Deuteronomy 7 – Study

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Ch.4 – 7   Calls to Holiness – frequent exhortations to follow the laws given by God, to enable them to be God’s people in the Land

Passage: Deut 7:1-10

1 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations – the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you – 2 and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5 This is what you are to do to them: break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. 10 But

those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction;
    he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.

A. Find Out:

1. What is the Lord going to do? v.1,2a
2. What must they then do, and not do, and why? v.2b-4
3. What instead must they do, and why? v.5,6
4. Why didn’t the Lord choose them? v.7
5. Why did He do it? v.8
6. What are they to remember? v.9,10

B. Think:

1. How would you summarize verses 1 to 6?
2. What point is being made in verses 7 & 8?
3. What is revealed about the Lord in all this passage?

C. Comment:

        Back in 6:14 Moses had warned Israel not to follow the pagan gods of the surrounding peoples. Now he gives clear instructions about the people in the land they are about to take. Basically, this may be summed up as, Clear the Land! The reality, you can see in their subsequent history, was that the occupants could either:

a)   leave the land, or

b)   join Israel [which some did], or

c)   fight and be killed.

         The command to wipe out the people looks pretty horrendous at first sight, but when we note the options above, and the reasons, then it is not so. Israel may be seen as the judgement of God on the inhabitants. As one theologian has said, the wonder is not that God brings judgement, but that He doesn’t wipe us ALL out, because we deserve it. What is the reason given for this action? It is because if Israel mix with this people then they will be led away from the Lord and will end up worshipping idols and following the detestable practices of the existing inhabitants of Canaan, such as sacrificing children.

      Israel are to realize that they are to be a separate and distinct people, so that all the rest of the world can see them and come to know the Lord through them. That is the goal behind the instructions given in this passage. It started right back with Abraham and now continues through the whole constituted nation, and Israel are now accountable to the Lord.

D. Application:

1. Christians are people called back to God’s original design – good.
2. When God calls us to be different, it’s to conform to His design.

Passage: Deut 7:11-26

11 Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today.

12 If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. 13 He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land – your corn, new wine and oil – the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land that he swore to your ancestors to give you. 14 You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor any of your livestock without young. 15 The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you. 16 You must destroy all the peoples the Lord your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

17 You may say to yourselves, ‘These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?’ 18 But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. 19 You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the Lord your God brought you out. The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. 20 Moreover, the Lord your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished. 21 Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. 22 The Lord your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you. 23 But the Lord your God will deliver them over to you, throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed. 24 He will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand up against you; you will destroy them. 25 The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the Lord your God. 26 Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Regard it as vile and utterly detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.

A. Find Out:

1. If they do what, God will do what? v.11-13,15
2. With what outcome? v.14
3. What are they to do? v.16
4. What does He say not to be? v.18,21
5. How are they to be encouraged by the past? v.19
6. What will the Lord do for them? v.20-24
7. Finally, what are they to do and not do? v.25,26

B. Think:

1. What will be the fruit of obedience in the Land?
2. Why will they not need to fear the people in the Land?
3. What will be a ‘residual temptation’ in the land to be resisted?

C. Comment:

       Moses has just been instructing Israel to completely clean out the Land of its existing pagan, idol-worshipping, child-sacrificing inhabitants. He reminded them that they are a holy people who must keep God’s commands, but that isn’t going to be an arduous thing, it is going to be something that is going to bring incredible blessing on them, more than on any other nation, fruitfulness and freedom from illness. What a staggering future ahead of them! But it does involve clearing out the land first.

       Then he covers a potential temptation, of them fearing the peoples there and being afraid of them (which suggests they would not fight wholeheartedly and fulfil the task). There is no need to fear, says Moses. Why? Because of the past and because of what God is going to do in the future. Remember (yet again) what God did when He delivered you from Egypt, remember His power.

     Well, he continues, this power is now going to be the same as when He delivered you from Egypt; remember His power. Well, he continues, that power is now going to be exercised again – through you – to ensure this land is completely cleared out in stages so that you can colonize it but beware of their idols – make sure you entirely destroy them, or they will trap you!

D. Application:

1. We stand against the enemy and the Lord then enables us.
2. Our call is to remain distinct, not taking on board the world’s ways.