Deuteronomychapter 7
26 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Deuteronomy Overview.
This chapter speaks to a small people about to face nations larger and stronger than they are. Moses gives them hard orders about those nations and their worship. Then he tells them why God chose them, and the reason lies with God alone. Listen for the reasons he gives for the command to keep themselves apart. Listen also for how he answers the fear that the enemy is too strong. Read it as a lesson in grace and in holiness together.
Context
- Who
- A small nation about to face seven larger ones
- What
- Moses' command to destroy the nations of Canaan and their altars, with the teaching that God chose Israel out of His love and His oath.
- Where
- The plains of Moab east of the Jordan, looking ahead to the seven nations of Canaan.
- When
- The fortieth year after the exodus, about 1406 BC on the traditional dating, or late in the thirteenth century BC on the later dating, before the conquest under Joshua.
- Why
- To keep Israel from the worship of Canaan's gods and to ground their obedience in God's unearned love for them.
Historical context
Moses is the speaker and the chapter is his instruction for a campaign he will not lead. He states the command first and the ground of it afterward, at verses 7 and 8.
Show the rest of the historical context, 5 more paragraphs
The seven nations named were city-states rather than empires. Canaan in this era was a patchwork of small kingdoms, each with its own ruler, its walled town and its farmland, which is the picture the diplomatic letters found at Amarna in Egypt give, where local rulers write to Pharaoh asking for a few dozen soldiers.
A first hearer knew how conquest normally worked. A conqueror kept the population as taxpayers and took their gods into his own pantheon, so the command to make no treaty and no marriage ran against the ordinary practice. The reason verse 4 gives is religion rather than descent, that marriage would turn the sons away to serve other gods.
The objects singled out at verse 5 were the working equipment of Canaanite worship, standing stones, wooden poles for the goddess Asherah, altars, and images plated with silver and gold. Albert Barnes renders the poles as idols of wood and identifies the wooden trunk used to represent Ashtoreth. The warning at verse 25 against coveting the metal on them names how the compromise usually began.
The pace at verse 22 is set deliberately slow. Adam Clarke reads it two ways together, that Israel was not yet numerous enough to fill the land and that wild animals multiply wherever a countryside is emptied faster than it can be farmed. Abandoned terraces and unworked fields return to scrub within a few seasons.
The diseases of verse 15 were known to the hearers. Albert Barnes reads them as the illnesses Egypt was infested with above other countries rather than the plagues of the exodus, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown name ophthalmia, dysentery, smallpox and the plague as maladies later writers confirm of that country.
Significance
They were, by their own reckoning, the smallest of peoples, and verse 7 says so. The chapter tells them the choice was never about size, since God set His love on them and kept the oath He swore to their fathers.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
It also gave them a memory to use when the walls looked high. Verses 18 and 19 answer the fear with what God did to Pharaoh, and apply the same arithmetic to a town in the hill country.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The rule of Jewish descent is drawn from this chapter. Rashi on Deuteronomy 7:4:1 reads the warning about marriage closely. The text says that the daughter given to a foreign son will turn away your son, and Rashi takes the son there to be the grandson she bears. From that he draws the rule that a daughter's son born of a foreign father is called your son. A son's son born of a foreign mother is called her son instead, and Rashi cites Yevamot 23a. Descent reckoned through the mother is still the rule of Jewish status in most of the Jewish world, and this chapter is where the tradition grounds it. Rashi on Deuteronomy 7:2:1 reads the ban on showing them favour in two ways. It forbids saying how beautiful a heathen is, and it forbids granting them a settlement in the land, from Avodah Zarah 20a.
How it is read
The classical commentary reads the choosing of Israel as an act without a reason in Israel. Rashi on Deuteronomy 7:7:1 gives the plain sense first, that God did not choose them for being many. He then gives the Midrashic sense, that God delighted in them because they do not think themselves great when good is showered on them. Rashi on Deuteronomy 7:8:1 reads the following word as meaning but, so the reason given is God's own love. Rashi on Deuteronomy 7:9:1 sets this chapter's thousand generations beside the thousands of generations at 5:10. Grace runs to a thousand generations for those who keep the commandments, and to thousands for those who love him, which he takes from Sotah 31a. Rashi on Deuteronomy 7:11:1 reads the command to do them today as marking this world for the doing and the world to come for the reward, citing Eruvin 22a. Rashi on Deuteronomy 7:12:1 hears the word for consequence as the word for heel. He reads it as a charge to listen even to the lighter commands that a person treads on with his heels. The commands against the nations of Canaan in this chapter are argued in full on this site at /featured/the-canaanite-conquest, and this card states no verdict on them. The Rashi entries are from the corpus entries marked kept, the Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition, public domain. Sforno on Deuteronomy 7:15:1 is from Eliyahu Munk's HaChut Hameshulash, CC-BY. Ibn Ezra on Deuteronomy 7:6:1, 7:16:1, 7:21:1 and 7:24:1 and Malbim on Deuteronomy 7:3:1 and 7:18:1 are linked entries, cited by ref alone.
What the rabbis say
The rabbis teach that the hornet sent ahead of Israel did more than sting. Rashi on Deuteronomy 7:20:1 describes it as a flying insect that injected poison, and that castrated and blinded the people of the land wherever they hid, citing Sotah 36a. This site reports that as their teaching. They teach that the promise of peace with the beasts at Job 5:23 holds for those who do God's will. Rashi on Deuteronomy 7:22:1 asks why the text still warns that the beasts will increase, and answers that their future sin was already plain to God. The corpus also holds the Midrash and the Talmud on this chapter as locators without their text. Among them are Avodah Zarah 36b:5 at verse 1, Avodah Zarah 20a:1 at verse 2 and Kiddushin 68b:3 at verse 4. Others are Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 23 at verse 6, Bamidbar Rabbah 23:7 at verse 8, Jerusalem Talmud Sotah 8:3:6 at verse 20 and Avodah Zarah 15a:7 at verse 26.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Deuteronomy 7:2:1, 7:4:1, 7:7:1, 7:8:1, 7:9:1, 7:11:1, 7:12:1, 7:20:1 and 7:22:1, Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, public domain, 1929 to 1934; Sforno, Sforno on Deuteronomy 7:15:1, Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash, CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Deuteronomy 7:6:1, 7:16:1, 7:21:1 and 7:24:1, cited by ref alone, CC-BY-NC; Malbim, Malbim on Deuteronomy 7:3:1 and 7:18:1, cited by ref alone, no English version; Midrash and Talmud, Avodah Zarah 36b:5, 20a:1 and 15a:7, Kiddushin 68b:3, Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 23, Bamidbar Rabbah 23:7 and Jerusalem Talmud Sotah 8:3:6, cited by ref alone; MannaFest, the Canaanite conquest, at /featured/the-canaanite-conquest, 2026; The Sefaria corpus on disk, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/deuteronomy/7.json, fetched 2026-09-19, 2026.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Make no covenant; break down their altars
Deuteronomy 7:1-2
Seven nations are named here where Genesis 15:19-21 named ten, and commentators explain the difference by the centuries of war and absorption between promise and possession. Verse 2 gives a threefold command, "devote them to complete destruction", "Make no treaty with them" and "show them no mercy", and its ground waits for verses 7 and 8. Genesis 15:16 had already tied the timing to the iniquity of the Amorites.
Deuteronomy 7:1
“These are the seven nations whose lands the Lord promised to give to the children of Israel when they left Egypt. We must accept the fact that, according to the apostle, all the things that happened to them in a figure were written for our instruction.… The reason that they are said to be much more numerous is that there are more vices than virtues. Therefore in the list they are counted as seven nations, to be sure, but when it is a question of destroying them they are said to be innumerable.”
