.

20 Moreover, the Lord your God will send the

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hornet among them until even the survivors

who hide from you have perished.

GILL, "Moreover, the Lord thy God will send the hornet among them,.... Not a single one, but several of them, and which may be understood of creatures so called, which resemble wasps, only twice as large, an insect very bold and venomous; see Exo_23:28. Aben Ezra interprets it of the leprosy:

until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed; such of the Canaanites who escaped the sword of the Israelites, and hid themselves in holes and caverns of the earth; these the hornets would find out and sting them to death, until they were all destroyed. Thus God can make use of small creatures, even insects, to destroy nations the most populous and mighty.

HENRY 20-21, " Let them not be disheartened by the weakness and deficiency of

their own forces; for God will send them in auxiliary troops of hornets, or wasps, as

some read it (Deu_7:20), probably larger than ordinary, which would so terrify and

molest their enemies (and perhaps be the death of many to them) that their most

numerous armies would become an easy prey to Israel. God plagued the Egyptians

with flies, but the Canaanites with hornets. Those who take not warning by less

judgments on others may expect greater on themselves. But the great encouragement

of Israel was that they had God among them, a mighty God and terrible, Deu_7:21.

And if God be for us, if God be with us, we need not fear the power of any creature

against us.

CALVIN, "20.Moreover, the Lord thy God will send the hornet. Since the destruction

of their enemies might seem long, if they were only to be slain by their hands and

weapons, and again, because it was scarcely credible that, without defending

themselves, they would voluntarily stretch forth their own throats, God promises that

in another way also He would supply the means of their conquest. Therefore, lest the

Israelites, imagining that their enemies would be prompt and vigorous in resistance,

should be alarmed or affrighted, God declares that other forces should be at hand, for

that hornets or other poisonous insects should destroy all the fugitives. The same

declaration is found in Exodus 23:0; and what God had promised, Joshua relates that

He performed. (Joshua 24:12.) But inasmuch as these nations were not to be destroyed

in a moment, lest the people should therefore grow weary or become inactive, God

anticipates this, and reminds them that this delay would be advantageous, for when all

the inhabitants were exterminated, the wild beasts would occupy the empty land. The

prolongation of the war, therefore, ought not to trouble them, for by it God provided

for His people’s welfare, since, if the men were speedily destroyed, they should have

to contend with wild beasts. But though the passage which I have quoted from Exodus

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is similar in terms, yet I have designedly placed it under another head; for God here

refers to the extermination of the Gentile nations with another object, i.e., lest any of

the ancient pollutions should remain in the land, and lest the Israelites should mingle

with the ungodly, by whose arts they might at length be drawn away to spurious

religions.

ELLICOTT, "(20) The hornet.—To be understood literally. (See on Deuteronomy

1:44, and Joshua 24:12.) The “land flowing with (milk and) honey” may well have

swarmed with bees and hornets.

BI, "The Lord thy God will send the hornet.

Secret sins driven out by stinging hornets

I. Sins which are left and hidden. John Bunyan very wisely describes the town of Mansoul after it had been taken by Prince Immanuel. The Prince rode to the Castle called the Heart and took possession of it, and the whole city became his; but there were certain Diabolonians, followers of Diabolus, who never quitted the town. They could not be seen in the streets, could not be heard in the markets, never dared to occupy a house, but lurked about in certain old dens and eaves. Some of them got impudent enough even to hire themselves out for servants to the men of Mansoul under other names. There was Mr. Covetousness, who was called Mr. Prudent Thrifty, and there was Mr. Lasciviousness, who was called Mr. Harmless Mirth. They took other names, and still lived here, much to the annoyance of the town of Mansoul, skulking about in holes and corners, and only coming out on dark days, when they could do mischief and serve the Black Prince. Now, in all of us, however watchful we may be, though we may set Mr. Pry Well to listen at the door, and he may watch, and my Lord Mayor, Mr. Understanding, be very careful to search all these out, yet there will remain much hidden sin. I think we ought always to pray to God to forgive us sins that we do not know anything about. “Thine unknown agonies,” says the old Greek liturgy; and there are unknown sins for which those agonies make atonement. Perhaps the sins which you and I confess are not the tithe of what we really do commit. There are, no doubt, in all of us Canaanites still dwelling in the land, that will be thorns in our side.

II. A singular means for their destruction—“thy God will send the hornet among them.” These fellows resorted to caves and dens. God employed the very best means for their destruction. I suppose these hornets were large wasps; two or three times, perhaps, as large as a wasp, with very terrible stings. It is not an unusual historical fact to find districts depopulated by means of stinging insects. In connection with the journey of Dr. Livingstone we can never forget that strange kind of guest which is such a pest to the cattle in any district, that the moment it appeared they had either to fly before it or to die. The hornet must have been a very terrible creature; but it is not at all extraordinary that there should have been hornets capable of driving out a nation. The hornet was a very simple means; it was no sound of trumpet, nor even the glitter of miracles, it was a simple, natural means of fetching these people out of their holes. It is well known that insects in some countries will sting one race of people and not another. Sometimes the inhabitants of a country are not at all careful about mosquitoes or such creatures, when strangers are greatly pestered with them. God could therefore bring hornets which would sting the Hivites and the Jebusites but not molest the Israelites, and in this way the Canaanites were driven out of their holes; some died by the stings of hornets, and others were put in the way of the sharp swords of the men of Israel, and thus they died. The spiritual analogy to this is, the

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daily trouble which God sends to every one of us. I suppose you have all got your hornets. Some have hornets in the family; your child may be a hornet to you—your wife, your husband, your brother, the dearest friend you haves may be a daffy cross to you; and, though a dead cross is very heavy, a living cross is heavier far. To bury a child is a great grief, but to have that child live and sin against you is ten times worse. You may have hornets that shall follow you to your bed chamber—some of you may know what that means—so that even where you ought to find your rest and your sweetest solace, it is there that you receive your bitterest sting of trouble. The hornet will sometimes come in the shape of business. You are perplexed—you cannot prosper—one thing comes after another. You seem to be born to trouble more than other people. You have ventured on the right hand, but it was a failure; you pushed out on the left, but that was a breakdown. Almost everybody you trust fails immediately, and those you do not trust are the people you might have safely relied upon. Others have hornets in their bodies. Some have constant headaches; aches and pains pass and shoot along the nerves of others. If you could but be quit of it, you think, how happy you would be; but you have got your hornet, and that hornet is always with you. But if I tried to get through the whole list of hornets I should want all the morning, for there is a particular grief to every man. Each man has his own form of obnoxious sting which he has to feel. There is one point I want you to notice in the text, and that is, we are expressly told the hornets came from God. He sent them. “The Lord thy God will send the hornet.” This will help you, perhaps, to bear their stings another time. God weighs your troubles in scales, and measures out your afflictions, every drachm and scruple of them; and since they come, therefore, directly from a loving Father’s hand, accept them with grateful cheerfulness, and pray that the result which Divine Wisdom has ordained to flow from them may be abundantly realised in your sanctification, in being made like unto Christ.

