lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and then, when they go a whoring after their gods, and sacrifice unto their gods, thou be invited, and eat of their sacrifice,
After the golden calf, God renews His covenant and points Israel to the land ahead, where the danger is welcome, not war. The warning traces a chain — an agreement, their sacrifices, an invitation, a meal — so why is one shared meal a threat to the nation?
The command follows straight on from Israel's worst failure. It names the same evil in a worse form.
We can well understand what is ordered in verses 11-17. The people had just fallen into the great sin of making the molten calf. The idea of it they had clearly brought up with them out of Egypt. God was going to drive out before them the nations of Canaan. Those nations were steeped in forms of idolatry even worse than those of Egypt. So He commanded the most complete separation from those peoples, from their gods, their altars and images. God had entered into covenant with Israel, so they were not to make any covenant with those nations.
One writer, summing up verses 11–16, shows what the demand rests on and how far it reaches.
The foundation of it all is laid in what God would do for His people (v. 10). On that basis He commands complete separation from the nations around, once He had put them in possession of the land. They must keep separate from the people themselves, from their ways, and from their worship. They must worship the LORD alone, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
The verse uses the language of a broken marriage. One writer explains why, and carries the same demand through to believers now.
Israel was married to the LORD; their marriage to the heathen was disobedience to the law and unfaithfulness to the LORD. It was an alliance with the world. God demanded separation of Israel; He demands the same of His people in the New Testament. "But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy'" (1 Peter 1:15-16).
An invitation looks harmless. So the weight falls on what eating a sacrifice says. One commentator states the principle behind the warning, and names what stands behind an idol.
He first refers to Israel to establish the important principle that, by sharing in a sacrifice, we express communion with all that it sets forth. This makes it intensely solemn for a Christian to have any part with anything that expresses fellowship with idols. ... The things sacrificed to idols are really sacrificed to demons. The idol may be nothing in itself, but the demons behind it were very real, and in leading people to worship idols they were leading them to worship demons, taking the honour due to God alone.
Israel fell into this exact trap later. It began with Balaam's reasoning about Israel's God.
If the LORD could not be turned away from His people, perhaps the people could be turned away from the LORD! Balaam knew enough of God to be sure that if the people of Israel could be tempted into sin, the LORD's hand would come down on them in judgment. So we read in Numbers 25:1-2: "While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods."
The practical cost of an alliance is that it has to be undone later, and undoing it is painful.
But if there is failure, if we fall into idolatry, if we commit fornication with the world by yielding to its baits, if in any way at all we form a friendship with the world in the desert — then we make wars for ourselves. And that kind of fighting gains us no spiritual ground. God is obliged to make our relations with the world change completely. If we had not formed intimate ties with them, we would not have had that trouble; but since they deceive us as our friends, we must become enemies. Having no relations with them at all is our proper and peaceful position.
- Covenant. The chain starts with an agreement, not an idol. Israel had just made the calf, so God ordered full separation from Canaan's peoples, gods and altars.
- Invitation. The next link is social, not religious — someone calls, and you go. At Shittim the Moabites invited Israel to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down.
- Table. Sharing in a sacrifice expresses communion with all it stands for, and demons stand behind the idols. The line is crossed at a meal, not at a creed.
- Marriage. God calls it whoring because Israel was married to Him. The charge is unfaithfulness to Him, not bad choice of neighbours.
- Separation. The demand covered the people, their ways and their worship. It rested on what God promised to do first — and He still calls His people to be holy.
and thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.
God has just renewed the covenant with Israel after the golden calf. Verse 16 sets the most intimate boundary for life in the land ahead — marriage — because what comes into a man's house comes out in his sons.
The command sits inside a covenant where God acts first. He clears the land; Israel's part is to keep no ties with what is left in it.
Though the covenant was conditional, what God would do was not conditional. God would drive out the inhabitants of Canaan before Israel. This did take place, yet Israel later allowed part of some of these nations to remain in the land (Judges 1:21, 27-33). God kept His covenant. But Israel was responsible to make no covenant with any of the inhabitants of the land (v. 12). Instead they were to destroy their religious altars, their sacred pillars and images.
The command has two sides. Israel could go out to the nations, or let the nations come in.
Solomon was in open disobedience to God. God had said to His people: "You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with 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 second is even more dangerous than the first... the world might more easily seduce a Christian by coming to him. Little by little it works its way into our homes and into our lives. Often, by the time we open our eyes to the danger, it is already too late. "They would surely turn away your heart after their gods," the Lord had said. Marriage with the world will necessarily lead us to the religion of the world.
The verse uses the language of a broken marriage. Scripture uses that language for idolatry again and again.
In Scripture "abomination" is a word often used for idols, because they are so hateful to God and so detestable in man. In the same way, Scripture constantly uses fornication and adultery for idolatry, or for any false religious system that men turn to. Such a turn is unfaithfulness to the Lord, who had taken His people to Himself as a bride (see Ex. 34:15-16; Lev. 17:7; Ezek. 6:9; 1 Kings 11:5, 7).
Israel's wisest king broke this exact command. One writer asks what reasoning let him do it.
The first wrong step we notice is mentioned at the beginning of 1 Kings 3. Solomon "made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt" and took his daughter as his wife. In the days of Moses the people were told not to take in marriage the daughters of the pagan nations — see Exodus 34:16. The Lord knew what evil would spring out of this, and so forbade it for all the people. Did Solomon think that he was so lifted above ordinary folk that rules which applied to them did not apply to him? Or did he think that the passing of time since Moses, and changed conditions, had made this law obsolete?
A later generation broke the same command. One writer treats those marriages as a picture of a danger in every age.
The special sin mentioned here is that "the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands" — that is, by intermarriage. God had clearly forbidden this (see Ex. 34:12-16)... for this is what these marriages picture — the besetting sin of God's people in every age. The apostle James says, "Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?" (James 4:4). And the apostle Paul cries, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?" (2 Cor. 6:14-15).
Does this command bind a Christian who has already married an unbeliever? Commentators answer with care.
The nations Israel was mixing with were actually demon worshippers. So God had absolutely forbidden any marriages with them. Believers today are not under such a law, though Scripture tells them, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6:14). If they disobey this scripture, they are not told to put away the unbeliever. Instead, "the wife should not separate from her husband" (1 Cor. 7:10), though "if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so" (1 Cor. 7:15). Today a believer who marries an unbeliever must learn the painful results of this disobedience by experience, instead of escaping them.
- Covenant — God promised to clear the land Himself; Israel's part was to make no covenant with those left in it.
- Household — the danger runs both ways: God's people can go out to the world, or let the world come in.
- Worship — Scripture calls idolatry adultery, because God had taken His people to Himself as a bride.
- Sons — the danger is the next generation following her gods. Solomon proved the warning was not out of date.
- Today — the rule still stands: do not be unequally yoked. But a believer already married should stay, not send the partner away.