John Cassian · written before 435 · CONFERENCE 5.16.1-2patristic
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Deuteronomy 7:1
“Seven nations - There were ten in Gen. xv, 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.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The verse puts God's act first, when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you, and Israel's duty second. Adam Clarke reads the ban as falling on nations that would not renounce their idolatry and receive the true faith. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read Israel as the instrument God chose for a judgment already due, as on Sodom and Gomorrah.
Deuteronomy 7:2
“Thou shalt smite them, etc. - These idolatrous nations were to be utterly destroyed, and all the others also which were contiguous to the boundaries of the promised land, provided they did not renounce their idolatry and receive the true faith: for if they did not, then no covenant was to be made with them on any secular or political consideration whatever; no mercy was to be shown to them, because the cup of their iniquity also was now full; and they must either embrace, heartily embrace, the true religion, or be cut off.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 7:2
“If they were to be swept away like the antediluvians or the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, as incorrigible sinners who had filled up the measure of their iniquities, it mattered not to them in what way the judgment was inflicted; and God, as the Sovereign Disposer, had a right to employ any instruments that pleased Him for executing His judgments.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Deuteronomy 7:3-5
The ban on marriage carries its reason at once, "they will turn your sons away from following Me". Solomon shows the outcome at 1 Kings 11:1-4, and Ezra 9:1-2 and Nehemiah 13:23-27 both reach back to this passage on the same point. Verse 5 turns to the apparatus of their worship, and Exodus 34:12-16 had already set the same three together: no covenant, no marriage and broken images.
Deuteronomy 7:3
“Neither shalt thou make marriages, etc. - The heart being naturally inclined to evil, there is more likelihood that the idolatrous wife should draw aside the believing husband, than that the believing husband should be able to bring over his idolatrous wife to the true faith.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The second half of the verse turns the warning on Israel, since the destruction ordered for the nations would fall on the people who took up their gods. John Wesley reads the reason given as setting the edge of the marriage law. It left a convert free to marry in, as Salmon married Rahab at Matthew 1:5, and it reached other idolatrous nations, as Ezra 9:2 applies it.
Deuteronomy 7:4
“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, Matt. i, 5) and enlarge it to other idolatrous nations, as appears from 1 Kings xi, 2 Ezra ix, 2 Neh. xiii, 23.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Each object of the shrine gets its own verb, tear down, smash, cut down and burn. Albert Barnes takes the Asherah poles as wooden trunks set up to represent Ashtaroth, whose name returns at verse 13. Augustine of Hippo, preaching on the verse, held that the church acts on it only where lawful authority is given, and first seeks to break the idols in the heart.
Deuteronomy 7:5
It was imitated by the Scottish Reformers, and although many ardent lovers of architecture and the fine arts have anathematized their proceedings as vandalism, yet there was profound wisdom in the favorite maxim of Knox--"pull down the nests, and the rooks will disappear."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The fewest of peoples, and still loved
Deuteronomy 7:6-8
"His prized possession" renders segullah, a king's own treasure held apart from the public store, which the Septuagint gives as laon periousion, the phrase of Titus 2:14. Verses 7 and 8 rest the choice on no quality in Israel, the smallest of peoples, but on the LORD's love and His oath to the fathers. Calvin reads this election as a charge to obedience and a check on pride.
Deuteronomy 7:6
“Thou art a holy people - And therefore should have no connection with the workers of iniquity. A special people - סגלה segullah, - Septuagint, λαον περιουσιον, - a peculiar people, a private property. The words as they stand in the Septuagint are quoted by the apostle, 1Pe 2:9.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The verse sets aside the measure a nation might expect God to choose by, since Israel was the fewest of all peoples. John Wesley traces that smallness to the fathers: Abraham had one son in the promise, born in his hundredth year, Isaac had two sons after sixty, and Jacob's twelve took long to grow. John Gill counts them fewer than both Egypt and the Canaanites.
Deuteronomy 7:7
“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.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The verse joins the reason for the choice to its proof in history, the mighty hand that redeemed you from the house of slavery. Matthew Henry reads the oath as God making himself a debtor to his own promise, since nothing in Israel could make him their debtor. Adam Clarke holds that God's reasons sprang from his goodness, which had to begin its discovery among some one people.