III. A very suggestive lesson to ourselves. It is this. What is my particular besetting sin? Have I been careful in self-examination? If not, I must expect to have the hornet. God never punishes His children for sin penally, but He chastens them for it paternally. You may often discover what your sin is by the punishment, for you can see the face of the sin in the punishment—the one is so like the other. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Small troubles

It seems as if the insectile world were determined to extirpate the human race. It is bombarding the grain fields, and the orchards, and the vineyards. The Colorado beetle, the Nebraska grasshopper, the New Jersey locust, the universal potato bug seem to carry on the work which was begun ages ago, when the insects buzzed and droned out of Noah’s Ark as the door was opened. In my text the hornet flies out on its mission. It is a species of wasp, swift in its motion and violent in its sting. Its touch is torture to man or beast. The hornet goes in swarms. It has captains over hundreds, and twenty of them alighting on one man will produce certain death. The Persians attempted to conquer a Christian city, but the elephants and the beasts on which the Persians rode were assaulted by the hornet, so that the whole army was broken up, and the besieged city was rescued. This burning and noxious insect stung out the Hittites and the Canaanites from their country. What gleaming sword and chariot of war could not accomplish was done by the puncture of an insect. The Lord sent the hornet. When we are assaulted by great Behemoths of trouble, we become chivalric, and we assault them; we get on the high-mettled steed of our courage, and we make a cavalry charge at them; and, if God be with us, we come out stronger and better than when we went in. But, alas! for these insectile annoyances of life—these

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foes, too small to shoot—these things without any avoirdupois weight—the gnats and the midges, and the flies, and the wasps, and the hornets. In other words, it is the small stinging annoyances of our life which drive us out and use us up. In the best conditioned life, for some grand and glorious purpose, God has sent the hornet.

1. I remark, in the first place, that these small stinging annoyances may come in the shape of a sensitive nervous organisation. People who are prostrated under typhoid fevers or with broken bones get plenty of sympathy; but who pities anybody that is nervous?

2. Again, these small insect annoyances may come to us in the shape of friends and acquaintances who are always saying disagreeable things. There are some people you cannot be with for half an hour but you feel cheered and comforted. Then there are other people you cannot be with for five minutes before you feel miserable. They do not mean to disturb you, but they sting you to the bone. They gather up all the yarn which the gossips spin, and peddle it. They gather up all the adverse criticisms about your person, about your business, about your home, about your church, and they make your ear the funnel into which they pour it. These people of whom I speak, reap and bind in the great harvest field of discouragement. Some days you greet them with a hilarious “good morning,” and they come buzzing at you with some depressing information. “The Lord sent the hornet.”

3. Perhaps these small insect annoyances will come in the shape of a domestic irritation. The parlour and the kitchen do not always harmonise. To get good service and to keep it is one of the great questions of the country.

4. These small insect disturbances may also come in the shape of business irritations. It is not the panics that kill the merchants. Panics come only once in ten or twenty years. It is the constant din of these every day annoyances which is sending so many of our best merchants into nervous dyspepsia and paralysis and the grave.

5. I have noticed in the history of some of my congregation that their annoyances are multiplying, and that they have a hundred where they used to have ten. The naturalist tells us that a wasp sometimes has a family of twenty thousand wasps, and it does seem as if every annoyance of your life brooded a million. By the help of God today I want to set in a counter current. The hornet is of no use? Oh yes! The naturalists tell us they are very important in the world’s economy; they kill spiders and they clear the atmosphere; and I really believe God sends the annoyances of our lives upon us to kill the spiders of the soul and to clear the atmosphere into the skies. These annoyances are sent on us, I think, to wake us up from our lethargy. If we had a bed of everything that was attractive and easy, what would we want of heaven? We think that the hollow tree sends the hornet. You think the devil sends the hornet. I want to correct your theology. “The Lord sent the hornet.” Then I think these annoyances come on us to culture our patience. When you stand chin-deep in annoyances is the time for you to swim out towards the great headlands of Christian attainment, and when your life is loaded to the muzzle with repulsive annoyances—that is the time to draw the bead. Nothing but the furnace will ever burn out of us the clinker and the slag. Now, would you not rather have these small drafts of annoyance on your bank of faith than some all-staggering demand upon your endurance? I want to make my people strong in the faith that they will not surrender to small annoyances. In the village of Hamelin, tradition says, there was an invasion of rats, and these small creatures almost devoured the town and threatened the lives of the population, and the story is that a piper came out one day and played a very sweet tune, and

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all the vermin followed him—followed him to the banks of the Weser, and then he blew a blast and they dropped in and disappeared forever. Of course this is a fable, but I wish I could, on the sweet flute of the Gospel, draw forth all the nibbling and burrowing annoyances of your life, and play them down into the depths forever. How many touches did Mr. Church give to his picture of “Cotopaxi” or his “Heart of the Andes”? I suppose about fifty thousand touches. I hear the canvas saying, “Why do you keep me trembling with that pencil so long? Why don’t you put it on in one dash?” “No,” said Mr. Church, “I know how to make a painting. It will take fifty thousand of these touches.” And I want you to understand that it is these ten thousand annoyances which, under God, are making up the picture of your life, to be hung at last in the galleries of heaven, fit for angels to look at. God knows how to make a picture. God meant this world to be only the vestibule of heaven, and that is the great gallery of the universe towards which we are aspiring. We must not have it too good in this world, or we would want no heaven. You are surprised that aged people are so willing to go out of this world. I will tell you the reason. It is not only because of the bright prospects in heaven, but it is because they feel that seventy years of nettlesomeness is enough. They would lie down in the soft meadows of this world forever, but “God sent the hornet.” (T. De Witt Talmage.)

