Deuteronomy 7:2-16

7:2 and he ¹  delivers them over to you and you attack them, you must utterly annihilate ²  them. Make no treaty ³  with them and show them no mercy! 7:3 You must not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 7:4 for they will turn your sons away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the Lord will erupt against you and he will quickly destroy you. 7:5 Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, ⁴  cut down their sacred Asherah poles, ⁵  and burn up their idols. 7:6 For you are a people holy ⁶  to the Lord your God. He ⁷  has chosen you to be his people, prized ⁸  above all others on the face of the earth.

The Basis of Israel’s Election

7:7 It is not because you were more numerous than all the other peoples that the Lord favored and chose you – for in fact you were the least numerous of all peoples. 7:8 Rather it is because of his ⁹  love ¹⁰  for you and his faithfulness to the promise ¹¹  he solemnly vowed ¹²  to your ancestors ¹³  that the Lord brought you out with great power, ¹⁴  redeeming ¹⁵  you from the place of slavery, from the power ¹⁶  of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 7:9 So realize that the Lord your God is the true God, ¹⁷  the faithful God who keeps covenant faithfully ¹⁸  with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, 7:10 but who pays back those who hate ¹⁹  him as they deserve and destroys them. He will not ignore ²⁰  those who hate him but will repay them as they deserve! 7:11 So keep the commandments, statutes, and ordinances that I today am commanding you to do.

Promises of Good for Covenant Obedience

7:12 If you obey these ordinances and are careful to do them, the Lord your God will faithfully keep covenant with you ²¹  as he promised ²²  your ancestors. 7:13 He will love and bless you, and make you numerous. He will bless you with many children, ²³  with the produce of your soil, your grain, your new wine, your oil, the offspring of your oxen, and the young of your flocks in the land which he promised your ancestors to give you. 7:14 You will be blessed beyond all peoples; there will be no barrenness ²⁴  among you or your livestock. 7:15 The Lord will protect you from all sickness, and you will not experience any of the terrible diseases that you knew in Egypt; instead he will inflict them on all those who hate you.

Exhortation to Destroy Canaanite Paganism

7:16 You must destroy ²⁵  all the people whom the Lord your God is about to deliver over to you; you must not pity them or worship ²⁶  their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

[7:2]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[7:2]  ² tn In the Hebrew text the infinitive absolute before the finite verb emphasizes the statement. The imperfect has an obligatory nuance here. Cf. ASV “shalt (must NRSV) utterly destroy them”; CEV “must destroy them without mercy.”

[7:2]  ³ tn Heb “covenant” (so NASB, NRSV); TEV “alliance.”

[7:5]  ⁴ sn Sacred pillars. The Hebrew word (מַצֵּבֹת, matsevot) denotes a standing pillar, usually made of stone. Its purpose was to mark the presence of a shrine or altar thought to have been visited by deity. Though sometimes associated with pure worship of the Lord (Gen 28:18, 22; 31:13; 35:14; Exod 24:4), these pillars were usually associated with pagan cults and rituals (Exod 23:24; 34:13; Deut 12:3; 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 17:10; Hos 3:4; 10:1; Jer 43:13).

[7:5]  ⁵ sn Sacred Asherah poles. A leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon was Asherah, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles (Hebrew אֲשֵׁרִים [’asherim], as here). They were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

[7:6]  ⁶ tn That is, “set apart.”

[7:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[7:6]  ⁸ tn Or “treasured” (so NIV, NRSV); NLT “his own special treasure.” The Hebrew term סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah) describes Israel as God’s choice people, those whom he elected and who are most precious to him (cf. Exod 19:4-6; Deut 14:2; 26:18; 1 Chr 29:3; Ps 135:4; Eccl 2:8 Mal 3:17). See E. Carpenter, NIDOTTE 3:224.

[7:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Lord’s.” See note on “He” in 7:6.

[7:8]  ¹⁰ tn For the verb אָהַב (’ahav, “to love”) as a term of choice or election, see note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37.

[7:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “oath.” This is a reference to the promises of the so-called “Abrahamic Covenant” (cf. Gen 15:13-16).

[7:8]  ¹² tn Heb “swore on oath.”

[7:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13).

[7:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “by a strong hand” (NAB similar); NLT “with such amazing power.”

[7:8]  ¹⁵ sn Redeeming you from the place of slavery. The Hebrew verb translated “redeeming” (from the root פָּדָה, padah) has the idea of redemption by the payment of a ransom. The initial symbol of this was the Passover lamb, offered by Israel to the Lord as ransom in exchange for deliverance from bondage and death (Exod 12:1-14). Later, the firstborn sons of Israel, represented by the Levites, became the ransom (Num 3:11-13). These were all types of the redemption effected by the death of Christ who described his atoning work as “a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28; cf. 1 Pet 1:18).

[7:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “hand” (so KJV, NRSV), a metaphor for power or domination.

[7:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the God.” The article here expresses uniqueness; cf. TEV “is the only God”; NLT “is indeed God.”

[7:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “who keeps covenant and loyalty.” The syndetic construction of בְּרִית (bÿrit) and חֶסֶד (khesed) should be understood not as “covenant” plus “loyalty” but as an adverbial construction in which חֶסֶד (“loyalty”) modifies the verb שָׁמַר (shamar, “keeps”).

[7:10]  ¹⁹ tn For the term “hate” as synonymous with rejection or disobedience see note on the word “reject” in Deut 5:9 (cf. NRSV “reject”).

[7:10]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he will not hesitate concerning.”

[7:12]  ²¹ tn Heb “will keep with you the covenant and loyalty.” On the construction used here, see v. 9.

[7:12]  ²² tn Heb “which he swore on oath.” The relative pronoun modifies “covenant,” so one could translate “will keep faithfully the covenant (or promise) he made on oath to your ancestors.”

[7:13]  ²³ tn Heb “will bless the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[7:14]  ²⁴ sn One of the ironies about the promises to the patriarchs concerning offspring was the characteristic barrenness of the wives of the men to whom these pledges were made (cf. Gen 11:30; 25:21; 29:31). Their affliction is in each case described by the very Hebrew word used here (עֲקָרָה, ’aqarah), an affliction that will no longer prevail in Canaan.

[7:16]  ²⁵ tn Heb “devour” (so NRSV); KJV, NAB, NASB “consume.” The verbal form (a perfect with vav consecutive) is understood here as having an imperatival or obligatory nuance (cf. the instructions and commands that follow). Another option is to take the statement as a continuation of the preceding conditional promises and translate “and you will destroy.”

[7:16]  ²⁶ tn Or “serve” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV).