7 " The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples , for you were the fewest of all peoples , 8 but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers , the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery , from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt .
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Deuteronomy 7:7-8
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.