Exodus 23:24

23:24 “You must not bow down to their gods; you must not serve them or do according to their practices. Instead you must completely overthrow them and smash their standing stones ¹  to pieces. ² 

Exodus 23:31-33

23:31 I will set ³  your boundaries from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River, ⁴  for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.

23:32 “You must make no covenant with them or with their gods. 23:33 They must not live in your land, lest they make you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare ⁵  to you.”

Exodus 34:12-17

34:12 Be careful not to make ⁶  a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it become a snare ⁷  among you. 34:13 Rather you must destroy their altars, smash their images, and cut down their Asherah poles. ⁸  34:14 For you must not worship ⁹  any other god, ¹⁰  for the Lord, whose name ¹¹  is Jealous, is a jealous God. 34:15 Be careful ¹²  not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when ¹³  they prostitute themselves ¹⁴  to their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone invites you, ¹⁵  you will eat from his sacrifice; 34:16 and you then take ¹⁶  his daughters for your sons, and when his daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will make your sons prostitute themselves to their gods as well. 34:17 You must not make yourselves molten gods.

Deuteronomy 7:2-5

7:2 and he ¹⁷  delivers them over to you and you attack them, you must utterly annihilate ¹⁸  them. Make no treaty ¹⁹  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, ²⁰  cut down their sacred Asherah poles, ²¹  and burn up their idols.

Deuteronomy 7:25-26

7:25 You must burn the images of their gods, but do not covet the silver and gold that covers them so much that you take it for yourself and thus become ensnared by it; for it is abhorrent ²²  to the Lord your God. 7:26 You must not bring any abhorrent thing into your house and thereby become an object of divine wrath ²³  along with it. ²⁴  You must absolutely detest ²⁵  and abhor it, ²⁶  for it is an object of divine wrath.

Deuteronomy 12:2-3

12:2 You must by all means destroy ²⁷  all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods – on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree. ²⁸  12:3 You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, ²⁹  burn up their sacred Asherah poles, ³⁰  and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place.

Deuteronomy 12:30-31

12:30 After they have been destroyed from your presence, be careful not to be ensnared like they are; do not pursue their gods and say, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same.” 12:31 You must not worship the Lord your God the way they do! ³¹  For everything that is abhorrent ³²  to him, ³³  everything he hates, they have done when worshiping their gods. They even burn up their sons and daughters before their gods!

Deuteronomy 20:16-18

Laws Concerning War with Canaanite Nations

20:16 As for the cities of these peoples that ³⁴  the Lord your God is going to give you as an inheritance, you must not allow a single living thing ³⁵  to survive. 20:17 Instead you must utterly annihilate them ³⁶  – the Hittites, ³⁷  Amorites, ³⁸  Canaanites, ³⁹  Perizzites, ⁴⁰  Hivites, ⁴¹  and Jebusites ⁴²  – just as the Lord your God has commanded you, 20:18 so that they cannot teach you all the abhorrent ways they worship ⁴³  their gods, causing you to sin against the Lord your God.

Joshua 11:11-12

11:11 They annihilated everyone who lived there with the sword ⁴⁴  – no one who breathed remained – and burned ⁴⁵  Hazor.

11:12 Joshua captured all these royal cities and all their kings and annihilated them with the sword, ⁴⁶  as Moses the Lord’s servant had commanded.

Joshua 23:7

23:7 or associate with these nations that remain near ⁴⁷  you. You must not invoke or make solemn declarations by the names of their gods! ⁴⁸  You must not worship ⁴⁹  or bow down to them!

Jude 1:2

1:2 May mercy, peace, and love be lavished on you! ⁵⁰ 

[23:24]  ¹ tn The Hebrew is מַצֵּבֹתֵיהֶם (matsevotehem, “their standing stones”); these long stones were erected to represent the abode of the numen or deity. They were usually set up near the altar or the high place. To destroy these would be to destroy the centers of Canaanite worship in the land.

