Exodus 34:10-13

"And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of Jehovah; for it is a terrible thing that I do with thee. Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the peoples of the land wither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: but ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and ye shall cut down their Asherim."

"Behold, I make a covenant ..." The import of this is not that God was about to replace the first covenant with another, but that he would renew the first covenant. Rawlinson gave the meaning as, "I lay down afresh the terms of the covenant between me and Israel."[9] See under Exodus 34:14 for confirmation of this.

"I will do marvels ..." The summary judgments executed upon Israel during their wanderings must surely have. been included in these, as, for example, when the earth swallowed up Korah and his rebellious followers; nevertheless, by the immediate and emphatic mention of driving out the nations of the Canaanites, it appears certain that great wonders such as their crossing of the Jordan at flood, and the falling of the walls of Jericho were especially in view.

"It is a terrible thing that I do with thee ..." "Terrible, not to Israel, but to Israel's enemies."[10]

"Take heed lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land ..." The subsequent history of Israel revealed how necessary and absolutely vital such a prohibition actually was. It was precisely through their transgression of this divine commandment that the eventual destruction of their "sinful kingdom" came about. Solomon himself was the notorious example of the violation of this command.

"Whither thou goest ..." The use of the future tense here emphasizes that these legislative announcements from God occurred before the entry into Canaan, and that they do not "represent the situation after the entry into Canaan.

"Break down their altars ... dash in pieces their pillars ... cut down their Asherim ..." None of these commands was honored by Israel upon their coming into Canaan; as a matter of fact, they eventually restored all of the groves, pillars, and altars of paganism, and even constructed others!

"Their Asherim ..." "Asherim is the plural Asherah, the name of a Syrian-Canaanite goddess of fertility. She was the wife of the war-god Asir."[11] The symbols of this goddess, made frequently of green trees, that being the type that Manasseh introduced into God's temple at Jerusalem (2 Kings 21:3,7), and also of carved posts, "wooden poles made in the shape of the male sex organ,"[12] in time, came to be called "the Asherim." Thus, what is commanded here is that all such symbols of pagan gods and goddesses were to be destroyed. It seems certain that the carved posts were especially detestable. Orlinsky translated "the Ahserim" here as "their sacred posts!"[13] As Cook noted, "The precepts contained in these verses are, for the most part, identical in substance with some of those which followed the Ten Commandments."[14] Clements quite properly observed that, "These (sacred posts) were especially marked out for destruction because of their association with immorality practiced in the name of religion."[15] When this writer was a chaplain in the USAF in the Far East (FEAF) in 1953, he saw the huge Phallic Shrine in southern Honshu, and was told that one of the great pagan festivals in Japan (at that time) still featured the public parade of these detestable symbols on certain occasions. Even just to see such things is a shock!