Deuteronomy 7:8
"He has brought you out of Egypt in pursuance of the oath sworn to your fathers." Nothing in them, or done by them, did or could make God a debtor to them; but he had made himself a debtor to his own promise, which he would perform notwithstanding their unworthiness. The tenour 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.
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 7:8
“But because the Lord loved you - It was no good in them that induced God to choose them at this time to be his peculiar people: he had his reasons, but these sprang from his infinite goodness. He intended to make a full discovery of his goodness to the world, and this must have a commencement in some particular place, and among some people. He chose that time, and he chose the Jewish people; but not because of their goodness or holiness.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 7:9-11
Verse 9 repeats the second commandment's wording at Exodus 20:5-6, and verse 10 changes what stands there. Exodus visits iniquity on the third and fourth generation, but here the repayment lands on the man himself, "to their faces" and again "to his face". Mercy for "a thousand generations" against repayment in one lifetime is an asymmetry the text means, and Deuteronomy 24:16 states the same limit as law.
Deuteronomy 7:9
“The only true and living God, and not the idols of the Gentiles, who are false and lifeless ones, and therefore not the proper objects of adoration: the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy; as appeared by fulfilling the promise made to their fathers, in bringing them out of Egypt, and now them to the borders of the land of Canaan given them for an inheritance: with them that love him, and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations; see Exo 20:6 which are not the causes or conditions of his covenant and mercy, nor of his keeping them,…”
The verse names the other party to the covenant of verse 9, those who hate Him, and Matthew Henry counts idolaters among them, since they are in league with his rivals. John Wesley reads to their faces as openly, so that they cannot avoid it, and takes He will not hesitate to mean no delay past the fit time, though God remains slow to anger.
Deuteronomy 7:10
“And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them,.... Openly, publicly, and at once, they not being able to make any resistance.”
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 7:10
“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.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 7:10
“Note, [1.] 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. [2.] Those that hate God cannot hurt him, but certainly ruin themselves.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
So draws the conclusion from verses 9 and 10: a God who keeps covenant with those who love Him and repays those who hate Him is to be obeyed. John Gill takes the three terms, commandments, statutes and ordinances, as the moral, ceremonial and judicial law, pressed on the people by promise and threat. The words this day tie the law to the speech Moses is giving.
Deuteronomy 7:11
“Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments,.... The laws, moral, ceremonial, and judicial, urged thereunto both by promises and threatenings, in hopes of reward, and through fear of punishment: which I command thee this day, to do them; in the name of the Lord, and by his authority; by virtue of which he made a new declaration of them to put them in mind of them in order to observe them.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 7:11
“That people accordingly were truly happy as a nation, and found every promise which the faithful God made to them amply fulfilled, so long as they adhered to that obedience which was required of them.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Blessing on womb, field, and flock
Deuteronomy 7:12-14
These blessings are the seed of chapter 28, where the same items return before the curses. Grain, new wine and oil is a set phrase here, recurring at 11:14, 14:23, 18:4 and 28:51, where an enemy eats it. Barnes reads the Hebrew behind "the lambs of your flocks" as a plural of Ashtoreth, the Sidonian goddess, so a word from the neighbours' fertility religion carries God's increase.
Deuteronomy 7:12
“Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep and do them,.... Attentively listen to the declaration made of them, and be careful to observe them: that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers; to bring them into the land of Canaan, and continue them in it; yea, to send the Messiah to them, and bring him the salvation of Israel out of Zion; see Luk 1:68.”
The love that verse 8 placed in the past is promised here for the future, and its effect is counted in children, crops and young animals. Matthew Henry links the promise to multiply with the first blessing given for the peopling of the world at Genesis 1. The verse ends on the land sworn to the fathers, tying the increase to the oath the chapter has named.
