Deuteronomy 7

De. 4 44 And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel: these are the 45 testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgements, which Moses spake unto the children of 46 Israel, when they came forth out of Egypt; beyond Jordan, in the valley over against Beth- peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses and the 47 children of Israel smote, when they came forth out of Egypt: and they took his land in posses- sion, and the land of Og king of Ba-han, the two kings of the Amorites, which were beyond 48 Jordan toward the sunrising; from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of Arnon, even 49 unto mount Sion (the same is Hermon), and all the Arabah beyond Jordan eastward, even unto the sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah.

5 1 And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the judgements which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and observe to 2 do them. The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The LORD made not this 3 covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day. Ye 32 shall observe to do therefore as the LORD your God hath commanded you: ye shall not turn 33 aside to the right hand or to the left. Ye shall walk in all the way which the LORD your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may pro- long your days in the land which ye shall possess.

6 1 Now this is the commandment, the statutes, and the judgements, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to pos- 2 sess it: that thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his command- ments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; 3 and that thy days may be prolonged. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD, the God of thy fathers, hath promised unto thee, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

10. And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land which he swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee; great and goodly cities, which 11 thou buildest not, and houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and cisterns hewn out, which thou hewedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not, and 12 thou shalt eat and be full; then beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth 13 out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; 14 and him shalt thou serve, and shalt swear by his name. Ye shall not go after other gods, of 15 the gods of the peoples which are round about you; for the LORD thy God in the midst of thee is a jealous God; lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and he destroy thee from off the face of the earth.

16. Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted him in Massah. Ye shall diligently 17 keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which 18 he hath commanded thee. And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the LORD: that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land 19 which the LORD swore unto thy fathers, to thrust out all thine enemies from before thee, as the LORD hath spoken.

7 1 When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before thee, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and 2 mightier than thou; and when the LORD thy God shall deliver them up before thee, and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with 3 them, nor shew mercy unto them: neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daugh- 4 ter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For he will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger 5 of the LORD be kindled against you, and he will destroy thee quickly. But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down 6 their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire. For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, 7 above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth. 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 8 all peoples: but because the LORD loveth you, and because he would keep the oath which he sware unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed 9 you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 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; 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. Thou shalt therefore keep the commandment, and the statutes, and the judgements, which I command thee this day, to do them. 12 And it shall come to pass, because ye hearken to these judgements, and keep, and do them, that the LORD thy God shall keep with thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers: and he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy ground, thy corn and thy wine and thine oil, the increase of thy kine and the young of thy flock, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee. Thou shalt be blessed above all peoples: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle. And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness; and he will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee, but will lay them upon all them that hate thee. And thou shalt consume all the peoples which the LORD thy God shall deliver unto thee; thine eye shall not pity them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee. If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them? thou shalt not be afraid of them: thou shalt well remember what the LORD thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt; 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 peoples of whom thou art afraid. Moreover the LORD thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves, perish from before thee. 21 Thou shalt not be affrighted at them: for the LORD thy God is in the midst of thee, a great God and a terrible. And the LORD thy God will cast 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. But the LORD thy God shall deliver them up before thee, and shall discomfit them with a great discomfiture, until they be destroyed. And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt make their name to perish from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them. The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not covet the silver or the 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: and thou shalt not bring an abomination into thine house, and become a devoted thing like unto it: thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing.

Moses did not deliver all that is contained in this book in one continued speech. After the preface (four chapters) it is to be supposed that he dismissed the people to consider what he had said. Some time after he reassembled them, to put them in mind of the laws which he so earnestly pressed them to observe. Patrick.—The second discourse contains a recapitulation, with some modifications and additions, of the Law already given on Mount Sinai. Yet it is not bare recapitulation, or naked enactment, but every word shows the heart of the lawgiver full at once of zeal for God and of the most fervent desire for the welfare of his nation. It is the Father no less than the Legislator who speaks. And while obedience and life are throughout bound up together, it is the obedience of a loving heart, not a service of formal constraint, which is the burden of his exhortations. P. S.