OBERST, "JEHOVAH . . . WILL SEND THE HORNET AMONG THEM (v. 20) —

The Hebrew word for hornet or wasp (tsirah) is used only two other

times in the Old Testament. Young's literal translation has "locust." "And

I will send the hornet before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the

Canaanite, and the Hittite from before thee" (Ex. 23:28). And God

could say through Joshua, about twenty-five years later, "And I sent the

hornet before you which drove them out from before you, even the two

kings of the Amorites [Sihon and Og? (Deut. 3:7, 4:47), or two of the

Amorite kings mentioned in Josh 10?]; not with thy sword, nor with

thy bow" (Josh. 24:12).

I take these verses all literally, believing that God actually did employ

wasps or hornets to assist Israel in battle. Why couldn't he? I reject, then,

such figurative renderings for hornet (tsirah) as "leprosy" (Smith-

Goodspeed), "a plague" (The Torah), "raiders" (Lamsa), "depression,

discouragement" (Baumgartner). Gesenius, while admitting that "hornet"

is the rendering which accords with the ancient versions and the Hebrew,

states that it "seems hardly capable of being literally understood" and

says here it is to be understood metaphorically as "designating ills and

calamities of various kinds." The common versions (A.V., A.S.V., R.S.V.)

as well as Berkely, Rotherham, Moffatt, and The Amplified Old Testament,

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consistently translate "hornet" however, and the other renderings seems to

be more interpretation than translation. (The non-literal idea is perhaps

best explained in the note adapted from Lange in the Amplified O.T.

" '. . . the hornet' with the article, meaning collective as a species or kind,

is thus evidently to be understood, as 2:25, of the terrors of God which

should go before Israel, with which also Josh. 24:12 and Ps. 44:2

fully agree.")

21 Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord

your God, who is among you, is a great and

awesome God.

GILL, "Thou shall not be affrighted at them,.... At their numbers, nor at their gigantic stature:

for the Lord thy God is among you: in the tabernacle, in the holy of holies, which was in the midst of them, and besides would give proof of his powerful presence among them, in protecting them, and destroying their enemies:

a mighty God and terrible; mighty to save his people, and terrible to others.

HENRY, "But the great encouragement of Israel was that they had God among them,

a mighty God and terrible, Deu_7:21. And if God be for us, if God be with us, we

need not fear the power of any creature against us.

SBC, "I. The complaint has been made often that the qualities which Christians are especially encouraged to cultivate are not manliness and courage; that, so far as the Christian ideal is set continually and steadily before the mind of a nation or a man, that mind is likely to become submissive, not energetic. I believe that the courage, which is only another way of expressing the heart, of a nation is liable to a continual weakening and decay; that left to itself it will certainly wither; that some religions may hasten its death; but that by doing so such religion will prove that it does not come from God, that it is not His religion, not His instrument for reforming and regenerating the world.

II. A return to the old faith that courage and humanity are not enemies, but inseparable companions, has certainly commenced among us. The misfortune is that Christianity is supposed to be not identical with humanity, but a substitution for it. And this opinion is closely connected with another: that courage is a heathen, or

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perhaps the heathen, virtue, and that we have cherished it by giving our children a semi-heathen education. Consider this opinion under different aspects.

III. By a heathen we mean one who is not a Jew. That is the simplest, most accurate use of the name. Taking it in this sense, our text is decisive that a high estimate of courage was not confined to heathens; that if to form such an estimate is ungodly, the chosen people were as ungodly as any. The Bible tells us that idolatry is the great destroyer of courage, reverence for the true God and an abiding sense of His presence and protection the upholder of it.

Now is this doctrine compatible with the fact that the most illustrious of the heathen nations were singularly brave nations, and that our forefathers sought to kindle English courage at their fires?

It is incompatible if we regard a heathen merely as an idolater. It is perfectly compatible if we trace through the history of the great nations that worshipped idols a continual witness against it. Their belief in courage, as a quality which raised them above the animals, was the greatest of all the protests which the conscience of heathens was bearing against idolatry, against the worship of visible things, which is directly connected with our animal instincts, which is always lowering the human being to the level of that which he should rule.

IV. The courage of the Hebrew was derived from his trust in the Being who had chosen him to do his work in the world, who would accomplish that work, let what powers would unite to defeat it. Christianity is not a denial of Judaism or a denial of heathenism, a tertium quid which excludes all that is strongest and most vital in both, but the harmony and concentration cf both, the discovery of Him in whom the meaning of both is realised and raised to its highest power; but out of the union and reconciliation of apparent opposites in the faith of a Father and a Son, of a Spirit proceeding from both, to quicken men and make them the voluntary, cheerful servants, because the sons, of God, there must come forth a courage Diviner than the Hebrew, more human than the Greek, more pledged to a continual battle with disorder than the Roman.

F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. vi., p. 145.

BI, "Thou shalt not be affrighted at them: for the Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible.

Courage and humanity

I. The complaint has been made often that the qualities which Christians are especially encouraged to cultivate are not manliness and courage; that, so far as the Christian ideal is set continually before the mind of a nation or a man, that mind is likely to become submissive, not energetic. I believe that the courage, which is only another way of expressing the heart, of a nation is liable to a continual weakening and decay; that left to itself it will certainly wither; that some religions may hasten its death; but that by doing so such religion will prove that it does not come from God, that it is not His religion, not His instrument for reforming and regenerating the world.

II. A return to the old faith that courage and humanity are not enemies, but inseparable companions, has certainly commenced among us. The misfortune is that Christianity is supposed to be not identical with humanity, but a substitution for it. And this opinion is closely connected with another: that courage is a heathen, or perhaps the heathen, virtue, and that we have cherished it by giving our children a

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semi-heathen education. Consider this opinion under different aspects.

