71 'When Jehovah thy God doth bring thee in unto the land whither thou art going in to possess it, and He hath cast out many nations from thy presence, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations more numerous and mighty than thou, 2 and Jehovah thy God hath given them before thee, and thou hast smitten them—thou dost utterly devote them—thou dost not make with them a covenant, nor dost thou favour them. 3 'And thou dost not join in marriage with them; thy daughter thou dost not give to his son, and his daughter thou dost not take to thy son, 4 for he doth turn aside thy son from after Me, and they have served other gods, and the anger of Jehovah hath burned against you, and hath destroyed thee hastily.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Deuteronomy 7:1-4
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.