4: 44-49. This second address is introduced by a general notice of what is to form the subject of it—viz., the Law, with a more especial description of that in its different parts, as conconsisting of ordinances, statutes, and rights; together with a reference to the place and time when this address was delivered. W. L. A.—A statement manifestly introductory to the discourse of the succeeding chapters. Moses is about to declare the “testimonies,” what comes forth from God to indicate his will; and the “statutes,” the defined duties of moral obligation; and the “judgments,” or mutual rights of men. The conditions of his speech are here detailed. Ebgar.

These verses introduce the main body of laws in this book, just as ch. 29:1 marks their close, and their relation to God’s earlier messages. They leave no alternative open, except the admission of the genuineness and Mosaic origin of the record or else the charge of a very carefully planned and most deliberate forgery. The twenty-four chapters that follow must be the Law of God by the hand of his servant Moses, or a gigantic falsehood from first to last. And yet they contain, along with the Decalogue, the three texts by which the Son of God repelled and overcame the temptations of Satan, and that first and great commandment which his lips have singled out from the whole Word of God as pre-eminently Divine. Our Lord’s own question is thus unanswerable: “If ye believe not his writings, how can ye believe my words?” The whole passage before us has a kind of legal precision, fixing exactly the time and place when and where this crowning portion of God’s Law was given to his people. The comment, “beyond Jordan toward the sun-rising,” and the name Sion given to Mount Hermon here only, are further signs that the words were penned on the eastern side of the river, before the name Hermon, dating from the conquest, had superseded other and earlier names. Birks.

5 : 1-3. Moses reminds them of the making of the covenant at Horeb, and of the revelation of the fundamental law of the covenant there. As he was about to recapitulate the laws which God their King had enacted, it was fitting that he should refer at the outset to that covenant relation between Jehovah and Israel on which all the injunctions of the Law rested. W. L. A.

6 : 1-3. Moses exhorts, entreats, wrestles with men, that they may be wise and good; there is nothing wanting that is suggestive of ripeness of experience, depth and genuineness of sympathy. Moses becomes shepherd again, only now men and women and children, more wayward than any beasts of the earth, constitute his multitudinous and most trying flock. Mark, though the fire of his eye is not dimmed, the growth of the man in the softening of his voice, in his pastoral solicitude for the salvation of Israel. These chapters of Deuteronomy are full of exhortation and expostulation. 3. Whoever observes and does the commandments of God shall enter into largeness of blessing and immeasurable depth of holy contentment. No man can do right in order that it may be well with him, but no man can do right without its being consequentially well with every faculty of his mind, every emotion of his spirit, every outgoing of his life. Moses is already preaching the Sermon upon the Mount according to the measure of the light which made up his ancient day. What is he now doing but saying, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”? “Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do the commandment of God; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily.” Our business is with the “hearing” and the “observing,” and God’s business is with the result of blessing. J. P.—The forms in which the rewards of loyalty to God will show themselves are very varied. The individual will find that godliness has “promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” The family will find that “he blesseth the habitation of the just.” The city will find that the keeping of God’s commandments is among the things “which belong unto its peace.” And “the righteous nation which keepeth the truth” will find that “salvation doth God appoint for walls and bulwarks.” Mercifully meeting us on the low ground on which we too frequently stand in looking out for profit, God would raise us up to the higher platform of a pure, self-abandoning self-forgetfulness and love, in which we are content to be nothing, that God may be all in all. C. C.

10-12. The Israelites were on the point of quitting a nomad life, in which they had lived in a great degree aloof from other nations, for a fixed and settled abode in the midst of them; were exchanging a condition of comparative poverty, in which they possessed nothing except what they carried, for “great and goodly cities, houses full of all good things,” etc. There was then before them a double danger; that namely of a God-forgetting worldliness, and that of a false tolerance of the idolatries practised by those about to become their neighbors. The former error Moses strives to guard against in the verses before us. Espin.

