Deuteronomy 7:14

I cannot pass the gloss of the Jerusalem Targum upon this place, because it speaks the faith of the Jewish church concerning a future state: He recompenses to those that hate him the reward of their good works in this world, that he may destroy them in the world to come. thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers: 13 And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee. 14 Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle. 15 And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee. 16 And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee. 17 If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?

7:12-26 We are in danger of having fellowship with the works of darkness if we take pleasure in fellowship with those who do such works. Whatever brings us into a snare, brings us under a curse. Let us be constant to our duty, and we cannot question the constancy of God's mercy. Diseases are God's servants; they go where he sends them, and do what he bids them. It is therefore good for the health of our bodies, thoroughly to mortify the sin of our souls; which is our rule of duty. Yet sin is never totally destroyed in this world; and it actually prevails in us much more than it would do, if we were watchful and diligent. In all this the Lord acts according to the counsel of his own will; but that counsel being hid from us, forms no excuse for our sloth and negligence, of which it is in no degree the cause. We must not think, that because the deliverance of the church, and the destruction of the enemies of the soul, are not done immediately, therefore they will never be done. God will do his own work in his own method and time; and we may be sure that they are always the best. Thus corruption is driven out of the hearts of believers by little and little. The work of sanctification is carried on gradually; but at length there will be a complete victory. Pride, security, and other sins that are common effects of prosperity, are enemies more dangerous than beasts of the field, and more apt to increase upon us.

Thou shalt be blessed above all people,.... Even with temporal blessings, besides those of a religious kind; they having the oracles of God, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises, Romans 3:1 , there shall not be male or female barren among you; which to be was reckoned a reproach, and the contrary a blessing, Luke 1:25 Psalm 128:3. or among your cattle; the Targum of Jonathan is, nor thy beasts barren of wool, and milk, and lambs.

Flocks of thy sheep - Render it instead: "the ewes of thy sheep." The phrase is unique to Deuteronomy. The Hebrew word for "ewes" is the plural form of Ashtoreth, the well-known name of the "goddess of the Zidonians" 1 Kings 11:5 . This goddess, called by the Classical writers "Astarte," and identified with "Venus," represented the fruitfulness of nature.

11-26. Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day—In the covenant into which God entered with Israel, He promised to bestow upon them a variety of blessings so long as they continued obedient to Him as their heavenly King. He pledged His veracity that His infinite perfections would be exerted for this purpose, as well as for delivering them from every evil to which, as a people, they would be exposed. That people accordingly were truly happy as a nation, and found every promise which the faithful God made to them amply fulfilled, so long as they adhered to that obedience which was required of them. See a beautiful illustration of this in Ps 144:12-15.

This mercy flowed from the love of God to Israel, and the love was manifested in blessing and multiplying the people. The blessing is then particularized, by a further expansion of Exodus 23:25-27 , as a blessing upon the fruit of the body, the fruits of the field and soil, and the rearing of cattle. שׁגר, see Exodus 13:12 . צאן עשׁתּרת only occurs again in Deuteronomy 28:4 , Deuteronomy 28:18 , Deuteronomy 28:51 , and certainly signifies the young increase of the flocks. It is probably a Canaanitish word, derived from Ashtoreth (Astharte), the female deity of the Canaanites, which was regarded as the conceiving and birth-giving principle of nature, literally Veneres, i.e., amores gregis, hence soboles (Ges.); just as the Latin poets employ the name Ceres to signify the corn, Venus for love and sexual intercourse, and Lucina for birth. On Deuteronomy 7:14 and Deuteronomy 7:15 , see Exodus 23:26 . In Deuteronomy 7:15 , the promise of the preservation of Israel from all diseases ( Exodus 15:26 , and Exodus 23:25 ) is strengthened by the addition of the clause, "all the evil diseases of Egypt," by which, according to Deuteronomy 28:27 , we are probably to understand chiefly the malignant species of leprosy called elephantiasis, and possibly also the plague and other malignant forms of disease. In Egypt, diseases for the most part readily assume a very dangerous character.

Pliny (h. n. xxvi. 1) calls Egypt the genitrix of contagious pestilence, and modern naturalists have confirmed this (see Hengstenberg, Egypt and the Books of Moses, p. 215; and Pruner, Krankheiten des Orients, pp. 460ff.). Diseases of this kind the Lord would rather bring upon the enemies of Israel. The Israelites, on the other hand, should be so strong and vigorous, that they would devour, i.e., exterminate, all the nations which their God would give into their hands (cf. Numbers 14:9 ). With this thought Moses reverts with emphasis to the command to root out the Canaanites without reserve, and not to serve their gods, because they would become a snare to them (see Exodus 10:7 ); and then in Deuteronomy 7:17-26 he carries out still further the promise in Exodus 23:27-30 of the successful subjugation of the Canaanites through the assistance of the Lord, and sweeps away all the objections that a weak faith might raise to the execution of the divine command.

[Reformed Biblical] For as the Hebrew word rendered righteousness is very oft put for mercy, as #Psalms 24:5 36:10 51:14 Proverbs 10:2 11:4 Daniel 9:16 , &c.; so this sense seems best ## to agree both with the Scripture use of this phrase, in which righteousness , seldom or never, to my remembrance, but grace or mercy frequently, is said to be to us or with us , as #2 Samuel 15:20 Psalms 89:24 Proverbs 14:22 Galatians 6:16 2 John 1:3 ; and with the foregoing verse and argument, God, saith he, #Deuteronomy 6:24 , commanded these things for our good, that he might preserve us alive, as it is this day. And , saith he in this verse, this is not all; for as he hath done us good, so he will go on to do us more and more good, and God’s mercy shall be to us , or with us, in the remainder of our lives, and for ever, if we observe, &c. ## Israel is commanded to cast out the Hittites, the Perizzites, &c. #Deuteronomy 7:1 . All communion with them forbidden, #Deuteronomy 7:2,3 , for fear of idolatry, #Deuteronomy 7:4 . They must ruin the places of idolatry, #Deuteronomy 7:5 . The Israelites’ holiness and relation to God, #Deuteronomy 7:6 . His faithfulness to the obedient, #Deuteronomy 7:9 ; and vengeance on them that hate him, #Deuteronomy 7:10 . The advantages of obedience, #Deuteronomy 7:12-16 . God encourages them, and promises to drive out the nations before there, #Deuteronomy 7:17-24 .