Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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rage of a man (Pr 6:34), but it is God's holy and just displeasure. Those cannot worship God aright who do not worship him alone.
(2.) "Thou shalt make thee no molten god (Ex 34:17); thou shalt not worship the true God by images." This was the sin they had lately fallen into, which therefore they are particularly cautioned against.
2. Fences are here erected about these two precepts by two others:
(1.) That they might not be tempted to worship other gods, they must not join in affinity or friendship with those that did (Ex 34:12): "Take heed to thyself, for thou art upon thy good behaviour. It is a sin that thou art prone to and that will easily beset thee, and therefore be very cautious, and carefully abstain from all appearances of it and advances towards it. Make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land." If God, in kindness to them, drove out the Canaanites, they ought, in duty to God, not to harbour them. What could be insisted on more reasonable than this? If God make war with the Canaanites, let not Israel make peace with them. If God take care that the Canaanites be not their lords, let them take care that they be not their snares. It was for their civil interest to complete the conquest of the land; so much does God consult our benefit in the laws he gives us. They must particularly take heed of intermarrying with them, Ex 34:15,16. If they espoused their children, they would be in danger of espousing their gods; such is the corruption of nature that the bad are much more likely to debauch the good than the good to reform the bad. The way of sin is downhill: those that are in league with idolaters will come by degrees to be in love with idolatry; and those that are prevailed upon to eat of the idolatrous sacrifice will come at length to offer it. Obsta principiis--Nip the mischief in the bud.