12. Beware, lest thou forget the Lord.** The enjoyment of the good things of this life which God gives is accompanied with the danger of forgetting him, and of clinging to the gods of nature, as has been the case with many heathen people. The remembrance of God’s benefits and chastisements and of his interference in their history, was to serve to the people of Israel to counterbalance this danger. Gerl.—We are born into the possession of riches. The poorest man in the land is an inheritor of all but infinite wealth, in every department of civilization. Men to-day enjoy the liberty for which other men paid their lives. Coming into a civilization so ripe and rich, having everything made ready to our hands, the whole system of society telephoned so that we can communicate with distant friends and bring them within hearing, the table loaded with everything which a healthy appetite can desire—all these things constitute a temptation, if not rightly received. Moses drew the picture, and then said—“Beware.” In the time of prosperity, and fulness, and overflow—“then beware lest thou forget the Lord” Ever hear this word of caution—“beware.” When the harvest is the best harvest that ever was grown in our fields, then—“beware.” When health is long-continued and the doctor a stranger in the house, then—“beware.” When house is added to house and land to land, then—“beware.” J. P.

13. In the Old Testament piety is frequently named the fear of the Lord; perhaps as frequently as in the New Testament it is named love. Not that either is peculiar to these parts of Scripture respectively; but good men are oftenest spoken of in the Old Testament as fearing, and in the New Testament as loving. Good men loved God then, and good men fear him now; but Old Testament love was much like fear, and New Testament fear is much like love. Abraham and Moses fear while they draw near in filial belief; but John, while he reverences, rests upon the very bosom of his God. J. W. A.

15. By the help of natural reason we may know there is a God, the first cause and original of all things; but his essence, attributes, and will cannot be discerned by us but through faith in his Divine revelation. He that walks without this light walks in darkness, though he may strike out some faint and glimmering sparkles of his own. And he that, out of the gross and wooden dictates of his natural reason, carves out a religion to himself, is but a more refined idolater than those who worship stocks and stones, hammering an idol out of his fancy and adoring the works of his own imagination. For this reason God is nowhere said to be jealous, but upon the account of his worship, Bunyan.

18,19. Whether our earthly circumstances are helps or hindrances to us Godward will depend much more on what we bring to them than on what they bring to us. And however, on the side of this life, things may favor us and circumstances befriend, it is only as they help us to serve God better that they are really blessings to us; it is “well” with us only when God is well pleased with us. So much stress did Moses attach to the maintenance of unswerving loyalty to God, that he intimates that the possession of the land is secured to them only so far as they are true to their great Deliverer. C. C.

7: 1-4. The Israelites were about to enter on a country occupied by idolaters, and they are commanded not to spare them or to allow them to continue in their proximity, or to have any friendly relations with them. The Lord would cast out these nations, and deliver them, though greater and mightier than they, into their hands; and they were to smite them and place them under the ban; they were to make no covenant with them nor form any alliances with them, lest they should thus be drawn into idolatry, and so the anger of the Lord be kindled against them, and his vengeance brought upon them. W. L. A.

1-11. Israel forewarned against a false toleration of idolatry. Commerce with the idolatrous nations among which they were about to live might easily render them dangerously familiar with superstitions and abominations, against which it was a primary purpose of the whole legislation to raise up a witness and a protest. Hence the stringency of the command given verses 2-5, and repeated verses 23-26, to excommunicate the idolatrous nations and all belonging to them, and to exterminate their degraded worship with all its appliances. The renewal of the promises in verses 12 sqq. is but set forth as supplying a motive for the more zealous and effectual execution of these duties; and thus the destruction of idolatry and idolaters within the sacred precincts of the chosen people appears as the leading topic of this part of Moses’ discourse. The words and phrases employed will be found parallel to various passages of the preceding books. Espin.

2. Utterly destroy them.** One of the chief reasons which made this destruction necessary was the consideration that if any of the old inhabitants were left they would prove a snare to those who succeeded them in the country; would draw and seduce them by degrees into the vices and corruptions which prevailed among themselves. Vices of all kinds, but vices especially of the licentious kind, are astonishingly infectious. Paley.