III. By a heathen we mean one who is not a Jew. That is the simplest, most accurate use of the name. Taking it in this sense, our text is decisive that a high estimate of courage was not confined to heathens; that if to form such an estimate is ungodly, the chosen people were as ungodly as any. The Bible tells us that idolatry is the great destroyer of courage, reverence for the true God and an abiding sense of His presence and protection the upholder of it. Now is this doctrine compatible with the fact that the most illustrious of the heathen nations were singularly brave nations, and that our forefathers sought to kindle English courage at their fires? It is incompatible if we regard a heathen merely as an idolater. It is perfectly compatible if we trace through the history of the great nations that worshipped idols a continual witness against it. Their belief in courage, as a quality which raised them above the animals, was the greatest of all the protests which the conscience of heathens was bearing against idolatry, against the worship of visible things, which is directly connected with our animal instincts, which is always lowering the human being to the level of that which he should rule.

IV. The courage of the Hebrew was derived from his trust in the Being who had chosen him to do his work in the world, who would accomplish that work, let what powers would unite to defeat it. Christianity is not a denial of Judaism or a denial of heathenism, a tertium quid which excludes all that is strongest and most vital in both, but the harmony and concentration of both, the discovery of Him in whom the meaning of both is realised and raised to its highest power; but out of the union and reconciliation of apparent opposites in the faith of a Father and a Son, of a Spirit proceeding from both, to quicken men and make them the voluntary, cheerful servants, because the sons, of God, there must come forth a courage diviner than the Hebrew, more human than the Greek, more pledged to a continual battle with disorder than the Roman. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)

Moses’ address to the people

The manner in which the possession of Canaan is invariably spoken of is worthy of notice. Moses never supposes it impossible that they should reach Canaan; the style of his expression is uniformly that of certainty; he does not say, “If the Lord,” but “when.” This confidence did not rest on human grounds, for their enemies were in themselves formidable, but on the Divine promise. Those who have the Lord’s promise are safe, and they who trust in it are happy. But another fact is, that the Lord condescends to the state of His people; He knoweth their frame, and remembereth they are dust that they are prone to fear. True, there is no cause for fear, but their infirmity may lead them to do so. Hence He anticipates those fears, provides a remedy, and suggests every consideration calculated to encourage them.

I. The fears which they were in danger of indulging.

1. The superior strength of their enemies.

2. The consequent difficulty of dispossessing them. A few, comparatively, against many; the weak against the strong. How can I dispossess them? Is not the case very similar now? The Christian cannot be blind to the fact that his enemies are greater and mightier than he; the hosts of hell are marshalled against him. Legion is their name, implying unity, order, zeal, and perseverance. The enemies are mighty, and have overcome their thousands. There are few who have not been tempted to consider the contest hopeless, and to say, “Surely I shall one day perish.” Now if there be one here saying this in his heart, let him attend—

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II. To the encouragements provided against those fears.

1. A recollection of God’s past dealings. Thou shalt remember well what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt. The difficulties there were as great as they could be;—Pharaoh had chariots and horsemen; the Israelites were despised slaves; he had power, and was determined to use it in retaining them; yet the Lord brought them out, and therefore they need not fear now.

2. They were instructed as to the Lord’s future methods. So shall the Lord do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid: He had ten thousand ways of weakening the power of the enemy; the whole kingdom of nature was at His command; He could send the hornet among them; even the insect tribe shall be made subservient to the accomplishment of God’s design towards them. Joshua records the fulfilment of this promise (Deu_24:12). But this conquest was to be gradual. The Lord thy God will put out those nations by little and little. Immediate and entire victory would have been attended with undesirable consequences; God therefore gave them as much as in their circumstances was good for them.

3. Assurance was given of final victory. And are there not equal encouragements now, to everyone anxious to attain the heavenly Canaan? There is, however, this happy difference in the two cases: that when once the Christian has passed over the Jordan of death, every difficulty will be over, every enemy conquered, he will have the land in possession.

In conclusion, I would say—

1. Let no one expect the victor, who fights in his own strength.

2. Let no one despair of victory who fights in the Lord’s strength. (George Breay, B. A.)

Christian warfare

I. The enemies of God’s people. We know that the inhabitants of Canaan were emphatically idolaters. This was their special characteristic. Now it is idolatry, in some shape or other, that draws men away from the service of God. Some make pleasure their idol; some make wealth their idol. But their enemies are many in number. There is a special danger in the present day arising from those false doctrines which have arisen in the household of faith and caused hostile parties in the Church. In connection with this I may mention a contrary error—latitudinarianism. Again, the world is very dangerous; the example of those who live in it is most seductive. Again, we meet with those who are men of learning and great talent, and we are exposed to danger even from them. We hear them maintaining opinions which are not scriptural, but we think it is scarcely possible for those who are so learned to be wrong; we are thus left to ask in perplexity, “Who is in the right?” We forget that men must “become fools that they may be wise” as respects spiritual knowledge. But there are enemies within. And here I must not omit to place in the forefront self, in all its varied forms (2Ti_3:1-5). Then, again, we have to contend against the whole army of lusts—“the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” All these are of the world, and all these lust against the Spirit, so that we cannot do the things that we would.

II. Now let us inquire what are the weapons with which we must fight? Scripture teaches us (2Co_10:4) that “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.” Amongst our defensive weapons I may mention, as the first and chiefest, prayer. With this we must

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join faith in the promises. And, also, we must remember that throughout our whole life we shall have need of active watchfulness. There are also offensive weapons which we are bound to use. The first of these which I will mention is consistency. Outward consistency of character deters many from attempting their proposed assaults. Nor must we forget the Word of God. Here, indeed, is our great weapon; and so powerful is it, that it is the great desire of Satan to keep it out of our reach.

III. But I own there are great difficulties in the way. The first to which I will allude is that which arises from our peculiar position in the world. We must be in the world, and the difficulty at the same time is to take care that we are not of the world. To have a wise discerning judgment; to distinguish between the fulfilment of our duty in that station of life in which God has placed us, and the yielding to the secret subtle snares of Satan, is often a work of great difficulty for the Christian. Again, the Christian’s difficulties and afflictions are not all at once removed. Like the enemies of the Jews they are put down, as it were, “little by little.” It is a gradual and a progressive work. But assuredly it does progress towards final victory. But numerous as are our enemies, great as are our difficulties, blessed be God, we have—

IV. Our encouragements also. And first among these we know we shall have the victory. The promise of victory has been given, and it is as sure as if it were accomplished. We know that we are on the conquering side. The numbers of our enemies, then, need not terrify us. “Greater is He that is for us than all they that are against us.” The past mercies we have received are all pledges of future mercies. If we had but received that one pledge of God’s love which He afforded us in the gift of His Son for us, this would of itself be sufficient to encourage the assurance of hope. For (Rom_8:32) we have nothing to fear from present weakness. The Lord has laid help upon One that is mighty to save. Though our gracious Saviour is not Himself personally present He has told us the reason (Joh_16:7). Still He is spiritually present with us. His Spirit still abides with His Church—and therefore with us, if we be indeed members of that Church—comforting us, assisting us, strengthening us, and ensuring us victory at the last. Furthermore, the Lord is on our side. “The Lord thy God will do this” (H. M. Villiers, M. A.)