[23:24]  ² tn Both verbs are joined with their infinitive absolutes to provide the strongest sense to these instructions. The images of the false gods in Canaan were to be completely and utterly destroyed. This could not be said any more strongly.

[23:31]  ³ tn The form is a perfect tense with vav consecutive.

[23:31]  ⁴ tn In the Hebrew Bible “the River” usually refers to the Euphrates (cf. NASB, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT). There is some thought that it refers to a river Nahr el Kebir between Lebanon and Syria. See further W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:447; and G. W. Buchanan, The Consequences of the Covenant (NovTSup), 91-100.

[23:33]  ⁵ tn The idea of the “snare” is to lure them to judgment; God is apparently warning about contact with the Canaanites, either in worship or in business. They were very syncretistic, and so it would be dangerous to settle among them.

[34:12]  ⁶ tn The exact expression is “take heed to yourself lest you make.” It is the second use of this verb in the duties, now in the Niphal stem. To take heed to yourself means to watch yourself, be sure not to do something. Here, if they failed to do this, they would end up making entangling treaties.

[34:12]  ⁷ sn A snare would be a trap, an allurement to ruin. See Exod 23:33.

[34:13]  ⁸ tn Or “images of Asherah”; ASV, NASB “their Asherim”; NCV “their Asherah idols.”

[34:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “bow down.”

[34:14]  ¹⁰ sn In Exod 20:3 it was “gods.”

[34:14]  ¹¹ sn Here, too, the emphasis on God’s being a jealous God is repeated (see Exod 20:5). The use of “name” here is to stress that this is his nature, his character.

[34:15]  ¹² tn The sentence begins simply “lest you make a covenant”; it is undoubtedly a continuation of the imperative introduced earlier, and so that is supplied here.

[34:15]  ¹³ tn The verb is a perfect with a vav consecutive. In the literal form of the sentence, this clause tells what might happen if the people made a covenant with the inhabitants of the land: “Take heed…lest you make a covenant…and then they prostitute themselves…and sacrifice…and invite…and you eat.” The sequence lays out an entire scenario.

[34:15]  ¹⁴ tn The verb זָנָה (zanah) means “to play the prostitute; to commit whoredom; to be a harlot” or something similar. It is used here and elsewhere in the Bible for departing from pure religion and engaging in pagan religion. The use of the word in this figurative sense is fitting, because the relationship between God and his people is pictured as a marriage, and to be unfaithful to it was a sin. This is also why God is described as a “jealous” or “impassioned” God. The figure may not be merely a metaphorical use, but perhaps a metonymy, since there actually was sexual immorality at the Canaanite altars and poles.

[34:15]  ¹⁵ tn There is no subject for the verb. It could be rendered “and one invites you,” or it could be made a passive.

[34:16]  ¹⁶ tn In the construction this verb would follow as a possible outcome of the last event, and so remain in the verbal sequence. If the people participate in the festivals of the land, then they will intermarry, and that could lead to further involvement with idolatry.

[7:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[7:2]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “covenant” (so NASB, NRSV); TEV “alliance.”

[7:5]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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).

[7:25]  ²² tn The Hebrew word תּוֹעֵבָה (to’evah, “abhorrent; detestable”) describes anything detestable to the Lord because of its innate evil or inconsistency with his own nature and character. Frequently such things (or even persons) must be condemned to annihilation (חֵרֶם, kherem) lest they become a means of polluting or contaminating others (cf. Deut 13:17; 20:17-18). See M. Grisanti, NIDOTTE 4:315.

[7:26]  ²³ tn Heb “come under the ban” (so NASB); NRSV “be set apart for destruction.” The same phrase occurs again at the end of this verse.

[7:26]  ²⁴ tn Or “like it is.”

[7:26]  ²⁵ tn This Hebrew verb (שָׁקַץ, shaqats) is essentially synonymous with the next verb (תָעַב, ta’av; cf. תּוֹעֵבָה, to’evah; see note on the word “abhorrent” in v. 25), though its field of meaning is more limited to cultic abomination (cf. Lev 11:11, 13; Ps 22:25).

