Exodus 23:32

32 Make no agreement with them or with their gods.

Exodus 23:32 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 23:32

Thou shalt make no covenant with them
A covenant of peace, a league, a confederacy, so as to take them to be their allies and friends; but they were always to consider them as their enemies, until they had made an utter end of them; though the Gibeonites by craft and guile obtained a league of them; but the methods they took to get it show they had some knowledge of this law, that the Israelites might not, or at least would not, make any league or covenant with the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. This may be also extended to marriage covenants, which they were forbid to make with them; which yet they did, and proved a snare to them, for this brought them to makes a covenant with their gods, and serve them, which is here also forbidden:

nor with their gods;
making vows unto them, promising to serve them, if they would do such and such things for them.

Exodus 23:32 In-Context

30 Little by little I will send them away before you, till your numbers are increased and you take up your heritage in the land.

31 I will let the limits of your land be from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the waste land to the river Euphrates: for I will give the people of those lands into your power; and you will send them out before you.

32 Make no agreement with them or with their gods.

33 Let them not go on living in your land, or they will make you do evil against me: for if you give worship to their gods, it will certainly be a cause of sin to you.