Deuteronomy 7:1-11

1 When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land into which thou must enter to inherit it and has cast out many Gentiles 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 mightier than thou;

2 and when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them nor show mercy unto them.

3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

4 For they will turn away thy son from following me that they may serve other gods; and the anger of the LORD will be kindled upon you and destroy thee suddenly.

5 But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall destroy their altars and break down their images and cut down their groves and burn their graven images in the fire.

6 For thou art a holy people unto the LORD thy God; the LORD thy God has chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, different from all the peoples that are upon the face of the earth.

7 Not because ye were more than the other peoples has the LORD desired you and chosen you; for ye were the fewest of all the peoples;

8 but because the LORD loved you and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, has the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand and ransomed you out of the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

9 Know, therefore, that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and mercy with those that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations

10 and repays him that hates him to his face, to destroy him; he will not be slack to him that hates him; he will repay him to his face.

11 Keep, therefore, the commandments and statutes and rights, which I command thee this day, to do them.

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.