Deuteronomy 7
Deuteronomy 6 commands following the
first commandment in a positive way with the conditional statements of what
will occur if a person does not obey it. Deuteronomy 7 speaks about the commandment
in a negative way and introduces the law of the ban. This law of the ban is the
prohibition of the worship of idols. Though the writer included God’s blessings
and a war speech, he focused on the prohibition of idols. So, this chapter is a
sermon on the theme of the first commandment, just as chapter six is, but composes
it with the focus on what not to do. Three times and in three ways in chapter
seven the writer expressed the ban, in verses one through six, sixteen, and
twenty-five through twenty-six. In respect of other gods and idols, God
declares a holy war on other gods and idols. He leads and wins the war in this
instance. There are times in the Israelites lives where they chose not to
follow Yahweh and He did not win. People through the ages have chosen to follow
their own will and place someone or something higher than Yahweh. At that time,
God’s will did not occur, but we believe God’s will prevails at the end. He
will be victorious because He is more powerful than idols/gods made by humans
and instigated by Satan.
The first ban in this chapter begins by reminding
the Israelites which nations God will clear away before them. As this roll call
of nations proceeds, we remember the history of the people. As we read of the
nations and recall their history, we will understand why God refused to make
them a part of His chosen people. First, Moses mentioned the Hittites. This
nation of people descended from Heth, the second son of Canaan, the son of Ham
(Genesis 10:15). Ham was the youngest son of Noah who found his father drunk
and naked in his tent and made fun of him. When Noah heard about it, he cursed
him and his descendents (Genesis 9:21-23). The Hittites lived in the
mountainous region around Hebron and before that lived in current day Turkey
and, later, northern Lebanon. The Girgashites were descendents of Canaan, the
son of Ham, too. They lived east of the Sea of Galilee when the Israelites
entered the Promised Land. The Israelites encountered the Amorites when they
battled Kings Og and Sihon earlier. Other Amorites lived on the western side of
the Dead Sea in the mountains. The Amorites came from the Babylonian Empire
that ruled the west and east of the Jordan River several centuries before the Israelites
arrived. The Canaanites were direct descendents of Canaan. They lived near the
Mediterranean Sea in Phoenicia, Tyre, and Sidon. The Perizzites are relatively
unknown. Their name means “villagers” and they lived in un-walled towns and in
southern Canaan. The Hivites descended from Canaan, too. They lived in northern
Canaan near Ebal and Gerizim, extending toward Hermon. The Jebusites descended
from the third son of Canaan, Jebus. They lived near the place later named
Jerusalem. What is most important in this list of nations is that they were bigger
and stronger than the Israelites. Moses highlighted this fact to them. The
Israelites would not win any battle with them on their own. Moses made his point
in verse two, “the Lord your God delivers them before you and you defeat them.”
The Canaanites outnumbered the Israelites, but with God as the Israelites' deliverer, the
seven nations could be defeated.
God did not want them just defeated,
He wanted the seven nations “utterly destroyed,” as Moses stated in verse two.
The word “destroy” in this verse is the Hebrew word charam, which means complete devotion to ban or extermination. Moses began commanding the law of the ban in verse two. Added to this, God
forbade the Israelites from making covenants with the seven nations, showing
them favor, or intermarrying with them. God specifically prohibited making
marriage covenants with any people of the seven nations. Why did God erect such
a high wall around the Israelites. Moses explained what God said in verse four.
God said, “For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other
gods, then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and He will quickly
destroy you.” God, the one true God, demands absolute allegiance to Him. He
proved Himself to the Israelites as their Savior from Egypt and their desert
wandering. No other god the Israelites knew of could do what Yahweh God did and promised to do. God chose the descendents of Abraham to receive His
grace. As is noted in Deuteronomy 6, He is a jealous God who is a fierce
protector of His treasured possession, the people of Israel. The one true God
demands absolute allegiance and the Israelites joined Yahweh in covenant at
Mount Sinai when they agreed to the Ten Commandments. The first commandment is
“You shall have no other gods before Me.” God gave them the Promised Land
because He had promised it to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is always faithful
to His promises. The Israelites would “possess” the Promised Land by keeping
their covenant, the Ten Commandments, with Yahweh. They promised to love,
revere, and obey Yahweh. By routing and destroying the seven nations, God
removed all influence of the gods of these nations from around the Israelites
so they would not be enticed to worship them. The first commandment is a
command, but God gives humankind freewill. Should a person not choose to give
God absolute allegiance, then the other side of the conditional statement
occurs - judgment: God will destroy them
(vs. 4).
