Deuteronomy 7:1-3

The Pulpit Commentary - Deuteronomy 7:1-5

Extermination with a moral purpose. When the Israelites were to cross into Canaan, they were directed to exterminate the seven nations they would find there. This is their commission. The invasion is to be conducted upon this principle. And here let us notice— I. NATIONS , LIKE INDIVIDUALS , MAY BECOME INCORRIGIBLE . There can be no doubt that sin tends to a final and incorrigible condition if the Divine mercy is not accepted and allowed to exercise its undermining power.... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Deuteronomy 7:1-6

Judgment without mercy. This decree is to be viewed— I. AS A JUST JUDGMENT ON PEOPLES WHOSE INIQUITIES CRIED FOR VENGEANCE . The doomed nations had been long borne with ( Genesis 15:16 ). Their iniquities were of a kind and degree of enormity which imperatively called for a Divine interposition (Le 18:27, 28; Deuteronomy 9:4 ). This was the true ground of God's dealings with them, and furnishes a sufficient answer to all cavils. The destruction of the... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Deuteronomy 7:1-11

A holy people's policy of self-preservation. We have in this paragraph a glance onward to the time when Israel's march through the wilderness would be completed, and when the people to whom God had given the land should be confronted with those who had it previously in possession. In our Homily on it let us observe— I. WE HAVE HERE POINTED OUT THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH ISRAEL WOULD TAKE POSSESSION OF THE LAND . 1. There was a great covenant promise... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Deuteronomy 7:1-11

Israel's iconoclastic mission. Material idolatry is the great peril of humanity. To what corruption and misery such idolatry leads, we in Christianized England can scarcely conceive. What the history of our world would have been if that hotbed of Canaanite corruption had continued, it would be difficult to imagine. Many methods were open to God by which he might arrest that plague of vice; out of them all, his wisdom selected this , viz. to employ the Hebrews as his ministers of... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Deuteronomy 7:3

Neither shalt thou make marriages with them. Brought into intimate relations with idolaters, they might be seduced into idolatry; and where marriage was contracted with an idolater, the children might be brought up in idolatry. Such unions were forbidden. read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Deuteronomy 7:3-4

Marriage in the Lord. This law, forbidding marriages with the ungodly, is one for all time. The apostle revives it in 1 Corinthians 7:39 . That marriage should be only in the Lord is evident— I. FROM THE TRUE IDEA OF MARRIAGE . Two individuals unite their lives, and enter into a fellowship the most intimate possible—to what end? Surely that their natures may be raised to greater perfection, and that they may be better enabled to attain the ends of their existence. This... read more

Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - Deuteronomy 7:1-11

See Deuteronomy 6:10 note.Deuteronomy 7:5Their groves - Render, their idols of wood: the reference is to the wooden trunk used as a representation of Ashtaroth; see Deuteronomy 7:13 and Exodus 34:13 note.Deuteronomy 7:7The 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 Deuteronomy 1:10; Deuteronomy 10:22 had taken place because of the... read more

Joseph Benson

Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments - Deuteronomy 7:1

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. read more

Joseph Benson

Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments - Deuteronomy 7:2

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,... read more

Joseph Benson

Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments - Deuteronomy 7:3

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? read more

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