And thou shalt make no marriages with them thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor take his daughter for thy son;
Israel is about to enter Canaan. This ban on marriage sits inside a list of hard commands about the nations already living there. Why would a merciful God forbid His people even the ordinary tie of marriage? And does the command still say anything today?
The ban on marriage does not stand alone. It belongs to a chain of refusals.
These were the instructions Jehovah gave to His people. They were clear and explicit. No mercy for the Canaanites, no covenant with them, no union, no fellowship of any kind; unsparing judgement, intense separation.
The ban runs both ways. One writer points to Solomon breaking that double command.
Solomon was openly disobeying God. God had said to His people: "You shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in to you." There was a double prohibition. We are in danger of going to the world or of letting it come in to us. Perhaps the latter possibility is even more dangerous than the first... Little by little it works its way into our homes and into our lives. Often, when we open our eyes to the danger, it is already too late.
The next verse gives the reason. God says what the foreign partner will do, not what they might do.
God stated the inevitable consequences of disobedience in this respect: "they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods, then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you." Here there is no suggestion that a God-fearing husband or wife might win an ungodly partner for the truth. The very opposite result is sure.
There is a reason behind the reason. Israel had to keep apart not because they were better, but because God had made them His.
Why were the people to keep the sharpest separation from the Canaanites? Why refuse firmly to make any covenant or form any marriage with them?... Simply because they were a holy people. And who had made them a holy people? Jehovah. He had chosen them and set His love on them. He had redeemed them, and separated them to Himself. So it was His right to say what they were to be, and how they were to act. "Be holy, for I am holy."
Israel's later history turns on this one command. One writer traces the arc.
The command to the nation of Israel at the very beginning was to keep the way of the Lord very carefully as to marriage. If they failed here, the Lord would no longer own them as His (Joshua 23). In line with this, Solomon's days of turning from God show disobedience in this very thing (1 Kings 11). Afterwards, no real recovery to God could happen without a return to this principle in their marriages (Ezra 10; Neh. 10).
Kings were not the only ones. One writer traces two deaths in one family straight back to this verse.
The two sons are dragged down to Moab with their parents. They marry Moabite women, and Jehovah puts them to death according to His word (Deut. 7:3-4). If Christian parents depart from God in heart, the effect on their children is disastrous. We never fall without dragging down others with us.
One writer also points to the same principle kept, and kept at a cost.
Abraham keeps the way of the Lord in this matter. He sends a special mission to a distant land to get a wife "in the Lord" for his son. Isaac waits for the result with patience, and looks for no marriage among the people close at hand. He might have got a daughter of Canaan; but he endured.
One writer takes the ban from Israel to the believer today, arguing from the lesser to the greater.
All Scripture has consistently warned against such mixtures. On this question, 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 is clear and decided: "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers." If an Israelite had to avoid a yoke with a Gentile, how much more should a believer today form no bond with an unbeliever.
Not every yoke is equally binding.
The most intimate and permanent yoke that the world knows is that of marriage... A believer may yoke himself with an unbeliever by a business partnership... But at least he can get out of it in time, even if at financial loss to himself. But marriage he cannot get out of except by death — his own or his partner's.
But what about a marriage that already exists? One writer answers plainly.
Bad as it is for a believer to marry an unbeliever, God does not even then say, Come out from the relationship; leave your wife; part from your husband.
- Chosen — the command rests on what God did first. He loved, redeemed and set apart a people, and only then told them how to live.
- Separated — because they were His, the refusal was total. No treaty, no mercy, no marriage, in either direction.
- Turned — the danger is not friction but drift. The partner turns the son away, and there is no promise that influence runs the other way.
- Ruined — Solomon and the two sons who married in Moab show what breaking the command costs. Isaac waited rather than take a daughter of Canaan, and Ezra and Nehemiah show that recovery began by returning to it.
- Yoked — the same principle reaches believers today through 2 Corinthians 6:14. Marriage is the one yoke that only death can undo, yet a believer already married is not told to leave.
for he will turn away thy son from following me, and they will serve other gods, and the anger of Jehovah will be kindled against you, and he will destroy thee quickly.
God forbids marriage with the peoples of Canaan, and this verse says why: a foreign wife or husband would pull the sons' hearts away from Him. The warning then widens, for God's anger burns against the whole nation and not one household alone.
Marriage was the door through which idolatry entered Israel. One writer traces the nation's judgment and scattering back to this one failure:
Israel was to carry out God's judgment on these utterly corrupt peoples. Wiping them out was meant to do Israel good. It would have stopped them marrying the daughters of these peoples. Such marriages were the surest way to catch the infection of their awful idol worship. Their later history shows what this failure cost. It largely accounted for their constant dabbling in idolatry. In the end it brought their own judgment and scattering under the Assyrians and Babylonians. They failed to judge and destroy the evil completely, so they caught its infection and fell under its power.
Why demand such strict separation? A commentator answers by pressing the question himself:
The principle laid down here is of the very weightiest kind. Why were the people to keep the most marked separation from the Canaanites? Why were they to refuse, with firm decision, to make any covenant or form any marriage alliance with them? Why were they to pull down their altars, break their images, and cut down their sacred groves? Simply because they were a holy people. And who had made them a holy people? Jehovah. He had chosen them and set His love on them. He had redeemed them and set them apart for Himself. So it was His right to say what they were to be and how they were to act. "You shall be holy, for I am holy."
Influence runs one way only in this verse: the foreign partner turns the son from God. One writer applies that to Ahab:
Here there is no hint that a God-fearing husband or wife might win an ungodly partner for the truth. The very opposite result is certain. A woman's influence over a man is great. So it is of the greatest importance that God Himself matches everyone who knows Him. A marriage made in defiance of the Word has ruined many a man besides Ahab.
