Deuteronomy 7:11

Before Israel could occupy the promised land, they had to remove the people already living there (compare Genesis 13:14–17; 15:18–21). The land belonged to the Lord, and only God could decide who should live there.

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.

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.
(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.
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, Co2 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.
3. They must destroy all the relics of their idolatry, Deu 7:5. 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, Exo 23:24; Exo 34:13. A great deal of good work of this kind was done by the people, in their pious zeal (Ch2 31:1), and by good Josiah (Ch2 34:3, Ch2 34:7), and with this may be compared the burning of the conjuring books, Act 19:19.
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?
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, Pro 14:28. 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, Deu 7:7. 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, 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 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, 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!" (2.) 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.

Deuteronomy 7:9-15

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;

9. Scias quod Jehova Deus tuus, est Deus, Deus fidelis, custodiens pactum et misericordiam diligentibus se, et custodientibus praecepta sua, usque ad mille generationes:

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.

10. Et rependens odio habenti ipsum, in faciem ejus, ut perdat eum: neque tardabit, odio habenti ipsum, in faciem ejus rependet ei.

11. Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them.

11. Custodias ergo praecepta, et statuta, et judicia quae ego praecipio tibi hodie, ut ea facias.

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.

12. Et erit, propterea quod audieritis judicia ista, et custodieritis, feceritisque ea: custodiet Jehova Deus tuus tibi pactum, et misericordiam de quo juravit patribus tuis.

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.

13. Diliget quoque te, et benedicet tibi, multiplicabitque te: benedicet namque fructui ventris tui, et fructui terrae tuae, frumento tuo, et musto tuo, et oleo tuo, foetui boum tuorum, et gregibus ovium tuarum, in terra quam juravit patribus tuis se daturum tibi.

14. Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.

14. Benedictus eris prae cunctis populis: non erit in te infoecundus, neque infoecunda, neque in jumentis tuis.

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.

15. Auferetque a te Jehova omnem morbum, et onmes aegritudines Aegypti pessimas quas nosti: non ponet illas in te, sed ponet eas in omnibus qui te oderint.

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.

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, 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 Psalm 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.

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.

Footnotes:

[220] "Heb. And thou shalt know." -- Ainsworth. "Et scies." -- V.

[221] See on Deuteronomy 5:9, 10, [24]vol. 2, p. 110, et seq.

[222] Added in Fr., "Mais seulement que Dieu punira les delinquans;" but only that God will punish the transgressors.

[223] The question is as to the word phnyv, literally his or their face. The first explanation noticed by C., in their lifetime, is that of the Chaldee and Syriac versions, and also of the Hebrew Commentators; the second, in his anger, is attributed in Poole's Synopsis, amongst others, to S M. Dathe's translation is, "praesentissima pernicie;" and his note "mihi quidem videtur phnym dictum esse pro nomine reciproco ille, ipse, ut Exodus 33:15; Deuteronomy 4:37; 2 Samuel 17:11. Vide Noldius sub hac voce, Numbers 2. Latine non commode iisdem verbis exprimi potest. Igitur notionem, quae vocabulo Hebraeo subisse videtur, cum sequenti lh'vydv conjunetim indicavi."

[224] "Certain diseases, peculiar to Egypt, are meant; such as various diseases of the skin, as the scab, elephantiasis, plague, etc. Pliny, Nat. Hist., 26., calls Egypt the mother of such diseases. Even at the present day, there are in Egypt several peculiar diseases, especially ophthalmia, variolous diseases, and plague." -- Rosenmuller. Hengstenberg also, in his "Egypt and the Books of Moses," has an article on this subject, p. 454, confirmative of the above. He quotes Wagner as calling Egypt, in his Natural History of Man, "a great focus of the diseases in universal history."

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.

This energy of the grace and holiness of the faithful covenant God was a powerful admonition to keep the divine commandments.