3,4. All care to prevent idolatry would probably have been useless, without prohibiting intermarriages; and putting a stop to such intercourse and entertainments as would have proved an occasion either of intermarriages or of familiarities no less dangerous. Lowman.—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 lusts that war 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 fault; let not us then make covenants with them, or show them any mercy, but mortify and crucify them, and utterly destroy them. H.

5-8. They were not only to have no fellowship with the idolaters, but they were to root out their idolatry, everting their altars and destroying their idols; and this because they were a holy people, graciously chosen of God to be his special possession—a high privilege and honor which they were to be careful not to cast away. W. L. A.

7. Set his love upon you.** The Hebrew verb meaning primarily to cleave to, to be attached to, is used to express ardent and loving affection. The fewest of all people. It might have been supposed that, in choosing a people to be his special treasure, the Almighty would have selected some one of the great nations of the world; but, instead of that, he had chosen one of the smallest. They had, indeed, grown till now they were as the stars for multitude; but it was not in prospect of this that they were chosen. The election of Israel was purely of grace. W. L. A.

8. Because the Lord loved you.** Instead of saying, He hath chosen you out of love to your fathers, as in ch 4:37, Moses brings out in this place love to the people of Israel as the Divine motive, not for choosing Israel, but for leading it out and delivering it from the slave-house of Egypt, by which God had practically carried out the election of the people, that he might thereby allure the Israelites to a reciprocity of love. Keil.—The word love is an Old Testament word. The tenderest expressions ever used by heaven to earth are reported not in the New Testament, but in the Old. That the Lord loved Israel was shown by long-suffering, by hopeful patience, by pouring down blessing upon blessing, notwithstanding the ingratitude of the people. J. P.—The choice of Israel was with a view to their being a holy people and a special people unto the Lord. Electing love extended to a nation or a people is really a Divine investment. The result is the holiness and consecration of the people. It is this holiness, this sense of consecration, which proves the electing love of God. And this is all the more intense when it is seen clearly that God’s love is manifested, not on the ground of national or personal merit, but as a matter of free grace. Edgar.

9. The faithful God.** We read of the living God, the mighty God, the glorious Lord God, and in the text of the faithful God. The Apostle Paul is fond of applying the word “faithful” to God and to Jesus Christ, thus: “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” “The Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil.” “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able.” “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his

Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Apostle John, too, in a remarkable passage, avails himself of the same descriptive term: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” If God is faithful himself, he expects faithfulness in others. He praises faithfulness in those who have completed their course of life honorably: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” He would see himself in others. J. P.

Keepeth covenant. The tenor 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. 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 them 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 the streams!” Just to his enemies, he repayeth them that hate him (verse 10). 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. H.—The “haters of God” or the disobedient were threatened with temporal calamities extending “to the third or fourth generation of their children;” but the “lovers of God” or the obedient, who should keep these his commandments, were encouraged by the promise that God would show mercy unto their children to the thousandth generation, or to the remotest ages. Thus the idolatries of the Jewish nation drew down on themselves and on their children the Babylonish captivity of seventy years, including the third and fourth generation of the offenders; while the righteous posterity of the true Israelites, in the regeneration will flourish till the end of the world. How infinitely does the goodness transcend the severity of God! Hales.

13-15. Godliness has promise of the life that now is. It naturally tends to prosperity. It condemns idleness, waste, dishonesty, and the whole series of vices which wreck health, squander property, and destroy confidence. Where religion prevails, men will be industrious, conscientious, orderly, and reliable. But, in addition to this natural tendency, there rests on the good man’s lot what is distinctively spoken of as the Divine blessing. This will mingle itself with all he has and with all he does. It gives him favor in the eyes of men. It opens up his way for him (Ps. 37 : 5). It protects him from injury (Ps. 37 : 33, 39). It overrules all events and influences, so that they work for his good. This is forcibly illustrated in the text, where blessing is represented as descending on the home, on the products of the land, on flocks and herds, and on the bodily life. The counterpart of the blessing is the curse (verse 15). The wicked often prosper, but it is prosperity unblessed and unenduring. Orr.

