View Deuteronomy 7 in the note window.
A command to destroy the Canaanites,
with all pertaining to their idols, ver. 1 - 5.
And to obey God, considering their relation to him, ver. 6 - 11.
Promises to the obedient, ver. 12 - 15.
A repetition of the command, utterly to destroy the Canaanites,
with all the monuments of their idolatry, ver. 16 - 26.
1: Seven nations - There were ten in (Ge 15:19-21). But this
being some hundreds of years after, it is not strange if three of them
were either destroyed by foreign or domestick wars, or by cohabitation
and marriage united with, and swallowed up in the rest.
4: To serve other Gods - That is, there is manifest danger of
apostacy and idolatry from such matches. Which reason doth both
limit the law to such of these as are unconverted (otherwise Salmon
married Rahab, (Mt 1:5)) and enlarge it to other idolatrous nations,
as appears from (1Ki 11:2,Ezr 9:2,Ne 13:23).
5: Their graves - Which idolaters planted about the temples and
altars of their Gods. Hereby God designed to take away whatsoever might
bring their idolatry to remembrance, or occasion the reviving of it.
7: The fewest - To wit, at that time when God first declared his
choice of you for his peculiar people, which was done to Abraham. For
Abraham had but one son concerned in this choice and covenant, namely,
Isaac, and that was in his hundredth year; and Isaac was sixty
years old ere he had a child, and then had only two children; and though
Jacob had twelve sons, it was a long time before they made any
considerable increase. Nor do we read of any great multiplication of them
'till after Joseph's death.
8: The Lord loved you - It was his free choice without any cause or
motive on your part.
10: Them that hate him - Not only those who hate him directly and
properly, (for so did few or none of the Israelites to whom he here
speaks,) but those who hate him by construction and consequence; those
who hate and oppose his people, and word, those who wilfully persist in
the breach of God's commandments. To their face - That is, openly, and
so as they shall see it, and not be able to avoid it.
Slack - So as to delay it beyond the fit time or season for vengeance,
yet withal he is long - suffering, and slow to anger.
12: The covenant and the mercy - That is, the covenant of mercy,
which he out of his own mere grace made with them.
13: He will love thee - He will continue to love thee, and to
manifest his love to thee.
15: The diseases of Egypt - Such as the Egyptians were infected
with, either commonly, or miraculously. It seems to refer not only to the
plagues of Egypt, but to some other epidemic disease, which they
remembered to have prevailed among the Egyptians, and by which God had
chastised them for their national sins. Diseases are God's servants, which
go where he sends them, and do what he bids them.
19: The temptations - The trials and exercises of thy faith and
obedience to my commands.
24: No man shall stand - This promise is made upon condition of their
performance of their duty, which they neglecting, justly lose the benefit of
it.
25: The silver or gold - Wherewith the idols are covered or adorned,
nor consequently any other of their ornaments. This he commands to shew his
utter detestation of idolatry, and to cut off all occasions of it.
