6 For a holy people art thou unto Jehovah thy God: Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be unto him a people for a possession, above all the peoples that are upon the face of the earth. 7 Not because ye were more in number than all the peoples, hath Jehovah been attached to you and chosen you, for ye are the fewest of all the peoples; 8 but because Jehovah loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath Jehovah brought you out with a powerful hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 And thou shalt know that Jehovah thy God, he is God, the faithful God, who keepeth covenant and mercy to a thousand generations with them that love him and keep his commandments; 10 and repayeth them that hate him [each] to his face, to cause them to perish: he delayeth not with him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face. 11 And thou shalt keep the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command thee this day, to do them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Deuteronomy 7:6-11
Commentary on Deuteronomy 7:1-11
(Read Deuteronomy 7:1-11)
Here is a strict caution against all friendship and fellowship with idols and idolaters. Those who are in communion with God, must have no communication with the unfruitful works of darkness. Limiting the orders to destroy, to the nations here mentioned, plainly shows that after ages were not to draw this into a precedent. A proper understanding of the evil of sin, and of the mystery of a crucified Saviour, will enable us to perceive the justice of God in all his punishments, temporal and eternal. We must deal decidedly with our lusts that war against our souls; let us not show them any mercy, but mortify, and crucify, and utterly destroy them. Thousands in the world that now is, have been undone by ungodly marriages; for there is more 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 helps meet for them.