18-24. From verses 18 to 24 we have the cheering voice of the great lawgiver, grandly uttering, in his hundred and twentieth year, words to empower the heart, and showing Israel, in the name of the Lord of hosts, how much more there is to animate them than there can possibly be to discourage and depress. He reminds them no fewer than eight times of the name of the Lord their God; bids them look back to past miracles and wonders, and to see in them pledges of future help; shows them how the providential action of God, which was for them, would be against their foes; assures them that God would be among them as an ever-present Helper and Friend; and points out that, though the process of driving out the Canaanites might be slow, yet if it were done more rapidly, it would be attended with great peril from other and unexpected quarters; that both tribes of men and herds of beasts would be kept in abeyance for their sakes; so that, though they were led by a tedious route, it would be the safest way! The whole passage is full of interest and instruction for our every-day life. C. C.

23-25. They did not execute his sentence by their own power. Their commission ran, “The Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction. And he shall deliver their kings into thy hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven,” etc. It is very evident, therefore, that the Israelites could not have been actuated by any of the motives that usually actuate men in war. At every step they were made to feel that their only hope was in humble reliance upon Divine promises and obedience to the Divine commands. There was no temptation to avarice, for they were to take no spoil, but utterly to destroy everything captured. They could not be animated by feelings of vengeance, for the idea kept ever before their minds as the reason for the destruction is that it is the base and hateful idolatry that is to be destroyed. The Law, indeed, required even a Hebrew city to be utterly exterminated when given up thus to idolatry, just as a Canaanitish city. In short, it is evident that the reason for choosing Israel as the instrument for inflicting judgment was that Israel itself should be thoroughly estranged from idolatry and the seductions of false religion. It was with a view to put an impassable gulf between them and the idolatrous nations. S. R.

24. The depraved state of the morals of the Canaanites is too notorious to require any proof. They were a wicked people in the time of Abraham, and even then were devoted by God to destruction; but “their iniquity was not then full.” In the time of Moses they were idolaters; sacrificers of their own infants; devourers of human flesh; addicted to unnatural lust; immersed in the filthiness of all manner of vice. It was agreeable to God’s moral justice to exterminate so wicked a people. He made the Israelites the executors of his vengeance; and in doing this he gave such an evident and terrible proof of his abomination of vice as could not fail to strike the surrounding nations with astonishment and terror, and to impress on the minds of the Israelites what they were to expect if they followed the example of the nations whom he commanded them to cut off. The conduct of Moses toward the Canaanites would have been wrong had he acted by his own authority alone; but it were as reasonable to attribute cruelty and murder to the judge of the land in condemning criminals to death, as to condemn the conduct of Moses in executing the command of God. Bp. Watson.

25. Whatsoever had been employed in idolatrous worship was so detestable to the Divine majesty, that he would not have it converted to any ordinary use, but utterly destroyed; therefore he commanded them not to bring any of the silver and gold which had belonged to idols, which he calls an “abomination,” into their houses to be employed for any private use whatsoever. If a man did, he became “an accursed thing;” that is, was devoted to destruction, as the thing itself was. This appeared afterward in the example of Achan (Josh. 7), who took a wedge of gold and a Babylonish garment for his own private use when it had been “accursed” by God’s express command, and therefore was stoned to death. Bp. Patrick.

26. Speaking of heathen abomination, Moses says, “Thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it.” There is no middle feeling; there is no intermediate way of dealing with bad things. “If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off; “if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out.” “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.” Thus the Testaments are one; the moral tone is the same; the stern law never yields to time—its phrase changes, its words may come and go, its forms may take upon them the color of the transient times, but the inner spirit of righteousness is the Spirit of God, without beginning, without measure, without end. J. P.

SECOND PARTING ADDRESS (CONTINUED): REMEMBRANCE OF JEHOVAH’S WILDERNESS DEALINGS, AND PROSPECT OF THE GOODLY CANAAN INHERITANCE PRESSED AS MOTIVES TO OBEDIENT SERVICE. WARNING AGAINST FORGETFULNESS OF GOD AND PRIDE OF HEART.