John Gill's Bible Commentary Ver. 2. And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee , etc.] Into their hands: thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them ; men, women, and children; which was ordered not merely to make way and room for the people of Israel to inherit their land, but as a punishment for capital crimes they had been guilty of, such as idolatry, incest, murder, etc. wherefore though they were reprieved for a while for Israel’s sake, till their time was come to possess the land, they were at length righteously punished; which observed, abates the seeming severity exercised upon them: thou shalt make no covenant with them ; to dwell in their cities and houses, and enjoy their lands and estates, on any condition whatever; and though they did make a league with the Gibeonites, that was obtained by fraud, they pretending not to be of the land of Canaan, but to come from a very distant country: nor show mercy unto them ; by sparing their lives, bestowing any favours upon them, or giving them any help and assistance when in distress: the Jews extend this to all other Heathen nations besides these seven; wherefore, if an Israelite, as Maimonides says, should see a Gentile perishing, or plunged into a river, he may not take him out, nor administer medicine to a sick person. Hence Juvenal the poet upbraids them with their unkindness and incivility; and says that Moses delivered it as a Jewish law, in a secret volume of his, perhaps referring to this book of Deuteronomy, that the Jews might not direct a poor traveller in his way unless he was one of their religion, nor one athirst to a fountain of water; and which led Tacitus f74 , the Heathen historian, to make this remark upon them, that they entertained an hostile hatred against all other people.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-11 - Here is a strict caution against all friendship and fellowship with idols and idolaters. Those who are in communion with God, must have n communication with the unfruitful works of darkness. Limiting the orders to destroy, to the nations here mentioned, plainly shows tha after ages were not to draw this into a precedent. A prope understanding of the evil of sin, and of the mystery of a crucifie Saviour, will enable us to perceive the justice of God in all his punishments, temporal and eternal. We must deal decidedly with ou lusts that war against our souls; let us not show them any mercy, but mortify, and crucify, and utterly destroy them. Thousands in the worl that now is, have been undone by ungodly marriages; for there is mor likelihood that the good will be perverted, than that the bad will be converted. Those who, in choosing yoke-fellows, keep not within the bounds of a profession of religion, cannot promise themselves help meet for them.
Original Hebrew ונתנם5414 יהוה3068 אלהיך430 לפניך6440 והכיתם5221 החרם2763 תחרים2763 אתם853 לא3808 תכרת3772 להם ברית1285 ולא3808 תחנם׃2603
