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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Deuteronomy 7:12 - 7:26
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The Extermination of the Heathen Nations Enjoined
v. 12. Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the Lord, thy God, shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which Ha sware unto thy fathers. He would fulfill all the promises of mercy given to the patriarchs, and He would carry out the terms of the covenant with respect to both rewards and punishments.
v. 13. And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee, as manifestations of His love; he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, in granting a numerous posterity, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.
v. 14. Thou shalt be blessed above all people; there shall not be male or female barren among you or among your cattle, for barrenness was considered almost a curse among the Israelites.
v. 15. And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, especially in the form of epidemics, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt which thou knowest upon thee, but will lay them upon all them that hate thee. In spite of the great advance of the last half century, medical science to this day is unable to account for the virulence of many epidemics except on the basis of divine interference and punishment. Cf Exo_23:26.
v. 16. And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord, thy God, shall deliver thee, giving them into the hands of Israel; thine eye shall have no pity upon them, all false sympathy, which might enter the heart through the eye as it witnesses the plight of the enemy must be banished; neither shalt thou serve their gods, for that will be a snare unto thee, which would plunge them, too, into destruction.
v. 17. If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I, how can I dispossess them, get into possession of the country now occupied by them? Little faith on the part of the believers has won many victories for the forces of darkness.
v. 18. Thou shalt not be afraid of them, but shalt well remember what the Lord, thy God, did unto Pharaoh and unto all Egypt;
v. 19. the great temptations which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the stretched-out arm whereby the Lord, thy God, brought thee out, Deu_4:34; so shall the Lord, thy God, do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid. The memory of benefits received in the past was to strengthen their faith in God's help also in the future.
v. 20. Moreover, the Lord, thy God, will send the hornet among them, Exo_23:28, a special terror intended to make them lose heart, until they that are left and hide themselves from thee be destroyed; for Israel was to be as active in the work of extermination as the instrument which God used.
v. 21. Thou shalt not be affrighted at them, filled with the terror of little faith; for the Lord, thy God, is among you, a mighty God and terrible, whose judgments made Him an object of dread among all nations.
v. 22. And the Lord, thy God, will put out those nations before thee little by little, Exo_23:29-30; thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee, for they were at that time not yet numerous enough to occupy the entire land at once.
v. 23. But the Lord, thy God, shall deliver them unto thee, while they themselves would look on in surprised wonder, and shall destroy, overthrow, them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed.
v. 24. And He shall deliver their kings into thine hand, Jos_10:24-25, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven; there shall no man be able to stand before thee until thou have destroyed them.
v. 25. The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire; thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, with which they were overlaid, or take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein, they would become contaminated by the mere fact of having it in their possession; for it is an abomination to the Lord, thy God, as were all objects that were used for idolatrous purposes, Joshua 7.
v. 26. Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it, having been defiled by contact with it; but thou shalt utterly detest it, look upon it only with the utmost horror and loathing, and thou shalt utterly abhor it, regard it with loathing; for it is a cursed thing. In Christians this attitude will keep them from all defilement of unbelief and of the lust of the flesh.