71 'When Jehovah thy God doth bring thee in unto the land whither thou art going in to possess it, and He hath cast out many nations from thy presence, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations more numerous and mighty than thou, 2 and Jehovah thy God hath given them before thee, and thou hast smitten them—thou dost utterly devote them—thou dost not make with them a covenant, nor dost thou favour them. 3 'And thou dost not join in marriage with them; thy daughter thou dost not give to his son, and his daughter thou dost not take to thy son, 4 for he doth turn aside thy son from after Me, and they have served other gods, and the anger of Jehovah hath burned against you, and hath destroyed thee hastily. 5 'But thus thou dost to them: their altars ye break down, and their standing pillars ye shiver, and their shrines ye cut down, and their graven images ye burn with fire;
6 for a holy people 'art' thou to Jehovah thy God; on thee hath Jehovah thy God fixed, to be to Him for a peculiar people, out of all the peoples who 'are' on the face of the ground. 7 'Not because of your being more numerous than any of the peoples hath Jehovah delighted in you, and fixeth on you, for ye 'are' the least of all the peoples, 8 but because of Jehovah's loving you, and because of His keeping the oath which He hath sworn to your fathers, hath Jehovah brought you out by a strong hand, and doth ransom you from a house of servants, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 'And thou hast known that Jehovah thy God He 'is' God, the faithful God, keeping the covenant, and the kindness, to those loving Him, and to those keeping His commands—to a thousand generations, 10 and repaying to those hating Him, unto their face, to destroy them; He delayeth not to him who is hating Him—unto his face, He repayeth to him— 11 and thou hast kept the command, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I am commanding thee to-day to do them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Deuteronomy 7:1-11
Commentary on Deuteronomy 7:1-11
(Read Deuteronomy 7:1-11)
Here is a strict caution against all friendship and fellowship with idols and idolaters. Those who are in communion with God, must have no communication with the unfruitful works of darkness. Limiting the orders to destroy, to the nations here mentioned, plainly shows that after ages were not to draw this into a precedent. A proper understanding of the evil of sin, and of the mystery of a crucified Saviour, will enable us to perceive the justice of God in all his punishments, temporal and eternal. We must deal decidedly with our lusts that war against our souls; let us not show them any mercy, but mortify, and crucify, and utterly destroy them. Thousands in the world that now is, have been undone by ungodly marriages; for there is more likelihood that the good will be perverted, than that the bad will be converted. Those who, in choosing yoke-fellows, keep not within the bounds of a profession of religion, cannot promise themselves helps meet for them.