Judges
3:2-6 – It was only
in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war
to those who had not known it before. These are the nations: the five lords of the
Philistines and all the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites who lived
on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath. They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether
Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the
Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And their daughters they took to themselves for wives, and their
own daughters they gave to their sons, and they served their gods.
Malachi
2:11 – Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and
in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of
a foreign god.
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.
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.
1 Kings 11:1-2,4,6 – Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the
daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from
the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall
they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.”
Solomon clung to these in love…For when Solomon
was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his
God, as was the heart of David his father…So Solomon
did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and
did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done.
Application:
- · The degenerating effect of intermarriage in Israel is well illustrated in Solomon’s experience.
- · Daughter of a foreign god is a pagan woman.
- · Marrying the daughter of a foreign god, a pagan woman, was strictly forbidden in the covenant law because it would lead to apostasy.
- · 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.
- · The atmosphere of paganism and idolatry introduced into Solomon’s court by his foreign wives gradually led Solomon into multiple religious practices.
- · Although David committed grievous sins, he was repentant, and he was never involved in idolatrous worship.
All Scripture verses taken from ESV
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