But If You Turn Away

Joshua 23:12-13 – For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the Lord your God has given you.

Genesis 34:9 – Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves.

2 Kings 17:7-8 – And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced.

Exodus 34:13-16 – You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.

Deuteronomy 7:3-4 – You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.

Application:

• ·         Remaining in the promised land was conditioned on faithfulness to the Lord and separation from the idolaters still around them. The Lord prohibited alliances, either national or domestic, with the peoples of Canaan because such alliances would tend to compromise Israel’s loyalty to the Lord.
• ·         This was a danger Israel constantly faced from other peoples and nations—either absorption or hostility, both of which are perpetual threats to the people of God.
• ·         Worshipping other gods was a violation of the most basic obligation of Israel’s covenant with the Lord.
• ·         Partaking of food sacrificed to a pagan deity invited compromise.
• ·         The Lord’s command against intermarriage with foreigners was not racially motivated but was intended to prevent spiritual contamination and apostasy.

All Scripture verses taken from ESV