Moses
in this chapter exhorts
Israel, I. In general, to keep
God's commandments, ver. 11, 12. II. In particular, and in order to that, to
keep themselves pure from all communion with idolaters. 1. They must utterly
destroy the seven devoted nations, and not spare them, or make leagues with
them, ver. 1, 2, 16, 24. 2. They must by no means marry with the remainders
of them, ver. 3, 4. 3. They must deface and consume their altars and images,
and not so much as take the silver and gold of them to their own use, ver.
5, 25, 26. To enforce this charge, he shows that they were bound to do so,
(1.) In duty. Considering [1.] Their election to God, ver. 6. [2.] The
reason of that election, ver. 7, 8. [3.] The terms they stood upon with God,
ver. 9, 10. (2.) In interest. It is here promised, [1.] In general, that, if
they would serve God, he would bless and prosper them, ver. 12-15. [2.] In
particular, that if they would drive out the nations, that they might not be
a temptation to them, God would drive them out, that they should not be any
vexation to them, ver. 17, &c.
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A
Caution Against Idolatry.
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B.
C. 1451.
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1 When the LORD
thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and
hath cast out many nations before thee, 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 thou;
2 And when the LORD
thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and
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 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. 5 But 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. 6 For thou art a 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. 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. 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. 11 Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments,
and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do
them.
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, v. 1, 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 (v.
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.
(2.) He engages them to do their part. Thou shalt smite them, and utterly
destroy them, v. 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.
2. They must make no marriages with those of them that escaped the sword, v.
3, 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. vi. 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 (Ezra ix. x., and Neh.
xiii.), and a New-Testament caution not to be unequally yoked with
unbelievers, 2 Cor. vi. 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 (v. 3), For he that marries with
idolaters does in effect marry with their idols.
3. They must destroy all the relics of their idolatry, v. 5. Their
altars 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, Exod. xxiii. 24; xxxiv. 13. A great deal of good
work of this kind was done by the people, in their pious zeal (2 Chron. xxxi.
1), and by good Josiah (2 Chron. xxxiv. 3, 7), and with this may be compared
the burning of the conjuring books, Acts xix. 19.
II. Here are very good reasons to enforce this caution.
1. The choice which God had made of this people for his own, v. 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?
2. The freeness of that grace which made this choice. (1.) There was nothing
in them to recommend or entitle them to this favour. In multitude of the
people is the king's honour, Prov. xiv. 28. But their number was
inconsiderable; they were only seventy souls when they went down into Egypt,
and, though greatly increased there, yet there were many other nations more
numerous: You were the fewest of all people, v. 7. The author
of the Jerusalem Targum passes too great a compliment upon his nation in his
reading this, You were humble in spirit, and meek above all people;
quite contrary: they were rather stiff-necked and ill-natured above all
people. (2.) God fetched the reason of it purely from himself, v. 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. xiv. 4.
Those that perish perish by their own merits, but all that are saved are
saved by prerogative. [2.] He has done his work 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.
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, v. 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!" (2.) Just to his enemies: He repays those that hate him,
v. 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, Ps. xxi. 12. Or, He will bring those judgments
upon them which shall appear to themselves to be the just punishment of
their idolatry. Compare Job xxi. 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, Prov. xi. 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.
12 Wherefore it shall
come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that
the LORD
thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy 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 womb, and the fruit of
thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine,
and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to
give thee. 14 Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there
shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.
15 And the LORD
will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil
diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all
them that hate thee. 16 And thou shalt consume all the
people which the LORD
thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither
shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto
thee. 17 If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are
more than I; how can I dispossess them? 18 Thou shalt not be
afraid of them: but shalt well remember what the LORD
thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt; 19 The great
temptations which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the
mighty hand, and the stretched out arm, whereby the LORD
thy God brought thee out: so shall the LORD
thy God do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid. 20
Moreover the LORD
thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide
themselves from thee, be destroyed. 21 Thou shalt not be
affrighted at them: for the LORD
thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible. 22 And
the LORD
thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou
mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon
thee. 23 But the LORD
thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty
destruction, until they be destroyed. 24 And he shall deliver
their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under
heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have
destroyed them. 25 The graven images of their gods shall ye burn
with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them,
nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein: for it is
an abomination to the LORD
thy God. 26 Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine
house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly
detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.
Here, I. The caution against idolatry is repeated, and against communion
with idolaters: "Thou shalt consume the people, and not serve their
gods." v. 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, v.
25, 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 (v. 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, v. 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, v. 12. Let us be constant in our duty, and
we cannot question the constancy of God's mercy.
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, v. 13, 14. What could they desire more to make them happy?
(1.) "He will love thee." He began in love to us (1 John
iv. 10), and, if we return his love in filial duty, then, and then only, we
may expect the continuance of it, John xiv. 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. i. 28; ix. 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 them.
3. That, if they would keep themselves pure from the idolatries of Egypt,
God would keep them clear form the diseases of Egypt, v. 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.
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 (v.
16); and the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy
them--this is the promise, v. 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. vi. 12, 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, v. 18, and again,
v. 21. (1.) 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? v. 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, v.
18, 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, v. 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. (2.)
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 (v. 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, v. 21. And if God be
for us, if God be with us, we need not fear the power of any creature
against us. (3.) 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 year; no, they must be put out by little and little,
and not all at once, v. 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, Exod. xxiii. 29, 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. xxxiv. 13, 14. Yet God could have prevented this
mischief from the beasts, Lev. xxvi. 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 Judges iii. 1, 4.