[7:26]  ²⁶ tn Heb “detesting you must detest and abhorring you must abhor.” Both verbs are preceded by a cognate infinitive absolute indicating emphasis.

[12:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “destroying you must destroy”; KJV “Ye shall utterly (surely ASV) destroy”; NRSV “must demolish completely.” The Hebrew infinitive absolute precedes the verb for emphasis, which is reflected in the translation by the words “by all means.”

[12:2]  ²⁸ sn Every leafy tree. This expression refers to evergreens which, because they keep their foliage throughout the year, provided apt symbolism for nature cults such as those practiced in Canaan. The deity particularly in view is Asherah, wife of the great god El, who was considered the goddess of fertility and whose worship frequently took place at shrines near or among clusters (groves) of such trees (see also Deut 7:5). See J. Hadley, NIDOTTE 1:569-70; J. DeMoor, TDOT 1:438-44.

[12:3]  ²⁹ sn Sacred pillars. These are the stelae (stone pillars; the Hebrew term is מַצֵּבֹת, matsevot) associated with Baal worship, perhaps to mark a spot hallowed by an alleged visitation of the gods. See also Deut 7:5.

[12:3]  ³⁰ sn Sacred Asherah poles. The Hebrew term (plural) is אֲשֵׁרִים (’asherim). See note on the word “(leafy) tree” in v. 2, and also Deut 7:5.

[12:31]  ³¹ tn Heb “you must not do thus to/for the Lord your God.”

[12:31]  ³² tn See note on this term at Deut 7:25.

[12:31]  ³³ tn Heb “every abomination of the Lord.” See note on the word “his” in v. 27.

[20:16]  ³⁴ tn The antecedent of the relative pronoun is “cities.”

[20:16]  ³⁵ tn Heb “any breath.”

[20:17]  ³⁶ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation seeks to reflect with “utterly.” Cf. CEV “completely wipe out.”

[20:17]  ³⁷ sn Hittite. The center of Hittite power was in Anatolia (central modern Turkey). In the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 b.c.) they were at their zenith, establishing outposts and colonies near and far. Some elements were obviously in Canaan at the time of the Conquest (1400-1350 b.c.).

[20:17]  ³⁸ sn Amorite. Originally from the upper Euphrates region (Amurru), the Amorites appear to have migrated into Canaan beginning in 2200 b.c. or thereabouts.

[20:17]  ³⁹ sn Canaanite. These were the indigenous peoples of the land of Palestine, going back to the beginning of recorded history (ca. 3000 b.c.). The OT identifies them as descendants of Ham (Gen 10:6), the only Hamites to have settled north and east of Egypt.

[20:17]  ⁴⁰ sn Perizzite. This probably refers to a subgroup of Canaanites (Gen 13:7; 34:30).

[20:17]  ⁴¹ sn Hivite. These are usually thought to be the same as the Hurrians, a people well-known in ancient Near Eastern texts. They are likely identical to the Horites (see note on “Horites” in Deut 2:12).

[20:17]  ⁴² tc The LXX adds “Girgashites” here at the end of the list in order to list the full (and usual) complement of seven (see note on “seven” in Deut 7:1).

[20:18]  ⁴³ tn Heb “to do according to all their abominations which they do for their gods.”

[11:11]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “and they struck down all life which was in it with the edge of the sword, annihilating.”

[11:11]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “burned with fire”; the words “with fire” are redundant in English and have not been included in the translation.

[11:12]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “and he struck them down with the edge of the sword, he annihilated them.”

[23:7]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “with.”

[23:7]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “and in the name of their gods you must not invoke and you must not make solemn declarations.” The words “and you must not make solemn declarations” are omitted in the LXX and may represent a later scribal addition to elucidate the immediately preceding command. The Hiphil of שָׁבַע (shava’) without an object occurs only here and in Josh 6:26.

[23:7]  ⁴⁹ tn Or “serve.”

[1:2]  ⁵⁰ tn Grk “may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.”