Deuteronomy 7:13
“Flocks of thy sheep - Render it instead: “the ewes of thy sheep.” The phrase is unique to Deuteronomy. The Hebrew word for “ewes” is the plural form of Ashtoreth, the well-known name of the “goddess of the Zidonians” 1Ki 11:5. This goddess, called by the Classical writers “Astarte,” and identified with “Venus,” represented the fruitfulness of nature.”
Blessed above all peoples is spelled out as fruitfulness, and the promise reaches both the household and the herd. John Gill notes that barrenness was counted a reproach in Israel, citing Luke 1:25 and Psalm 128:3, and reports the Targum of Jonathan reading the livestock clause as beasts never barren of wool, milk or lambs. Matthew Henry reads the promise as God answering a people's singular service with singular blessing.
Deuteronomy 7:14
“Thou shalt be blessed above all people,.... Even with temporal blessings, besides those of a religious kind; they having the oracles of God, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises, Rom 3:1, there shall not be male or female barren among you; which to be was reckoned a reproach, and the contrary a blessing, Luk 1:25 Psa 128:3. or among your cattle; the Targum of Jonathan is, nor thy beasts barren of wool, and milk, and lambs.”
Sickness is handled by promise, and the diseases of Egypt are named as something the hearers have already seen, "the terrible diseases you knew in Egypt". Exodus 15:26 made the same promise at Marah and attached a name to it, "I am the LORD who heals you". Chapter 28:27 and 28:60 then put the diseases of Egypt on Israel itself, so one clause serves the blessing and the curse.
Deuteronomy 7:15
“There seems to be here not so much as a reference to the plagues inflicted miraculously by God on Egypt (compare Exo 15:26), as to the terrible diseases with which, above other countries, Egypt was infested. Compare Deu 28:27, Deu 28:35. It is not without significance that Egypt, which represents in Scripture the world as contrasted with the Church, should thus above other lands lie under the power of disease and death.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 7:15
“The testimony of Moses is confirmed by the reports of many modern writers, who tell us that, notwithstanding its equal temperature and sereneness, that country has some indigenous maladies which are very malignant, such as ophthalmia, dysentery, smallpox, and the plague.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Deuteronomy 7:16-17
The command of verse 2 returns shorter, with a clause naming the danger, "Do not worship their gods, for that will be a snare to you". Verse 17 puts the objection in the hearer's heart, "how can we drive them out", the spies' report at Numbers 13:31. Chapter 1:26-33 has told that story, so the same fear meets the reader twice, as history and as a question.
Deuteronomy 7:16
“And thou shall consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee,.... All the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, which the Lord should deliver into their hands; them they were not to spare, but utterly destroy men, women, and children: thine eye shall have no pity upon them; See Gill on Deu 7:2, neither shall thou serve their gods, for that will be a snare unto thee; which will bring into utter ruin and destruction; see Exo 23:33.”
Remember Pharaoh; do not fear these nations
The objection is placed in your heart, and John Gill reads it as a misgiving held inward and never spoken, the arithmetic of seven nations to one. Moses names the fear before he answers it, so the hearer meets his own question inside the speech. Matthew Henry notes the common reckoning that the larger army must win, and verse 18 sets the fall of Pharaoh against it.
Deuteronomy 7:17
“If thou shall say in thine heart,.... Should have secret thoughts arise in the heart, misgivings of heart, fears and doubts there, which, though not outwardly expressed, might be inwardly retained: these nations are more than I; seven to one, and perhaps anyone of them as powerful as Israel: how can I dispossess them? of the land they inherit, and take possession of it.”
Deuteronomy 7:18-19
Remember is one of the book's two standing commands, and here it answers fear. What is to be remembered is an event, "what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt". The signs, wonders, mighty hand and outstretched arm are a fixed formula, found again at 4:34, 11:2-3 and 26:8, and the argument runs from Egypt to "all the peoples you now fear".
