John Gill's Bible Commentary Ver. 7. The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you , etc.] He had done both, and the one as the effect and evidence of the other; he loved them, and therefore he chose them; but neither of them, because ye were more in number than any people ; not for the quantity of them, nor even for the quality of them: for ye were the fewest of all people ; fewer than the Egyptians, from whence they came, and than the Canaanites they were going to drive out and inherit their land, ( Deuteronomy 7:1). Those whom God has loved with an everlasting love, and as a fruit of it has chosen them in Christ before the world began to grace and glory, holiness and happiness, are but a small number, a little flock; though many are called, few are chosen; nor are they better than others, being by nature children of wrath even as others, and as to their outward circumstances the poor of this world.
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 לא3808 מרבכם7230 מכל3605 העמים5971 חשׁק2836 יהוה3068 בכם ויבחר977 בכם כי3588 אתם859 המעט4592 מכל3605 העמים׃5971
