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Deuteronomy 7:1-11

Listen to Deuteronomy 7:1-11

Israel to Destroy Idolatrous Nations

1 "When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, and He drives out many nations before you-the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and powerful than you-
2 and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you and you defeat them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.
3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons,
4 because they will turn your sons away from Me to worship other gods. Then the Lord's anger will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you.
5 Instead, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, smash their standing pillars, cut down their Asherah poles,[a] and burn up their carved images.
6 For you are a holy people belonging to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be His own possession[b] out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.
7 "The Lord was devoted to you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than all peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.
8 But because the Lord loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers, He brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the place of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9 Know that Yahweh your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His gracious covenant loyalty for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commands.
10 But He directly pays back[c] and destroys those who hate Him.[d] He will not hesitate to directly pay back[e] the one who hates Him.
11 So keep the command-the statutes and ordinances-that I am giving you to follow today.

Deuteronomy 7:1-11 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 7

In this chapter the Israelites are exhorted to destroy the seven nations of the land of Canaan, when they entered into it, and to make no alliances with them of any kind, nor suffer any remains of idolatry to continue, De 7:1-5 to observe which, and other commands of God, they are urged from the consideration of their being freely chosen of God above all other people, and of their being redeemed out of the house of bondage, and of the Lord's being a covenant keeping God to them, De 7:6-11 and it is promised them, for their further encouragement to keep the commands of God, that they should have an increase of all temporal good things, and no evils and calamities should come upon them, De 6:12-16, and, lest they should be disheartened at the numbers and might of their enemies, they are put in mind of what God had done for them in Egypt, and of what he had promised to do for them now, De 7:17-20 and they are assured that the nations should be cast out before them by little and little, until they were utterly destroyed, De 7:21-24 and the chapter is concluded with an exhortation to destroy their images, and not admit anything of that sort to be brought into their houses, De 7:25,26.

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Footnotes 5

  • [a] Ex 23:23-26; 34:13
  • [b] Dt 14:2; Ex 19:5
  • [c] Lit He pays back to their faces
  • [d] Ex 34:6-7
  • [e] Lit to pay back to their faces
Holman Christian Standard Bible ® Copyright © 2003, 2002, 2000, 1999 by Holman Bible Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

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