God did not give vague instructions
to keep the Israelites from worshipping the gods of Canaan. He specified what
He wanted the Israelites to do when they destroyed the seven nations. To guard
against idolatry, God commanded them to (notice the word “shall”) “tear down
their altars, smash their sacred pillars, hew down their Asherim, and burn
their graven images with fire.” Their altars were their places of worship,
their temples. These places of worship could be in buildings, but often they
were in fields, olive groves, and forests. The sacred pillars were the places
on which the idols sat. The Asherim was a Babylonian-Canaanite goddess of
fortune and happiness and the consort of Baal. The word “Asherim” referred to the many gods, too. The
idols of these gods were most often wooden tipped in gold or silver. They
burned easily. Interestingly, during the Reformation, the Scottish reformers
did this and people of the time called them vandals. God’s purpose, though, is
to keep His people set apart for Him because He chose/elected them for His own.
The last verse of the writer’s first
stating the law of the ban is verse six and it says, “For you are a holy people
to the LORD your God: the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His
own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” To be
holy is God consecrating and setting apart a person or people for His purposes.
The word “chosen” is the Hebrew word bachar,
which means to choose, elect, decide for, and select. God selected the Hebrew
people not because they were the largest and most important nation. On the
contrary, they were one of the smallest nations in the world at that time. He
chose them because of His faithfulness to His covenant with Abraham, a man God
called His friend (Genesis 15:5-6 and James 2:23). Because of Abraham’s faith
in God, God considered him righteous and called him friend. God chose the
Hebrews because of Abraham’s righteousness and because God is faithful to His
promises. When God chose the Hebrews, He called them “His treasure.” The word
“possession” in Hebrew means valued treasure. The Hebrews were God’s special
treasure out of all the people on the earth (Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 4:20, 14:2,
26:18; Psalm 135:4; Titus 2:14; 1 Peter 2:9). As inheritors of sonship through
Jesus Christ, God calls believers/Christians today His special treasure, too.
God placed a prohibition on idolatry
so the people would just worship the LORD. By doing this, they would fulfill
the most important part of the covenant, the first commandment. Anyone who
reads the Bible notices this prohibition was difficult for the Israelites. One
generation after another fell and worshipped other gods. We today have this same
problem. We have distractions that lead us to put more importance on things and
people other than God, who requires absolute allegiance and single-minded
devotion.
What enables a person or people to stay
strong in their devotion is recounting the blessings God gave him, her, or
them. Moses recounted for the Israelites in verses seven through fifteen the blessings
from God. Verses 7 and 8 told the Israelites and tell us today “The LORD did
not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any
of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the LORD
loved you and kept an oath which He swore to your forefathers.” As stated in earlier
paragraphs, God chose them because of His love for them and His oath to Abraham.
God blessed them with His love and faithfulness. He blessed them, too, with His
strength and power with which He redeemed (ransomed, rescued, and saved) them
from slavery, Egypt, and Pharaoh (vs. 8b).
Moses continued and highlighted these
blessings again in verse nine. He said, “Know therefore that the LORD your God,
He is God (Deut. 6:4); the faithful God who keeps His covenant and
loving-kindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments.”
The word “know” in Hebrew is yada,
which means to perceive, recognize, acknowledge, and confess. Notice a
continual and expanding knowledge of something occurs with knowing. When a
person first encounters a new idea, teaching, or leader, they know about them. As they study it or the person more, they begin to recognize its/his/her
influence in their world. As they recognize more, they acknowledge their
recognition and then confess to follow the idea, thought, or leader. Moses meant this when He said, “Know therefore that the LORD your God; He is
God.” The Israelites had forty years of personal acquaintance, knowledge, and
experience of the LORD and His commandments. They had testimony of Him in
their lives. Now, Moses said, it was time for them to confess that the “LORD
your God, He is God!” On the other side of “knowing the LORD is God,” we find
God meted out judgment on those who hate Him. The haters are the ones who
choose not to confess the LORD is God. Verse 10 states this judgment by saying,
“But [God] repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them; He will
not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face.” The
Israelites knew about this part of the covenant. There are always two sides to
an agreement or promise – the part when both parties meet their obligations and
the part where one party does not receive what was obligated by the faithless
party. For the Israelites, they inherit the Promised Land because of God’s
faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham. In chapter six, the Israelites will "possess"
the land when they meet the obligations of their covenant with God. That covenant
is the Ten Commandments. If they are not faithful to their covenant with God by
obeying the Ten Commandments, God can dispossess them from the Promised Land
just as He planned to dispossess the Canaanites. Where expectation
is, at least two possibilities are – the fulfillment of the expectation and
reward or the lack of fulfillment and punishment. Moses reminded the Israelites
of this in verse ten.