Israel's later history acted this out. One writer traces the line from the command to ruin and back to recovery:
From the very beginning God commanded Israel to keep His way carefully in the matter of marriage. On no account were they to give their daughters to Canaanite sons. On no account were they to take Canaanite daughters for their sons (Deut. 7:3). If they did, the Lord would no longer own them as His (Joshua 23). In line with this, Solomon's days of turning from God show disobedience in this very thing (1 Kings 11). Afterwards no real recovery to God came without a return to this principle in their marriages (Ezra 10; Neh. 10).
The reasoning here runs from the smaller case to the greater:
God plainly forbids marriage with these enemies (v.4). The foreign husband or wife would draw the Israelite into serving idols. All Scripture has always warned against such mixtures. 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 is clear and decided on this question: "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers." If an Israelite had to avoid a yoke with a Gentile, how much more must a believer today form no bond with an unbeliever. This is God's Word. It is enough for every obedient heart. But if someone disobeys, he can expect painful consequences.
The same writer marks where the parallel stops:
The nations Israel was mixing with were demon worshipers. So God had flatly forbidden any marriage with them. Believers today are not under such a law. Scripture still tells them, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6:14). If they disobey it, Scripture does not tell them to put the unbeliever away. It says instead, "the wife should not separate from her husband" (1 Cor. 7:10)... Today a believer who marries an unbeliever does not escape the painful results of this disobedience. He must learn them by experience.
- Chosen — God chose Israel, loved them and redeemed them. That alone made them holy, and it gave Him the right to say how they should live.
- Infected — marriage was the surest way to catch the idolatry around them. They failed to judge the evil, so it took them over.
- Turned — the pull runs one way. There is no hint that a God-fearing partner will win the other for the truth.
- Proved — Joshua, Solomon, Ezra and Nehemiah all show it. No real recovery came without a return to this command.
- Carried — if God warned an Israelite off such a yoke, how much more a believer today. The marriage still stands, and the painful results still have to be learned.
But thus shall ye deal with them ye shall break down their altars, and shatter their statues, and hew down their Asherahs, and burn their graven images with fire.
Israel is about to enter a land full of altars to other gods, and God's first order about that land is to smash them. Why total destruction rather than tolerance, and what gives Israel the right to carry it out?
The list moves through every physical support of Canaanite religion. The word behind "Asherim" — older translations render it "groves" — did not mean a stand of trees, as one reference work explains:
The word "grove" suggests a row of trees, but that cannot be the meaning, since people set up groves "under every green tree." ... On the whole, they were most probably wooden symbols of a goddess. They took the form of images or pillars, or plain tree trunks planted in the ground.
This was not an outbreak of national aggression. Commentators tie it to a promise God made to Abraham centuries earlier, that judgment would wait until wickedness was complete:
Some four hundred years earlier God had told Abraham, "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete" (Gen. 15:16). But now it clearly was complete. God planned to wipe them out, as He had already done with the world before the flood and then with Sodom — only this time using Israel to do it.
Verse 6 supplies the ground for verse 5, and it is not Israel's superiority. The demolition flows from what God had made them:
Why were they to demolish their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves? Simply because they were a holy people. And who had made them a holy people? God did. He had chosen them and set His love on them. He had redeemed them and separated them to Himself. So it was His right, and His alone, to say what they were to be, and how they were to act.
The command targets objects, not just people, and the reason is that idolatry spreads by contact:
When Israel entered the promised land under Joshua, God strictly commanded them to touch nothing. They were to make a clean sweep of the nations living there and all their works. These instructions were sanitary precautions of a spiritual kind. Idolatry is terribly infectious as well as corrupting, and a policy of thorough isolation was the only safe one.
Israel never finished the job. Their later history proved the warning right:
Their later history shows what this failure cost them. It largely explains their constant dabbling in idolatrous things, which in the end brought their own judgment and scattering under the Assyrians and Babylonians. They failed to judge and destroy the evil completely, so they caught its infection and fell under its power.
The first breach came quickly. Joshua and the leaders made a treaty with the Gibeonites, a Canaanite group who arrived in worn-out clothes and with mouldy bread, pretending to have travelled from far away:
No doubt the story of the Gibeonites sounded believable, and their whole appearance gave a show of truth to what they said. But none of this should have carried the slightest moral weight with Joshua and the leaders. It would not have, if only they had remembered the word of the Lord. But they failed in this. They reasoned on what they saw, instead of obeying what they had heard. Reason is no guide for the people of God. We must be guided and governed, absolutely and completely, by the word of God.
Later kings did more than tolerate foreign worship; they imported it because it looked good. One writer traces the line from this verse straight into the present:
Israel was to destroy the altars of these enemy nations without hesitation, with their sacred pillars and all their images (v.5). However attractive these things looked, they must not dare to spare any of them. Despite such clear laws from God, king Ahaz of Judah saw an altar in Syria. He required the high priest to copy it for Jerusalem, pushing aside the altar of God's own design. Today the professing church has done many similar things (in a spiritual way) that insult the living God.
- Full — Judgment had waited long. God held off until "the iniquity of the Amorites" was complete, and then He acted through Israel instead of flood or fire.
- Holy — The ground of the demolition is God's choice, not Israel's merit. He had loved, redeemed and separated them, and that gave Him the right to say how they must live.
- Thorough — Altars, pillars, wooden symbols and carved images all go. Idolatry spreads by contact, so a half-cleared land stays infected.
- Obedient — Gibeon shows where the failure starts. The leaders reasoned on what they saw instead of obeying what they had heard, and reason is no guide for God's people.
- Infected — The unfinished work finished Israel. The nations they spared bred the idolatry that carried them into exile — the very end this command aimed to prevent.