Deuteronomy 7:1

This chapter, following the pattern we have already observed, is devoted to a further exposition and comment on the 2nd and 3commandments of the Decalogue. Here Moses extensively warned the Israelites against the idolatry of the land of Canaan into which they were about to enter. In the very first verse of this chapter, we have, "When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land ...." This expression, or its equivalent (including half a dozen slight variations of it) occurs twenty-four times in Moses' speeches as recorded in Deuteronomy, and only five times throughout all the rest of the Pentateuch.[1] This amazing characteristic was due to the fact that when Moses delivered these addresses, all of Israel were standing on the threshold of Canaan, which could plainly be seen across the rolling waters of the Jordan river. In the mouth of Moses, this oft-repeated expression is natural, reasonable, and in harmony with all that is known of that situation. On the other hand, such expressions are absolutely contrary to anything that a forger, impersonator, or any seventh-century author can possibly be conceived of as writing. This material confirms the formal declarations in Deuteronomy that Moses is indeed the author of all this material.[2]

"When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before thee, the Hittite, and the Gergashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than thou: and Jehovah thy God shall deliver them up before thee, and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them: thou shalt make no covenant with them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For he will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of Jehovah be kindled against you, and he will destroy thee quickly. But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire."

The list of nations here in Deuteronomy 7:1 is also found in Genesis 15:19-21; Exodus 3:8; Deuteronomy 1:4; 20:17; Joshua 3:10; 24:11, a "total often of these being enumerated in all."[3] In several instances only six nations are named, but in others we have seven, as here. There were actually thirty-two kingdoms of Palestine destroyed by the Israelites, and all of these lists may be considered as typical summaries of all of them, these being the principal racial divisions. We have no patience with scholars who complain that the Girgashites were omitted from the list in Exodus 3:8, or that the Rephaim (Genesis 15:20) are omitted here and in other places. So what? "The Girgashites, thought by some to be the same as the Gergesenes (Matthew 8:28), may be identified as a subdivision of the large Hivite group";[4] and the Rephaim were not mentioned by Moses at this point, because Israel had just "destroyed Og, the last of the Rephaim!" (Deuteronomy 3:11). "The Rephaim were at this time extinct, having been conquered and destroyed by the Israelites."[5] That these groups thus distinguished in these various lists are to be understood as racial divisions appears in the following:

The Gergesenes. (See the paragraph above.)

The Amorites were descended from the fourth son of Canaan.

The Hittites were descended from Herb, the second son of Canaan (Genesis 10:15).

The Canaanites were descended from the first son of Canaan, and were the bearer of his name. They occupied the coast.

The Hivites dwelt in the region near Gerizim and Ebal northward to Mount Hermon.

The Perizzites were villagers, living in unwalled towns throughout the land of Palestine.

The Jebusites occupied the area in the vicinity of Jerusalem.[6]

"Then thou shalt utterly destroy them ..." (Deuteronomy 7:2). "Some people take offense at this, as though it represented sub-Christian ethics. Actually, they are taking offense at the theology and religion of the whole Bible."[7] What the physician does when he removes a cancerous member of a human body is exactly what God is represented as doing here, removing a terribly-infected portion of the human race to prevent the destruction of all people! God has already once destroyed all persons, except the family of Noah, because the degeneration of humanity had reached such a crisis that there was no other way to save Adam's race. Furthermore, as Kline pointed out, "This very same ethical pattern will prevail in the event of the final judgment and beyond."[8] There is no Biblical indication whatever that Almighty God will finally accommodate Himself to the gross immorality of the Adamic creation. The Israelites acted, not out of their own hatred and fury, "but as the instrument of divine justice against people whose abominations were an offence to God."[9]

Many modern scholars gloss over the unbelievably sordid picture of the immoralities and debaucheries of the pre-Israeli inhabitants of Canaan, simply because "it is embarrassing" and revolting to relate them.[10] However, "The Ugaritic religious literature recovered from the Ras Shamra discoveries on the north Syrian coast (1929-1937) fully authenticates the moral depravity of the Canaanite civilization around 1400 B.C."[11] Therefore, as Unger pointed out, "It was a question of destroying them or being destroyed."[12]

"Neither shalt thou make marriages with them ..." (Deuteronomy 7:3). Of course, God could not allow marriages with such morally-depraved people. To have done so would have been to advocate the immediate destruction of Israel. This exclusivism of Israel "was one reason for Judaism's survival. Jewish religion flowed swift and deep because it was constricted within narrow banks."[13]

That there is a lesson for the Church of God in this is certain. As Oberst put it:

"Perhaps the young people of Moses' day said, "But we will make Israelites out of those girls!" (as is often done today). But God knew better. His warning still stands to every young person in the Israel of God, the church. His exhortation still remains, "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers (See 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1).[14]

In Deuteronomy 7:4, Moses speaks of "following me," the meaning, of course, being "following God." Keil stated that, "Moses here used the first person singular pronoun because he was speaking in the name of God."[15]

The command: (1) to break down their altars (Deuteronomy 7:5); (2) to dash in pieces their pillars (Deuteronomy 7:5); (3) to cut down their Asherim (Deuteronomy 7:5); and (4) to burn their graven images with fire (Deuteronomy 7:5) shows how completely the people were to eradicate paganism from the promised land.

"Pillars ..." These were obelisks, or standing stone columns, connected with the worship of the Asherim. Several varied opinions about these are current, but the conviction of this writer is that they were phallic symbols erected to worship the male principle in the vulgar sexual cults of the Baalim.

This writer has seen startling examples of this in Japan in 1952.

"Asherim ..." "These were representations in wood of the old Semitic goddess Asherah."[16] There is some doubt of this definition, because the KJV renders this word "groves," and certainly the groves were an essential feature of the pagan worship of that day. The Septuagint (LXX) also renders this word "groves."[17]

There seems to be, however, some connection with a pagan goddess. As Cook said, "The word means trunk of a tree, a representation of the goddess Ashtaroth."[18] Alexander identified the female deity indicated by these items as "Astarte, the Venus of the Syrians."[19] It is obvious that a good deal of uncertainty surrounds this word. It is almost certain that Astarte was the female goddess of the citizens of Tyre, for Josephus tells us that, when the Philistines overcame Saul and his sons in battle, they stripped them of their armour and deposited it in the temple of Astarte, the pagan house of worship that had been constructed by Hiram, the friend of Solomon.[20]