Because of this
covenant via the Ten Commandments, Moses commanded,
Therefore, you shall
keep the commandments and the statutes and the judgments, which I am commanding
you today, to do them. Then it shall come about, because you listen to these
judgments and keep and do them that the LORD your God will keep with you His
covenant and His loving-kindness, which He swore to your forefathers. (7:11-12
[NASB])
God,
as the loving Father, told His expectations and made known what would occur if
they obeyed or not. Because they realized the outcome of faithlessness,
Moses believed the Israelites would obey God and keep His commandments. That is
why he commanded them to keep and do them in verse eleven. Remember, “keep” in
Hebrew is shamar and it means to listen
and do/obey.
Verses 12 and 13a same the same
thing as verses nine through eleven except in reverse order. Moses said, “Then
it shall come about, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do
them, that the LORD your God will keep with you His covenant and His
loving-kindness which He swore to your forefathers. He will love you and bless
you.” God’s love and faithfulness to the Israelites calls the reply to Him with
their love and faithfulness expressed in their obedience to His commandments. God’s
keeping the covenant conditions is comparable to Israel keeping God’s laws. By
obeying God, people show their love and reverence for Him. God’s love for the
Israelites was due to His faithfulness to His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, and nothing to do with the Israelites’ worthiness. God’s
election/choosing of every person has nothing to do with the person’s
worthiness and all to do with His love and grace.
The blessings of God Moses reminded
the Israelites continue through verses thirteen to fifteen. God will love,
bless, and multiply them – their womb, the produce of their ground, and the
womb of their animals. Moses specifically stated they and their cattle would
not be barren (vs. 14). In addition to this, Moses said, “The LORD will remove
from you all sickness and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of
Egypt, which you have known, but He will lay them on all who hate you.” The
people, the land, and their animals would be fruitful. God would protect them
from the diseases the Israelites learned of in Egypt. The illnesses and
diseases indigenous to Egypt were dysentery, smallpox, opthalmia, and the
plague.
These blessings God gave them and promised to
give the Israelites if they remained faithful to their covenant with Him. The
greatest commandment is to love the LORD God only and absolutely. The other nine commandments
hinged on this one. Should the Israelites have forgotten, Moses reminded them
of the ban again in verse sixteen and God added that they shall not serve other
gods. Verse 16 says, “You shall consume all the peoples whom the LORD your God
will deliver to you; your eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their
gods for that would be a snare to you.” Serving other gods is the heart of what
God is protecting the Israelites from when He issued this law of the ban. The
destruction of the gods of the land of Canaan and their influence to lead the
people to idolatry is the center of this law. The Israelites could cross the
Jordan River, defeat a few of the nations, see the wealth and splendor of the
land and think, “The gods of these people are why the land is plentiful and the
people wealthy; therefore, we should worship their gods, too.” God commanded the
destruction of the idols to pre-empt this temptation/snare.
In the next section of this chapter, verses
seventeen through twenty-four, the writer wrote in a different style. The purpose
of these eight verses is to inspire warriors to battle. Should the Israelites
consider themselves too small and insignificant to defeat the Canaanites, they
should remember what God did to Pharaoh and Egypt (vs. 17-19). Should they
still consider they are not able to defeat the nations, they can be assured God
will use means they have not considered, such as the hornet (vs. 20). God used
hornets at other times, too (Exodus 23:28 and Joshua 24:12, past and future).
