Albert Barnes Commentary Deuteronomy 7
Albert Barnes Commentary
Deuteronomy 7
Albert Barnes Commentary
Deuteronomy 7
"When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations 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; and when Jehovah thy God shall deliver them up before thee, and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them: thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; 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. For he will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of Jehovah be kindled against you, and he will destroy thee quickly. But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire. For thou art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God: Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth. Jehovah did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all peoples: but because Jehovah loveth you, and because he would keep the oath which he sware unto your fathers, hath Jehovah brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that Jehovah thy God, he is God, the faithful God, who keepeth covenant and lovingkindness with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations, and repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face. Thou shalt therefore keep the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command thee this day, to do them." — Deuteronomy 7:1-11 (ASV)
See (Deuteronomy 6:10) note.
(Deuteronomy 7:5) Their groves - Render, their idols of wood: the reference is to the wooden trunk used as a representation of Ashtaroth; see (Deuteronomy 7:13) and (Exodus 34:13) note.
(Deuteronomy 7:7) The fewest of all people - God chose Israel for Himself when Israel was still only a single family, or rather a single person, Abraham, though there were already numerous nations and powerful kingdoms on the earth. Israel's increase (Deuteronomy 1:10; Deuteronomy 10:22) had taken place because of the very blessing of God spoken of in (Deuteronomy 7:8).
(Deuteronomy 7:10) Repayeth them that hate him to their face - that is, punishes His enemies in their own persons.
"and he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee; he will also bless the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy ground, thy grain and thy new wine and thine oil, the increase of thy cattle and the young of thy flock, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee." — Deuteronomy 7:13 (ASV)
Flocks of thy sheep - Render it instead: “the ewes of your 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 (1 Kings 11:5). This goddess, called by the Classical writers “Astarte,” and identified with “Venus,” represented the fruitfulness of nature.
"And Jehovah will take away from thee all sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, will he put upon thee, but will lay them upon all them that hate thee." — Deuteronomy 7:15 (ASV)
There seems to be here not so much a reference to the plagues miraculously inflicted by God on Egypt , as to the terrible diseases with which Egypt, above other countries, was infested. Compare Deuteronomy 28:27, Deuteronomy 28:35. It is not without significance that Egypt, which in Scripture represents the world as contrasted with the Church, should thus, above other lands, lie under the power of disease and death.
"The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein; for it is an abomination to Jehovah thy God." — Deuteronomy 7:25 (ASV)
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 (Romans 2:22); and his accusation of the Jew thus shows that the prohibition of the text was very necessary.
Lest you be snared - As by the rich ephod made by Gideon: compare the marginal reference.
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