Deuteronomy 7:1 - Meaning and Application

Here is a very serious warning against all friendship and fellowship with idols and idol worshipers. Those who have been brought into fellowship with God must have no share in the useless works of darkness. These commands were given to keep Israel from the trap that now stood before them.

They were told to show the Canaanite nations no mercy, (Deuteronomy 7:1, Deuteronomy 7:2). This was a work of judgment, and yet it was God’s work, good work, and, in its proper time and place, a necessary, acceptable, and honorable work. God first promised that he would bring them into the promised land and drive out the nations before them. There was no room left to doubt it. His power cannot be resisted, so he can do it. His promise cannot be broken, so he will do it.

These doomed nations are named and counted, seven in all, and seven against one is a huge disadvantage. They are listed so Israel would know the limits of their commission. Their harshness was to go this far and no farther. They were not to kill everyone they met under cover of this command. The fact that the command was limited to these nations also shows that later generations were not meant to use it as a pattern. It cannot be used to excuse cruel laws that give no mercy. When God himself gave this command, it fit that special time, much as the law then required many animals to be killed and burned in sacrifice. But now that all sacrifices for atonement are finished in Christ’s great sacrifice, human life has become even more precious. Those with the most power still must not treat life carelessly.

These nations are also described as greater and stronger than Israel. They had lived long in the land, while Israel came there as strangers. They were more numerous and had larger, more experienced soldiers. Yet none of that would stop God from driving them out before Israel. The strength of Israel’s enemies only shows the power of Israel’s God, who will surely overcome them.

Israel also had their part to do. They were to strike them and completely destroy them, (Deuteronomy 7:2). If God drove them out, Israel must not take them in, not even as tenants, subjects, or servants. No alliance of any kind was to be made with them, and no mercy was to be shown. This severity was appointed, first, as punishment for the evil they and their fathers had done. The sin of the Amorites was now full, and the longer judgment was delayed, the more severe it became when it finally came.

Second, this was to keep them from harming God’s people if they were left alive. The people of these abominations were not to be mixed with the holy seed, or they would corrupt it. Better that these lives should be lost than that true religion and the worship of God should be lost in Israel. In the same way, we must deal with the sins and lusts that fight against our souls. God has put them into our hands through his promise, “Sin will not have dominion over you,” unless we fail in our duty. We must not make peace with them or show them mercy. We must put them to death, nail them to the cross, and utterly destroy them.

They were also forbidden to make marriages with any who escaped the sword, (Deuteronomy 7:3, Deuteronomy 7:4). The families of the Canaanites were old and, likely, some were even considered honorable. That could tempt the Israelites, especially those of lower standing in their tribes, to seek marriage with them in order to gain status. Their knowledge of the land might also seem useful. But religion and the fear of God had to govern all such choices. Marrying them was unlawful because it was dangerous. It had already brought ruin in the old world (Genesis 6:2), and many in the world since then have been ruined by ungodly marriages. In mixed marriages, there is more reason to fear that the good will be corrupted than to hope the bad will be changed.

Later history proved the wisdom of this warning. “They will turn your son away from following me.” Solomon paid dearly for this sin. There was a national repentance for marrying foreign wives, and reform was carried out (Ezra 9:1-15, 10; Nehemiah 13). The New Testament also warns believers not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14). Those who choose marriage partners without staying within the bounds of a sound profession of faith cannot expect to find the help they need. One Chaldee paraphrase adds this reason, that whoever marries an idolater is, in effect, marrying their idols too.

They were also to destroy every remaining sign of idolatry, (Deuteronomy 7:5). Their altars and pillars, their sacred groves and carved images, were all to be destroyed, both out of holy hatred for idolatry and to keep it from spreading. This command had already been given before (Exodus 23:24; Exodus 34:13). The people later did a great deal of this kind of work in their godly zeal (2 Chronicles 31:1), and so did good King Josiah (2 Chronicles 34:3, 2 Chronicles 34:7). It is similar to the burning of the magic books in Acts 19:19.

There were also strong reasons for this warning. One was the choice God had made of Israel as his own people, (Deuteronomy 7:6). There was a covenant, a binding relationship, between God and Israel that he did not have with any other nation on earth. How could they dishonor him through idolatry after he had so honored them? How could they treat him lightly after he had shown them such kindness? How could they put themselves on the same level as other nations when God had lifted them up above all people?

Another reason was the free grace that led God to choose them. There was nothing in them that deserved or earned this favor. “In many people, the king’s glory,” (Proverbs 14:28), but their number was small. They were only seventy people when they went down into Egypt, and even after they grew greatly there, many other nations were still far more numerous. “You were the fewest of all peoples,” (Deuteronomy 7:7). The Jerusalem Targum gives this a too flattering reading, saying they were humble and meek above all people. The truth was more the opposite. They were stubborn and difficult above all people.

God’s reason for choosing them came from himself alone, (Deuteronomy 7:8). He loved them because he chose to love them. “Even so, Father, because it pleased you.” God loves all whom he loves freely (Hosea 14:4). Those who perish do so because of their own merits, but all who are saved are saved by God’s special favor. He has done his work because he intended to keep his word.

God brought Israel out of Egypt in keeping with the oath he had sworn to their fathers. Nothing in the people, and nothing they had done, made God owe them anything. He had bound himself to his own promise, and he would keep it even though they were unworthy.

This is the substance of the covenant they were brought into: as they were to God, so God would be to them. They would find him kind to his friends, as Deuteronomy 7:9 says. “The Lord your God is not like the gods of the nations.” Those gods were only products of human imagination, fit for loose poetry, but not for true worship. The Lord is God indeed, God alone, the faithful God, able and willing not only to keep his own promises, but also to satisfy the right hopes of those who worship him. He will keep covenant and show mercy, that is, he will give mercy according to his covenant, to those who love him and keep his commandments. And we cannot honestly claim to love him if we do not care about obeying his commands. This mercy is not small or short-lived. It reaches to thousands of generations, because the fountain is never empty and the streams never fail.

But God is also just toward his enemies. He repays those who hate him, as Deuteronomy 7:10 says. Willful sinners are haters of God, because the sinful mind is hostile to him. Idolaters are especially so, because they side with God’s rivals. Those who hate God cannot truly harm him, but they will surely destroy themselves. He will repay them openly, in full view of their defiance and powerless rage. His arrows are said to be ready against their faces (Psalm 21:12). Or, he will send judgments that will show them plainly that their idolatry deserved punishment. Compare Job 21:19. Though vengeance may seem slow, it is not delayed beyond justice. The wicked and the sinner will be paid back in the earth (Proverbs 11:31).

I cannot pass by the Jerusalem Targum’s explanation of this verse, because it shows the Jewish church’s belief in a future life: God gives those who hate him the reward of their good works in this world, so that he may destroy them in the world to come.