The Almighty Helper

This description of God is a terror to sinners, but an encouragement to Christians. His mighty presence is—

1. Unmerited. The aid we get from earthly friends is often a reciprocity of kindness—a discharge of obligation. But our goodness extends not to God. We have done nothing to deserve help.

2. Unexpected. In most extreme danger and when most unlikely, comes deliverance. “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” The Mace of fear and sorrow becomes one of joy and triumph.

3. Singular. “God’s methods are peculiar to Himself. Events Which appear to combine to work our ruin bring our salvation. In the deliverance from Egypt and the conquest of Canaan God was terrible to His enemies.

4. Timely. We think He has forgotten or forsaken us if He appears not when we wish; but He knows better than we do when it is time for Him to work. “Too late” can never he said of His mercy. “A very present help in trouble.”

5. All-sufficient. Earthly friends fail. God is always among us, “a mighty God and terrible.” He conquers most formidable foes, rescues from the greatest dangers.

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(J. Wolfendale.)

22 The Lord your God will drive out those

nations before you, little by little. You will not

be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the

wild animals will multiply around you.

CLARKE, "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.

GILL, "And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little,.... Which is observed for their encouragement, who seeing that all were not destroyed at once, might fear the work would never be thoroughly accomplished; see Exo_23:30,

thou mayest not consume them at once; though it was in the power of their hands to do it, there being some wise reasons for sparing them awhile, at least for not cutting them off all at once, and one follows:

lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee; through so many places being waste without inhabitants, and there being none to destroy these creatures; and who therefore in course would become more numerous, and so more troublesome and distressing to the Israelites. The Targum of Jonathan adds, by way of explanation,"when they shall come to devour their carcasses,''the carcasses of the slain Canaanites; who, if destroyed at once, would be so many, that they would lie unburied, which would invite the beasts of the field to come out of their lurking places to feed upon them, and which might lead them on to mischief among the Israelites.

HENRY, "Let them not be disheartened by the slow progress of their arms, nor think that the Canaanites would never be subdued if they were not expelled the first

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year; no, they must be put out by little and little, and not all at once, Deu_7:22. Note, We must not think that, because the deliverance of the church and the destruction of its enemies are not effected immediately, therefore they will never be effected. 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 that judgment will at length be brought forth into a complete victory. The reason here given (as before, Exo_23:29, Exo_23:30) is, Lest the beast of the field increase upon thee. The earth God has given to the children of men; and therefore there shall rather be a remainder of Canaanites to keep possession till Israel become numerous enough to replenish it than that it should be a habitation of dragons, and a court for the wild beasts of the desert, Isa_34:13, Isa_34:14. Yet God could have prevented this mischief from the beasts, Lev_26:6. But pride and security, and other sins that are the common effects of a settled prosperity, were enemies more dangerous than the beasts of the field, and these would be apt to increase upon them. See Jdg_3:1, Jdg_3:4.

SBC 22-26, "I. There can be no doubt that these passages represent the Jewish nation as bound to a perpetual conflict with idolatry. The resistance was primarily an internal one. The members of the nation were never to bow down to natural or human symbols. But they were not merely to be tenacious of the true worship and watchful against the false; they were to go forth against the idolatrous people of Canaan, to break in pieces their gods, to destroy their altars and high places. And not only the idol or the idol temple was to be destroyed; the inhabitants of the idolatrous country, their wives, their children, their sheep, and their oxen, were to be put to death.

In explaining these facts, we must remember that the Jews were the one nation that might not go out to win prizes for themselves; they were simply the instruments of the righteous Lord against those who were polluting His earth and rendering it unfit for habitation.

II. We have surely not learned from the Sermon on the Mount that there is not a righteous Being, One whose will is to all good, One to whom injustice and wrong are opposed. Neither did our Lord say that men were not to be the instruments in doing God’s work, in carrying out His purposes. The Gospel must be quite as assertive and intrusive as Judaism. Idolatry was more directly assaulted in its high places, received more deadly wounds, in the three centuries during which the Gospel of the Son of God was opposed by all the swords of the Roman empire, and when it had no earthly sword of its own, than by all the battles of the Israelites. The punishment of the idolater is not now the most effectual means of extinguishing idolatry. Our Lord shows us that the proclamation of Himself is a more perfect one.

III. These distinctions are deep and radical; they must affect all the relations between the magistrate and the herald of the Gospel, between the nation and the Church.

If we have learned to believe that the spirit of love is a consuming fire, which must destroy the idols and high places that we ourselves have set up and then all those which are withdrawing men anywhere from the living and true God, we shall find that the command to drive out the debased people of Canaan is an utterance of the same gracious will which bade the disciples go into all lands and preach the Gospel to every creature.

F. D. Maurice, The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament, p. 256.

Reference: Deu_7:22-26.—Parker, vol. iv., p. 152.

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ELLICOTT, "(22) The Lord thy God will put out.—The word for “putting out” is

illustrated by its use in Deuteronomy 19:5, of the axe-head flying off from the handle

in the midst of a blow, and of the olive “casting” his fruit in Deuteronomy 28:40.

(Comp. also 2 Kings 16:6, and 1 Samuel 25:29, for a similar thought.)

By little and little.—This confirms the view already expressed, that the expulsion of

each particular nation was contingent upon the Divine decree, and that none were to

be attacked by Israel except when the Lord should deliver them into Israel’s hand.

BENSON, "Deuteronomy 7:22. Thou mayest not consume them at once — Thou shalt

not be able; I will not assist thee with my omnipotence, to crush them at one run of

success and victory; for you are not yet numerous enough to people the whole country

at once. But I will bless thee in the use of ordinary means, and thou shalt destroy them

by degrees, in several battles, that thou mayest learn by experience to put thy trust in

me.

