Deuteronomy 7--A Chosen People

Deuteronomy 7
English Standard Version

A Chosen People
7 “When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, 2 and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. 3 You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, 4 for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. 5 But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire.

6 “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, 10 and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. 11 You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.

12 “And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the LORD your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers. 13 He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you. 14 You shall be blessed above all peoples. There shall not be male or female barren among you or among your livestock. 15 And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you. 16 And you shall consume all the peoples that the LORD your God will give over to you. Your eye shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.
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17 “If you say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?’ 18 you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, 19 the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. So will the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20 Moreover, the LORD your God will send hornets among them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you are destroyed. 21 You shall not be in dread of them, for the LORD your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God. 22 The LORD your God will clear away these nations before you little by little. You may not make an end of them at once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you. 23 But the LORD your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed. 24 And he will give their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under heaven. No one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. 25 The carved images of their gods you shall burn with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the LORD your God. 26 And you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction.

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We have talked about "being" preceding "doing' when it comes to God's commandments or the "indicative" preceding the "imperative."  We see that again here, though we have already seen some of the "imperatives," they are not separated from the "indicatives."  God's goal with giving the Old Covenant Law to His people was to give them a mirror by which they could check themselves to see if they being who they were supposed to be by checking if they were doing the kinds of things consistent with the new nature that He wanted them to have.  It is the same way with the gospel and it is why we are told in the New Testament, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments."

The nation of Israel was not a people, but God made them a nation in a single day during the Passover.  He led them through the wilderness and spoke to them as He had never spoke to anyone else at Mount Sinai, and now He is leading them into the Promised Land to have victory over seven strong people groups (Canaanite clans) that Israel would never expect to defeat any one of them on their own, but the LORD will defeat all of them.

They are to be careful to make no covenant with any of these people (they will get deceived by one people group later, but for the most part, they keep this commandment).  The LORD commanded that all these evil peoples be completely destroyed and He expressly forbid the people from intermarrying with these Canaanite women (the people didn't do so good at obeying this commandments and exactly what the LORD said would happen happened.  These women led their husbands and children into idolatry and the LORD's anger burned against His people for becoming like the Canaanites).  He specifically tells the people to destroy all the altars and high places that have been built to the false gods of the Canaanites--don't leave any trace of their false religion.  If only they had listened to this, because we'll see that these false religions and false gods plagued the people for the rest of the Old Testament.

Why are they to do these things?  Because the LORD had chosen Israel as His people from among the nations.  (Like a man that chooses HIs bride).  There was nothing about Israel that made the LORD choose them, but it was simply for His good pleasure that He made something out of nothing--which is what He has been doing from the very beginning, for this brings Him much glory.  He does the same with us today when He takes us who were dead in our trespasses and sins and makes us alive in Christ, transforming us into the image of the Son of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.  So then no one can look at the transformation that happened and praise us for the change we have made in our own lives, but it is clear that this is a miracle on the level of the Resurrection because dead people don't suddenly become alive.  Our story is much the same as the nation of Israel here, but where they went through a physical Exodus, the Church experiences this spiritually and we are awaiting a different kind of Promised Land (see the end of the book of Revelation).

The LORD had bought His people with a price and they were redeemed by the blood of a Passover Lamb (symbolic of the Lamb of God that would come to be the Redeemer of the world one day).  The LORD emphasizes that He is a covenant keeper and His love is great towards those who love Him and keep His commandments (there's that connection again between loving God and obeying God.  We cannot say we love God and be in rebellion against Him, nor can we love God apart from being obedient to His commands.  If we made up our own way to love God, we have made a different kind of God that we worship and we are also practicing a kind of idolatry.  This Law will reveal the hearts of the people--who loves God and who hates Him.  He will bless the one who loves Him, but He will judge the one who hates Him to his face and destroy such wicked people.  We normally don't like to think about God's vengeance or wrath as we only want to talk about God's grace and mercy, but one day, Jesus will come as the Conquering King and will annihilate all of His enemies.

The people would also experience material blessings for their obedience.  The land would be fruitful for them, they would be safe from disease and pestilence, they would not need to fear the wild animals, and there would be peace and tranquility in their lands.  The plagues that fell on Egypt would fall on those who hate Israel (again see the book of Revelation where this literally happens), but these plagues will not fall on those who love the LORD.  The LORD also promised them not just a fruitful harvest of grain, grapes/wine, and oil, but also fruitfulness of the womb of the Israelite people and of their herds, but the LORD will make barren the land, people, and livestock if the people are in rebellion against Him and begin to serve the gods and goddesses of the Canaanites.

​Once again the LORD comes back to the fact that this task is too much for the people of Israel to do in their own power.  They must let the LORD fight their battles for them, just like He had done with the nation of Egypt, the world's premiere power at the time, as well as the Amorite kinds that the LORD had already given over to the people on this side of the Jordan River.  The LORD tells the people that He will not give them this victory in a single day, but that it will come little by little so that the wild beasts would not grow out of control and overwhelm the nation of Israel.  The LORD knows His perfect timing and knows what is best for us even when we want to be impatient and have everything handed to us right now.

The LORD promised to send hornets among the Canaanites as a plague to drive them out of their land, and we'll see the people of Jericho mention this later and they will already have heard of all the great ways in which the LORD has fought for the nation of Israel and led them through the wilderness and there would be fear and dread in the hearts of the Canaanites as the Israelites approached them (though at the same time they were stubborn and rebellious and refused to worship the LORD or give Him glory).

The LORD would deliver all these nations and all their kinds into the hands of the Israelites, and they were to be careful to destroy all the idols, even though they may be made of precious metals--they were not to covet these objects of pagan worship, but were devote all of them to destruction by fire.  None of these objects are to be brought into anyone's house and all the people are to see things as detestable to them and the LORD (probably safe to say "an abomination" here).  Is that the way we feel about the things that are idols in our culture?  Do we keep them out of our houses?  Do we detest these things that try to steal glory and honor from the one True and Living God who will be the Righteous Judge of the Living and the Dead? We must have a say about what we do and don't allow in our homes and make it clear as we'll see Joshua charge the people at the end of his life:


Joshua 24:15
English Standard Version
15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”