Deuteronomy 7:18
“The word and works of God are well remembered when they are improved as helps to our faith and obedience. That is well laid up which is ready to us when we have occasion to use it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The proof offered is what the hearers saw, and those under twenty when the sentence of Numbers 14:29 fell had watched Egypt's trials as children. The verse closes on a promise, The LORD your God will do the same, answering the fear of verse 17 with a precedent. Matthew Henry, on verse 18, says God's works are well remembered when they serve as helps to faith and obedience.
Deuteronomy 7:20-21
The hornet appears here, at Exodus 23:28 and at Joshua 24:12, each time sent by God ahead of Israel. Gill reports Aben Ezra reading it as a disease, others take the insects themselves, and some read Egyptian military pressure on Canaan, the bee being a royal emblem in Egypt. Verse 21 grounds courage in the LORD "who is among you", the presence housed in the tabernacle.
Deuteronomy 7:20
“Moreover, the Lord thy God will send the hornet among them,.... Not a single one, but several of them, and which may be understood of creatures so called, which resemble wasps, only twice as large, an insect very bold and venomous; see Exo 23:28. Aben Ezra interprets it of the leprosy: until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed; such of the Canaanites who escaped the sword of the Israelites, and hid themselves in holes and caverns of the earth; these the hornets would find out and sting them to death, until they were all destroyed.”
The command answers the fear of verse 17 a second time, now with a title, a great and awesome God, which returns in fuller form at 10:17. John Gill reads the terror forbidden as fear of the nations' numbers and gigantic stature. He takes the title in two directions, mighty to save his people and terrible to their enemies.
Deuteronomy 7:21
“Thou shall not be affrighted at them,.... At their numbers, nor at their gigantic stature: for the Lord thy God is among you: in the tabernacle, in the holy of holies, which was in the midst of them, and besides would give proof of his powerful presence among them, in protecting them, and destroying their enemies: a mighty God and terrible; mighty to save his people, and terrible to others.”
Deuteronomy 7:22-23
The slow pace has a reason drawn from the ground itself, "the wild animals would multiply around you", and Exodus 23:29-30 gives the same reason. Judges 2:20-23 gives another for the nations left in the land, that God left them to test Israel, and both accounts stand in the canon. Verse 23 keeps the outcome fixed, "until they are destroyed".
Deuteronomy 7:22
“Put out those nations - by little and little - The Israelites were not as yet sufficiently numerous to fill the whole land occupied by the seven nations mentioned Deu 7:1. And as wild and ferocious animals might be expected to multiply where either there are no inhabitants, or the place is but thinly peopled, therefore God tells them that, though at present, by force of arms, they might be able to expel them, it would be impolitic so to do, lest the beasts of the field should multiply upon them.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The verse names the means God will use, great confusion thrown among the enemy, and Exodus 23:27 had promised the same ahead of Israel. Joshua 10:10 reports it at Gibeon, where the LORD threw the kings' armies into confusion before Israel. John Gill joins this verse to the one before it, reading the handing over as gradual until all the nations came into Israel's hands.
Deuteronomy 7:23
“But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee,.... Gradually, by little and little, until at length they should all come into their hands: and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed; even all of them.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 7:23
“Thus we are commanded not to let sin reign, not to indulge ourselves in it nor give countenance to it, but to hate it and strive against it; and then God has promised that sin shall not have dominion over us ( Rom. vi.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Joshua 12 lists thirty-one kings taken west of the Jordan, this verse carried out and counted. To "wipe out their names from under heaven" is the sentence passed on Amalek at 25:19, "blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven". The clause "No one will be able to stand against you" is spoken again to Joshua at Joshua 1:5, as the charge passes to him.
Deuteronomy 7:25-26
The silver and gold on the images is forbidden, "or you will be ensnared by it", and Achan's gold from Jericho at Joshua 7:21 is the case in point. Barnes reads Romans 2:22 as an allusion to this command. The chapter closes on herem, "set apart for destruction", the root of "devote them to complete destruction" at verse 2, so the devoted thing and its keeper fall under one term.