SPURGEON, "“The Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and

little.”—Deuteronomy 7:22

WE are not to expect to win victories for the Lord Jesus by a single blow. Evil

principles and practices die hard. In some places it takes years of labor to drive out

even one of the many vices which defile the inhabitants. We must carry on the war

with all our might, even when favored with little manifest success.

Our business in this world is to conquer it for Jesus. We are not to make

compromises, but to exterminate evils. We are not to seek popularity, but to wage

unceasing war with iniquity. Infidelity, Popery, drink, impurity, oppression,

worldliness, error—these are all to be “put out.”

The Lord our God can alone accomplish this. He works by His faithful servants; and,

blessed be His name, He promises that He will so work. “Jehovah thy God will put

out those nations before thee.” This He will do by degrees, that we may learn

perseverance, may increase in faith, may earnestly watch, and may avoid carnal

security. Let us thank God for a little success and pray for more. Let us never sheathe

the sword till the whole land is won for Jesus.

Courage, my heart! Go on little by little,

for many littles will make a great whole.

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23 But the Lord your God will deliver them

over to you, throwing them into great

confusion until they are destroyed.

GILL, "But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee,.... Gradually, by little and little, until at length they should all come into their hands: and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed; even all of them.

24 He will give their kings into your hand, and

you will wipe out their names from under

heaven. No one will be able to stand up

against you; you will destroy them.

GILL, "And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand,.... Who were very numerous, for though there were but seven nations, there were more kings, even one and thirty, Jos_12:9,

thou shall destroy their name from under heaven; not only destroy the name of the reigning kings, so as that they should not be remembered and made mention of any more, but put an end to the name and race of kings among them, so that they should never have any more, as they never had:

there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them; the nations and their kings.

COFFMAN, ""Lest thou be snared therein ..." (Deuteronomy 7:25). The meaning is

not that the silver and gold in itself would be a snare, but that in being a devoted thing

as part of their false gods, it would contaminate all that came in contact with it. The

tragic story of Achan in Joshua (Joshua 7) shows what a dreadful snare such as gold

and silver really were. For a full explanation of what was meant by the "war ban" of

all devoted things, see last paragraph of Deuteronomy 2, where three degrees of this

ban are outlined.

"Thou shalt make their name to perish from under heaven ..." (Deuteronomy 7:24).

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The final and ultimate fate of everything detested by God appears in a word like this,

and the sorrowful aspect of this is that it applies, absolutely, to the entire race of

Adam to the full extent of the sinful and rebellious part of the race. "And I will cut

man (Adam) off the face of the ground" (Zephaniah 1:2). Throughout the Bible, the

Great Terminator, like the sword of Damocles, is poised for the destruction of

mankind in the final judgment, the sole survivors of which catastrophe will be the

redeemed "in Christ." "To fall under God's ban is to forfeit all covenant privilege and

come under the anathema of God."[38] "Even the name of false gods should be

obliterated from memory."[39] Amazingly, this anathema against false gods is

pronounced especially against the pagan priests. Zephaniah has this: "And I will cut

off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarim with the

priests" (Zephaniah 1:4). Note: "[~Chemarim] is the usual Aramaic word, which

comes from a root whose meaning is `to be black.'"[40] "The word means `black

robed' and is applied to idolatrous priests (2 Kings 23:5; Hosea 10:5)."[41]

ELLICOTT, "(24) He shall deliver their kings into thine hand.—In the summary of

Joshua’s conquest (Joshua 12) the kings are reckoned for the cities. Special mention is

made of seven of them, who were hanged.

There shall no man be able to stand before thee.—A promise personally renewed to

Joshua (Joshua 1:5), and fulfilled to Israel under his command (Josh. 20:44).

BENSON, "Deuteronomy 7:24. No man shall stand before thee — This promise was

conditional; they were to be obedient and perform their duty, and then it would be

fulfilled; but if they neglected to do this, they would justly lose the benefit of it.

25 The images of their gods you are to burn in

the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on

them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you

will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the

Lord your God.

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BARNES, "The silver or gold that is on them - The silver and gold with which the statues of the gods were overlaid. Paul is probably alluding to this command in Rom_2:22; and his accusation of the Jew thus shows that the prohibition of the text was very necessary.

Lest thou be snared - As by the rich ephod made by Gideon: compare the marginal reference.

CLARKE, "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.

GILL, "The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire,.... Which is repeated from Deu_7:5, that it might be the more observed and strictly performed, and which unless done, they could not expect the utter destruction of their enemies, who were left in the land to try and prove them with respect to this very thing:

thou shall not desire the silver or gold that is on them: the raiment of gold or silver with which they were bedecked, or the plates of gold and silver with which they were covered, or any ornament about them, as chains and the like, that were of either of these metals; see Eze_16:16,

nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein; nor take it into their possession, or bring it into their houses, as in the next verse, lest they should be under a temptation to worship it, or keep it as a superstitious relic:

for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God; not only the idol itself, being put in the place of God, and so derogatory to his honour and glory, but the gold and silver on it, being devoted to a superstitious and idolatrous use; and even the taking of it, and appropriating it to a man's own use, was an abomination, and resented by the Lord as such.

CALVIN, "25.The graven images of their gods. He again impresses upon them the

object of the destruction of the nations, but he goes further than before. He had before

forbidden them to worship their gods. He now commands them to consume their

graven images with fire, for since the people were prone to superstition, such snares

might easily have alienated them from God’s pure worship. Nor does he command

them merely to melt the gold and silver so as to alter its shape, but he altogether

interdicts its use, since it would be a contagious plague; for he shews how greatly God

abominates idols, inasmuch as whosoever should touch the materials of which they

were molten, would contract pollution and become accursed. This great severity might

indeed seem to condemn the metals which were created for man’s use, as if they were

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impure, and as if the perfectness of natural things was liable to be corrupted by man.

