Bible Commentaries

Seven nations - There were ten in Genesis 15:19-21 . But this being some hundreds of years after, it is not strange if three of them were either destroyed by foreign or domestick wars, or by cohabitation and marriage united with, and swallowed up in the rest.

To serve other Gods - That is, there is manifest danger of apostacy and idolatry from such matches. Which reason doth both limit the law to such of these as are unconverted (otherwise Salmon married Rahab, Matthew 1:5 ) and enlarge it to other idolatrous nations, as appears from 1 Kings 11:2 ; Ezra 9:2 ; Nehemiah 13:23 .

Their graves - Which idolaters planted about the temples and altars of their Gods. Hereby God designed to take away whatsoever might bring their idolatry to remembrance, or occasion the reviving of it.

The fewest - To wit, at that time when God first declared his choice of you for his peculiar people, which was done to Abraham. For Abraham had but one son concerned in this choice and covenant, namely, Isaac, and that was in his hundredth year; and Isaac was sixty years old ere he had a child, and then had only two children; and though Jacob had twelve sons, it was a long time before they made any considerable increase. Nor do we read of any great multiplication of them 'till after Joseph's death.

The Lord loved you - It was his free choice without any cause or motive on your part.

Them that hate him - Not only those who hate him directly and properly, (for so did few or none of the Israelites to whom he here speaks,) but those who hate him by construction and consequence; those who hate and oppose his people, and word, those who wilfully persist in the breach of God's commandments. To their face - That is, openly, and so as they shall see it, and not be able to avoid it. Slack - So as to delay it beyond the fit time or season for vengeance, yet withal he is long - suffering, and slow to anger.

The covenant and the mercy - That is, the covenant of mercy, which he out of his own mere grace made with them.

He will love thee - He will continue to love thee, and to manifest his love to thee.

The diseases of Egypt - Such as the Egyptians were infected with, either commonly, or miraculously. It seems to refer not only to the plagues of Egypt, but to some other epidemic disease, which they remembered to have prevailed among the Egyptians, and by which God had chastised them for their national sins. Diseases are God's servants, which go where he sends them, and do what he bids them.

The temptations - The trials and exercises of thy faith and obedience to my commands.

No man shall stand - This promise is made upon condition of their performance of their duty, which they neglecting, justly lose the benefit of it.

The silver or gold - Wherewith the idols are covered or adorned, nor consequently any other of their ornaments. This he commands to shew his utter detestation of idolatry, and to cut off all occasions of it.