Deuteronomy 7:25
“The silver or gold that is on them - The silver and gold with which the statues of the gods were overlaid. Paul is probably alluding to this command in Rom 2:22; and his accusation of the Jew thus shows that the prohibition of the text was very necessary. Lest thou be snared - As by the rich ephod made by Gideon: compare the marginal reference.”
The verse carries the ban from the battlefield into the home, where a single kept object would bring its owner under the same sentence as the object. Two verbs are doubled for the attitude asked, utterly detest and abhor it. Matthew Henry reads them as a holy indignation in which those who love God hate what he hates.
Deuteronomy 7:26
“The promise of God's favour to them, if they would be obedient, is enlarged upon with a most affecting copiousness and fluency of expression, which intimates how much it is both God's desire and our own interest that we be religious. All possible assurance is here given them, 1. That, if they would sincerely endeavour to do their part of the covenant, God would certainly perform his part.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
How this psalm is built
The form: Exhortation inside the second address, the terms for taking the land, as Deuteronomy classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The seven nations and the four things to break | Verse 1 names the nations one by one, seven where Genesis 15:19 to 21 had named ten to Abraham. Verse 5 names the apparatus of their worship in the same way, altars, sacred pillars, Asherah poles and idols. John Wesley accounts for the difference in the two lists by the centuries between the promise and the possession, in which three of the ten could be destroyed by war or absorbed by marriage into the rest.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Deuteronomy 7:1. | Deuteronomy 7:1, Deuteronomy 7:5 |
| A thousand generations against a single lifetime | Verse 9 keeps the covenant of loving devotion to a thousand generations and verse 10 repays the one who hates Him to his own face, with the phrase falling twice in the one verse. The site's published exposition records that Exodus 20:5 and 6 visits iniquity to the third and fourth generation, and that 24:16 states the same limit as law for Israel's courts.This site's published exposition of Deuteronomy 7:9 to 11, The exposition_notes row on Deuteronomy 7:9 to 11, citing Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, 1866, and John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763. | Deuteronomy 7:9, Deuteronomy 7:10 |
| Do not be afraid of them | The formula stands at verse 18 after the objection of verse 17 and again at verse 21, and each time a reason follows it. The first reason is what God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, and the second is that the LORD is among them. The site's published exposition records that the objection at verse 17 is the report the spies brought back at Numbers 13:31, which 1:26 to 33 has already told as history.This site's published exposition of Deuteronomy 7:16 to 17 and 7:18 to 19, The exposition_notes rows on Deuteronomy 7:16 to 17 and 7:18 to 19, citing Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, and Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, 1866. | Deuteronomy 7:17, Deuteronomy 7:18, Deuteronomy 7:21 |
| The chapter opens and closes on one word | Verse 2 devotes the nations to destruction and verse 26 puts the man who carries a devoted thing into his house under the same term. The site's published exposition records that the word behind both is herem, so the thing set apart for destruction and the man who keeps it fall under one root.This site's published exposition of Deuteronomy 7:25 to 26, The exposition_notes row on Deuteronomy 7:25 to 26, citing Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710. | Deuteronomy 7:2, Deuteronomy 7:25, Deuteronomy 7:26 |
| The ewes named after the goddess | Albert Barnes renders the phrase at verse 13 as the ewes of your sheep, states that it stands nowhere else in the Bible, and records that the Hebrew word for ewes is the plural form of Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians named at 1 Kings 11:5. A word taken from the neighbours' religion for the fruitfulness of nature carries the increase God gives, in a chapter that has just ordered her poles cut down.Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on Deuteronomy 7:13. | Deuteronomy 7:13 |
The debated concept: the command against the nations
17 more paragraphs on the patterns
The command is stated without softening, and the dossier carries the positions on it with their holders. This page states no verdict and the case is argued in full at /featured/the-canaanite-conquest.
The first position reads it as judgment on the grounds the text itself gives. Genesis 15:16 set the clock four centuries earlier by the iniquity of the Amorite, 9:5 states that Israel is given the land for the wickedness of those nations rather than for its own righteousness, and 20:18 gives protection from the practices as the second ground. The dossier names Christopher J. H. Wright for this reading. Israel is put under the identical sanctions in chapter 28 and is later driven out of the same land.