But in this way idolaters would contaminate the sun and moon, when falsely regarding

them as objects of corrupt worship; and it must be answered that the gold and silver

itself was by no means polluted by this impious abuse; but that, although free from all

stain in itself, it was polluted in respect to the people. Such was the uncleanness of

animals, not that they had in themselves any pollution, but because God had

interdicted their being eaten. The pollution therefore which is now mentioned arises

from a similar prohibition; for otherwise the ignorant people could not be restrained,

and hence God would have that to be abominable which in itself was pure. Still this

was a political precept, and only given temporarily to the ancient people; yet we

gather from it how detestable idolatry is, which even infects the works of God

themselves with its own filthiness.

COKE, "Ver. 25. Thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them— The statues

and images of their gods were sometimes overlaid with gold and silver. Moses

therefore thinks fit to caution them against being tempted, by the richness of the

materials, to convert any of their instruments of idolatry to their own private use; but

to destroy them utterly, as Moses destroyed the golden calf, Exodus 32:20. Every

thing which had been employed to an idolatrous use was an accursed thing, חרים

charim, i.e. devoted to destruction, which no man might meddle with; or, if he did, he

was devoted to destruction, as the thing itself was. See this exemplified in the case of

Achan, Joshua 7 and Leviticus 29-27:28 .

REFLECTIONS.—Moses encourages them to obedience, by an enlargement on the

mercies which would attend them. 1. If they kept God's judgments, he would love

them and bless them. Their posterity should be numerous to inherit the good land, and

none of the diseases of Egypt should come near to destroy their lives, or make them

uncomfortable. Diseases are God's scourge: may we never provoke him to lay it upon

us in anger! 2. They are repeatedly commanded to destroy the people and their idols;

the gold and silver, the beauty of the engraving, or the preciousness of the materials,

must not lead them to spare the least relic: what God abhors, they must; and it is their

safety to do so, lest they be snared thereby, and become accursed as the idols the

heathen doated upon. Note; (1.) Covetousness is real idolatry. (2.) If we would avoid

the curse, we must avoid the snare. (3.) Sin, the abominable thing which God hates, is

to the true Israelite an object of utter detestation. 3. God promises to strengthen them

to extirpate this devoted race. Though the conquest was difficult, from the number of

the people and their strength, yet they need not fear them. The wonders that God had

shown in Egypt they had seen, and ought to remember: he can and will as easily

consume the Canaanites as he did the Egyptians. Besides, he promises to send his

auxiliaries; the hornets shall go before, and with their envenomed stings torment and

terrify them, that they may fall an easy prey. So soon can God make a despicable

insect the instrument of his judgment; but above all, the mighty and terrible God

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himself is in the midst of them, and who shall stand before them? Note; (1.) Past

experience should be brought forth, as encouragement under present difficulties. (2.)

If God be for us, what matters it who are against us? (3.) Going forth, under God's

promise, to war against our corruptions, we may, with confidence, be assured that sin

shall not have dominion over us. 4. Their conquests shall be gradual as they multiplied

to inhabit the land, not all at once, lest the beasts should increase upon them, allured

by the carcases of the slain, and the desolations of the land. Note; (1.) Heaven is thus a

gradual conquest. Grace by little and little takes increasing possession of the soul, till

it is made completely perfect in glory. (2.) The destruction of the enemies of God's

church and people is advancing by degrees; and, however long spared, and difficult to

subdue, the decree, is sure; they shall be rooted out at last.

ELLICOTT, "(25, 26) These words are a special warning against the sin which Achan

committed (Joshua 7:21): “I coveted them, and took them.” They also describe the

consequences which he experienced, together with his whole household, being made

chêrem. devoted or accursed by the spoil which he took from Jericho. (See on Joshua

7)

PARKER, "Showing, as he always shows, a most penetrating mind, Moses points to a

very subtle temptation which would arise in connection with the progress of Israel.

The graven images of the heathen nations were to be burned with fire. Moses says in

the twenty-fifth verse,—"Thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor

take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein." How subtle is the temptation in that

direction! Might not this ointment have been sold for hundreds of pence? and might

not the produce have been given to the poor? Shall we cast in the hideous gods and

the valuable gold and consume them both in the unsparing fire? How much better first

to strip the god of his golden coat and then burn the wood or clay or grind the stone to

powder! Moses, foreseeing this temptation, and by the very inspiration of God,

knowing the mysteries of human nature, said,—"Touch not; taste not; handle not." In

such abstention is the only possible safety of the Church. The temptation operates

today. Men will sustain a questionable mode of earning a livelihood on the pretence

that they can gather from the forbidden trade gold and silver which they can melt

down and mint with the image and superscription of God; they can allow the

devastating traffic to proceed, reeking like the pit of hell, destroying countless

thousands of lives, and yet justify the continuance of the iniquity by taking off the

gold and the silver and throwing part of it into the coffers of the Church. Missions so

sustained are dishonoured. The gold torn from any evil way of getting a livelihood and

given to the Church is an abomination to the Lord thy God. He does not want even

good gold stolen for his purposes, or gold won by unholy means thrown into his

exchequer. His Son could live without a place whereon to lay his head, but he could

not live in any house that had in it the Dagon of the Philistines—unholy gains,

patronage with a smiling face but with a heart all but too bad to be damned. God's

independence, Christ's independence, asserts itself in many ways in the Old Testament

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and in the New; and the Church must be as independent as the God who created it.

There is a strong temptation to continue the mischief, and tax it for the good of the

heathen or the benefit of the poor. God accepts no such money. It never can be

changed; it has no real and permanent value in the sanctuary; it makes the treasury

full, but it is the fulness which is the truest and veriest emptiness. Let us give honest

money. Let us eat bread unleavened by wrong-doing; there may be little of it, but

Christ will break it with his own hands, and it shall be more than our hunger needs.

Marvellous, too, is the prevision of Moses when he lays down the only law or

principle by which all these abstentions and all these actions can be sustained. Do not

let us ascribe these regulations to the prevision of Moses unless we understand by that

term the inspiration of God. What is the principle which guarantees safety and

protects the soul from the unclean things of heathen nations? That principle is laid

down in the twenty-sixth verse. Speaking of heathen abomination Moses says,—"thou

shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it." There is no middle feeling; there

is no intermediate way of dealing with bad things. "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it

off;" "if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out." "Abhor that which is evil; cleave to

that which is good." Thus the Testaments are one: the moral tone is the same; the stern

law never yields to time,—its phrase changes, its words may come and go, its forms

may take upon them the colour of the transient times, but the inner spirit of

righteousness is the spirit of God, without beginning, without measure, without end.