God uses obvious and unusual means to make His will occur. Moses told the
Israelites they “shall not dread them for the LORD your God is in your midst, a
great and awesome God” (vs. 21). The Israelites could not drive the people out
of Canaan with their own strength. They were too small in number. The only way
the Hebrews could be victorious was through God’s strength and wisdom, wisdom
that included other things in its arsenal besides people. The resources of
their selves are not what the Israelites should focus on, but, instead, on the
LORD and His power as He showed them in Egypt. Since God could defeat one of
the mightiest nations at the time, He could defeat seven smaller nations. The
Israelites must not despair because God’s mighty hand and outstretched arm would
strike the people and cause fear in the hearts of every person (vs. 21). Moses
told them the LORD would clear the nations before them little by little because
“the wild beasts would grow too numerous” (vs. 22). The Hebrew word used as
“wild beasts” is chayah and means
living things. We then can interpret this verse in one of two ways. The "wild
beasts" could refer to the people of Canaan who would be too numerous for the
Israelites to defeat quickly. That being so, God would whittle away at the
people of the seven nations. Alternatively, as a few commentators think, the
"wild beasts" are literal animals. The Israelites would defeat only a small number
of people at a time because the carcasses of the dead people would become too
great and attract too many predatory/carrion animals to the vicinity where the
Israelites were at the time. Either interpretation shows God’s genius in making
the plan. He did not want to overwhelm the Israelites with the enormous size of
the task of claiming the Promised Land in too short a time. Another tactic of
God’s war plan was to throw the nations into confusion until their destruction
(vs. 23). God used confusion for His benefit many times, such as the Tower of
Babel in Genesis 11:19, the confusion of the Egyptian army in Exodus 14:24, the
confusion of the Philistines in 1 Samuel 7:10, as well as in Joshua 10:10, 2
Chronicles 20, Esther 3:15, and Acts 21:31. Through God’s use of these and other
tactics, the Israelites would destroy kings and nations and the Promised Land would
be won and given to the Israelites. Moses made sure they understood God would
bring the victory. He said, “He will deliver the kings into your hand, make
their name and reputation vanish on earth. No one man will be able to stand
before you until you have destroyed them” (vs. 24). The fear of the Israelites
and their God preceded them and God assured them of the victory.
After His war speech, Moses encapsulated this
sermon on the ban with a stronger restatement of it. He strengthened it by
saying the images are banned. As we see in verse twenty-six, Moses used the
word "ban." The Hebrew word for the English word “ban” is cherem and means curse and devote to destruction. This, then, means
God bans, curses, and wants the destruction of the idols and they shall not be
in one’s house or life. Verses twenty-five through twenty-six say,
The graven images of
their gods you are to burn with fire; you shall not covet the silver or the
gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared for
it is an abomination to the LORD your God. You shall not bring an abomination
into your house, and like it come under the ban; you shall utterly detest it
and you shall utterly abhor it, for it is something banned. [NASB]
God
commanded the complete destruction of the idols, as well as the gold and silver
on them. They must not be coveted or included in one's life. God commanded
this because they could trap and tempt the Israelites to worship them instead
of the Him. Moses called them an abomination - disgusting, wicked,
detestable, and in a religious ritual sense, unclean. God taught the Israelites
the idols are cursed. The Israelites must destroy them. Banned means this -
unclean and set aside for destruction.
That the law of the ban encloses the
blessings of God and the war speech may appear odd. Considering the Israelites
would doubt their ability to defeat the Canaanites and they would face
temptation to incorporate the Canaanite way of life with their own, placing the
ban around this whole chapter is appropriate. How many times are we encouraged
when we remember God’s strength and presence in our lives?
How many times are we encouraged when we count our blessings and revere the One
giving the blessing instead of revering the blessing itself? The whole chapter revolves ultimately
around the first commandment. Moses reminded the Israelites to stay faithful in
their covenant with Yahweh God because He is the one who chose them and loved
them even though they were unworthy of these actions of God. They were not
worthy of God’s salvation from Egypt or the wilderness. Neither were they
worthy of God’s blessing of the Promised Land. God’s blessings and love,
though, are not about us, but about Him. God is the reason we understand about
love and experience it. He is the source of blessings. We would not know God’s love
or blessing or experience them if He did not give them, but He did give them. From
the beginning of time, God created us to be in a relationship with Him
(Ephesians 1:4, 2:10; 2 Thessalonians 2:13). He created us to know, want, and give
love. Knowing this, how can we not love the LORD God with all our heart,
soul, mind, and strength? This makes following the first and successive commandments
simple. As chapter six taught, obedience of the commandments of God is the most
perfect expression of our love of Him.
Because He loves us so much as to want us
even though we are unworthy, how can we not choose to follow Him? God loves us
so much that He sacrificed His Son, Jesus Christ, so we can be redeemed from
our sin and its penalty. Because we know this great love is there for our
asking, what stops you from calling to God and accepting His love and grace?
Jesus paid the ransom price for your sin so you can be in a love relationship
with the Father. What greater love is there? Jesus said ask and you will receive,
seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7-8).
When you are ready to receive God’s love and love Him in return, then ask,
seek, and knock. God promises He will be found by you.