The second position reads the language as the conventional hyperbole of ancient conquest reporting. The dossier names K. Lawson Younger, who compared the biblical wording with Egyptian, Hittite and Assyrian campaign texts, and Kenneth A. Kitchen, who notes that Joshua and Judges both describe survivors in cities said to be wholly destroyed.
Adam Clarke adds a third reading of the terms. He holds that these nations and their neighbours were to be destroyed if they refused to renounce their idolatry and receive the true faith, since the measure of their iniquity was now full. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown argue from sovereignty, that a people swept away as the flood and Sodom were swept away is judged whatever instrument carries the judgment.
The debated reading of the hornet
The hornet of verse 20 stands three times in Scripture, here, at Exodus 23:28 and at Joshua 24:12, and God sends it ahead of Israel in each place. The site's published exposition carries three readings. John Gill reports Aben Ezra taking it for a disease and names the leprosy, and Gill himself holds to the insects, which he describes as twice the size of a wasp and venomous. A third reading takes the hornet for Egyptian military pressure on Canaan, since the bee served as a royal emblem in Egypt.
The historical value
The diseases of verse 15 are named as something the hearers had already seen. Albert Barnes reads them as the illnesses Egypt was infested with above other countries rather than as the plagues God inflicted there. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown record that many later writers confirm it, and name ophthalmia, dysentery, smallpox and the plague as maladies of that country. Exodus 15:26 had made the same promise at Marah, and 28:27 and 28:60 turn it around and put the diseases of Egypt on Israel.
The pace set at verse 22 is explained from the ground itself, that the wild animals would multiply in emptied country, and Exodus 23:29 and 30 give the same reason in almost the same words. Adam Clarke adds that Israel was not yet numerous enough to fill the land the seven nations held. Judges 2:20 to 23 supplies a different reason for nations left in the land, that God left them to prove Israel, and both accounts stand.
Joshua 12 lists thirty one kings taken west of the Jordan, which is verse 24 carried out and counted.
The New Testament's use
The word at verse 6 for a people held as a king's own treasure is rendered in the Septuagint by a phrase Titus 2:14 uses of the church, a people for His own possession. Adam Clarke sets the same Greek beside 1 Peter 2:9, which gathers the language of Exodus 19:5 and 6.
Albert Barnes reads Romans 2:22 as an allusion to verse 25, where Paul asks a reader who abhors idols whether he robs temples, and holds that the accusation shows how necessary the prohibition was. Joshua 7:21 is the case in point inside the Old Testament, where Achan takes silver and gold out of Jericho and Israel loses the next battle, and Judges 8:24 to 27 has Gideon make an ephod out of spoil.
John Wesley limits the marriage law of verse 3 to the unconverted, and gives Salmon's marriage to Rahab at Matthew 1:5 as his case, while extending the law to other idolatrous nations from 1 Kings 11:2, Ezra 9:2 and Nehemiah 13:23.
The election, and what the chapter does with it
John Calvin reads the election of verses 6 to 8 as a reason for obedience laid on the people rather than as a warrant for pride. The chapter states the same thing in its own order, since the ground of the choice is given after the command and consists of two things outside Israel, the love of God and an oath sworn to the fathers.
Verse 9 then turns the election into a statement about God's character, that He is faithful and keeps covenant, and verse 11 draws the conclusion as a command to keep the statutes.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Christopher J. H. Wright, The God I Don't Understand, 2008, as the dossier records the position; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Deuteronomy 7:2 to 6; K. Lawson Younger, with Kenneth A. Kitchen, Ancient Conquest Accounts, 1990, and On the Reliability of the Old Testament, 2003, as the dossier records the position and This site's published guide to Deuteronomy, src/components/book/guides/deuteronomy/DeuteronomyGuide.tsx, the section The Second Address: the Law Restated at 4:44 to 26:19, which reads chapters 6 to 11 as the twin commands to love and remember.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 62; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.