We are thus called to revulsion. How can this be made plain to every understanding?

Perhaps it can scarcely be adequately explained by merely spiritual terms and

suggestions, but it admits of some indication from a physical point of view. Imagine

any preparation given for food from which the whole nature recoils with unutterable

horror. That may be considered the beginning of the meaning of this verse in its

spiritual application. Having had such an offer made, the soul loathes it; hunger itself

will not look at the offensive bribe given to the agony of its pain; all nature shudders

and turns away—if silent, only because the strongest speech would be but a mockery

of the intensity of its pain. Thus the body may help the mind to right constructions of

divine purposes and spiritual laws. You do not dispute about that which is offered

which awakens the sensations of horror, nor do you ask questions about it, nor do you

look on with partial approval if, haply, in some way, the inconvenience may be got rid

of; but having seen that which is offered, nature, asserting an eternal law, rises, flies

insulted and dishonoured. Abstain from the appearance of evil. Touch not, taste not,

handle not the unclean thing. Do not allow the mind merely to disapprove of evil,

merely to condemn certain social customs and arrangements,—to keep in a kind of

hovering relation towards things upon which God has put his veto; but seeing one of

them, "thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it,"—the soul shall rise

against it as if God himself had been pained by some sudden and tremendous offence.

How is this spirit to be created within us? It is the miracle of Christ; it is the miracle

of the Holy Ghost. This spirit is not born with man, or by the will of man: it is born in

us by the incorruptible seed of God. This is the wonder of the Almighty, who looking

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upon the accomplishment of this miracle says,—"It is very good."

26 Do not bring a detestable thing into your

house or you, like it, will be set apart for

destruction. Regard it as vile and utterly detest

it, for it is set apart for destruction.

GILL, "Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thy house,.... An idol, so the Targum of Jonathan, the abominations of idols and their utensils, or what is ministered to them, with anything that appertains to them, or is used in the service of them, as well as the gold and silver upon them; this care was taken as much as possible to prevent idolatry, and all appearance of it, and to show what might lead on and be a temptation to it:

lest thou be a cursed thing like it; as an idol is, and so is everyone that worships it; for what more exposes to the curse of God than idolatry, a breach of the first table of the law? and therefore subjects a man to the curse of it; nay, the bringing of an idol into a man's house brings a curse into it, and makes him liable thereunto; for if the curse enters into the house of the thief or perjurer, much more into the house of a man guilty of idolatry in any degree of it; see Zec_5:3 but thou shalt utterly detest it; the Targum of Jonathan adds, as the pollution of an abominable thing:

and thou shalt utterly abhor it, for it is a cursed thing; devoted to destruction; and to have anything to do with it is the way to entail a curse, and bring to everlasting ruin and destruction; see Rev_21:8.

Third Millennium Study Bible, "This chapter ends with another call for total hatred of idolatry (Deut 7:26). But since the idols were often made of gold, they were valuable. The precious metal was under the ban calling for total destruction; the idols themselves were to be destroyed, but what could pass through the fire (e.g., gold and other precious metals) was to be given to the Lord (Joshua 6:18-19).

JOE TEMPLE, "Reasons for Prohibitions

Let's go back to Deuteronomy, chapter 7, as I offer to you some suggestions as to the reasons for these prohibitions. You know, sometimes we parents have to tell our children certain things and they don't quite understand the reason for it and they will say, “Well, I don't see why you say that.” We say to them, “Well, we just said it.” That is not going to get the job accomplished nearly so well as if we say, “Let me point out to you why I say this particular thing.”

God, as sovereign, as we have already pointed out in our lesson, has a perfect right to

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say what He will without any explanation to anybody, but in His mercy and in His grace, He does give us the reason oftentimes. Here are the reasons these prohibitions were set into effect. He said, “The reason that you should not make any political or marital alliances with the people of this land is:

Deuteronomy 7:4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.“You want to know why I prohibit you from making these alliances? I will tell you why,” God said. “These alliances will turn your children away from Me, and then I will have to chasten you. You will leave Me no other choice, and I don't want to chasten you. I want to bless you. But if you make these alliances, you will be bringing yourself into the place of chastening.”

You make your own application to our Christian living today, and when you have time, read what is recorded in I Corinthians, chapter 11, where God deals with this very subject among believers, that it is neccesary for Him to chasten us when we step out of line, when we are out of fellowship with Him.

Another reason that Moses gave is found in verse 6:

Deuteronomy 7:6 For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.There is a very real sense, and you know this from our teaching, that Israel is a chosen people, chosen above all the people who are on the face of the earth. God has a special plan and purpose for them. In a different sense, not replacing the children of Israel, but an entirely different sense, we should recognize that the Church is a chosen people. “You are a chosen generation,” said Peter to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. “A royal priesthood.” Since Israel was a chosen people, more was expected of them than was expected of the nations round about them. By the same principle, we can say that since we as Christians are a chosen people, more is expected of us than of the people round about us. When you have time, reread the Ephesian letter in the light of this statement. You will find the first three chapters of the Ephesian letter discussing what a chosen people we are, chosen in Christ, if you please, even before the foundation of the world. Then the last half of the letter is dealing with some ways in which we should walk in view of the choice place we have in the plan and the purpose of God.

God's grace, in relation to the choice of Israel, is beautifully presented here, and we must not pass over it, for these are wonderful words indeed. Notice verse 7:

Deuteronomy 7:7 The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:8 But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.Did you notice what he said? “He didn't choose you, Israel, because you were important. As a matter of fact, you were the fewest of all people when God chose you, but He chose you because He loved you. He chose you because He made a promise to your fathers, and that promise was that He would do the very thing that He said He

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would do.” Here is a beautiful parallel in relation to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul concerning the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ: “He has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. He has chosen the weak, the insignificant things of this world to confound the mighty, that all the glory and all the praise might be to God.”

Conclusion

I do not know of a better passage of Scripture with which we can close our meditations at the moment than this that is found in the Corinthian letter. Notice I Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 26-29, where we read:

I Corinthians 1:26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.

Footnotes:

Deuteronomy 7:2 The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or

persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them; also in verse 26.

Deuteronomy 7:5 That is, wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah; here and

elsewhere in Deuteronomy

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