34:10 ¶ And he said, Behold, I make a covenant:
before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the
earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art shall
see the work of the LORD: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with
thee. 11 Observe thou that which I
command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the
Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a
covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a
snare in the midst of thee: 13 But ye
shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:
14 For thou shalt worship no other god:
for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: 15 Lest thou make a covenant with the
inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do
sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his
sacrifice; 16 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. 17
Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
There are some significant words in this passage that bear
defining Biblically before you run off to some nineteenth century dictionary or
a modern one and get confused.
A covenant, we will see
upcoming, is an agreement between God and man. The Hebrew agrees to obey the
ten commandments and that seals the agreement that God has written. In the
following verse in Leviticus we can see the synonyms to a covenant, which are statutes,
judgments, and commandments.
Leviticus 26:15 And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all
my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:
The agreement is pretty one-sided. God, typically, is the only one
able to meet the demands of a covenant. Just as it is impossible for man to
keep God’s commandments without the Holy Spirit’s involvement and it is
impossible for man to offer up worship that is pleasing to God or even to pray
without God’s help so the expression of this covenant of commandments will show
that mankind is incapable of obedience without the Holy Spirit’s invisible hand
on mankind’s heart.
God made a covenant with Noah to deliver him and his family from
the destruction of life in the great Flood. This was something God did and
required only Noah to receive it by obedience.
Genesis 6:17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of
waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die. 18 But with thee will I establish my covenant;
and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy
sons’ wives with thee. 19 And of every
living thing of all flesh, two of every sort
shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them
alive with thee; they shall be male and female. 20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle
after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of
every sort shall come unto
thee, to keep them alive.
21 And take thou unto thee of all food
that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it
to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
22 ¶ Thus did Noah; according to
all that God commanded him, so did he.
God made a covenant with all flesh that there should be no more
flood destroy life on earth.
Genesis 9:8 ¶ And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with
him, saying, 9 And I, behold, I
establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; 10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the
cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the
ark, to every beast of the earth. 11 And
I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any
more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to
destroy the earth.
12 ¶ And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and
every living creature that is
with you, for perpetual generations: 13
I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant
between me and the earth. 14 And it
shall
come to pass, when I bring a cloud
over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: 15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every
living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to
destroy all flesh. 16 And the bow shall
be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting
covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I
have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
God made a covenant with Abram to give his descendants a grant of
land.
Genesis 15:18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with
Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt
unto the great river, the river Euphrates:
So it is with eternal life. It is something God does that can only
be received.
John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power
to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his name: 13
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the
will of man, but of God.
This is an everlasting covenant.
Hebrews 13:20 Now the God of peace, that brought again from
the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of
the everlasting covenant, 21 Make you
perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is
wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
It is again, something that God does and we receive by obedience
in faith, to trust and declare that Christ rose from the dead, was God in the
flesh, and by faith in those facts of history we have eternal life.
Marvels are something that one is amazed at, something that
causes you to wonder. To marvel is to be amazed. Amazement is to be filled with
wonder.
Acts 2:7 And they were all amazed and marvelled,
saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?
Acts 3:10 And they knew that it was he which sat for
alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple: and they were filled with wonder and
amazement at that which had happened unto him.
Terrible is another interesting word which carries with it the
idea of something so great as to be frightening and overwhelming in its power,
like God, of instance. Think of the word, terrifying.
Deuteronomy 7:21 Thou shalt not be affrighted at them: for the
LORD thy God is among you, a
mighty God and terrible.
Deuteronomy 10:21 He is
thy praise, and he is thy God,
that hath done for thee these great
and terrible things, which thine
eyes have seen.
Daniel 7:7 After this I saw in the night visions, and
behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and
it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the
residue with the feet of it: and it was
diverse from all the beasts that were
before it; and it had ten horns.
God warns them about making any agreement with the Canaanites. The
danger is that they will become a snare to
the Israelites if that is allowed. A snare
is a trap.
Job 18:10 The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way.
Psalm 124:7 Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the
snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.
In verse 13 the Israelites are told to break down the altars,
images, and groves of the people of the land they’ve been given. Images
includes the renditions of birds and animals the Canaanites worshipped.
Numbers 33:52 Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants
of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all
their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:
This is in keeping with the commandment.
Exodus 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven
image, or any likeness of any thing
that is in heaven above, or
that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under
the earth:
Sacred groves of trees and even particular types of trees were
common in the ancient world’s religions as has been noted by several authors in
history.
By calling Himself a jealous
God the Lord makes it clear that He will tolerate no idolatry. The idolatry
the ancient world was steeped in made mankind an enemy of God. The very God who
causes our hearts to beat, our blood to flow, and our lungs to inhale and
exhale is not glorified or understood when mankind attributes his well-being
and even his life to an imaginary god, little g, or to a devil.
It is clear by the Biblical text that the Canaanites were immoral,
child-sacrificing, bestiality-practicing, idolaters so the curse placed on
Canaan at Ham’s disgrace was well-justified.
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