Deuteronomy 18:9-13--Abominable Practices

Deuteronomy 18:9-13
English Standard Version
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Abominable Practices
9 “When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering,[a] anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, 12 for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you. 13 You shall be blameless before the LORD your God,

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The people may have found it odd that the LORD was forbidding some of the abominable practices now.  I'm sure they would not have imagined sacrificing their children to Molech, but in not that long that's exactly what they will be doing (we'll see this towards the end of the book of Judges not that long after Joshua and his generation die).

The people are also forbidden from practicing divination (fortune telling), but that's exactly what we'll see King Saul turn to after the death of the prophet Samuel when he goes to the witch of Endor.  Along with this is forbidden any kind of false prophets, interpreters of dreams, sorcerers, magicians (both what we would call white and black magic), necromancers, mediums and those who try to speak to the dead or be a conduit to seemingly pass messages to the living from those who have already died.  All of these things are demonic in origin and God's people are not to have any part in them.

These are the things that the people of Canaan did that brought the LORD's wrath upon them and why they are being driven out of the land that was once theirs and why that land is now being given to another people.  The Israelites are warned that this will be their fate too if they choose to become like the Canaanites (though God's covenant with Abraham and his offspring was eternal and they will always return to the Land once they repent).