Exodus 23:32

Exo 23:32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.

Ver. 32. No covenant with them.] Because devoted to destruction; and they will be drawing thee to idolatry, as it also happened in Jdg 1:1-36 Jdg 2:1-23.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Exo 23:32-33. Thou shalt make no covenant with them — Thou shalt give no toleration to idol-worship, nor suffer it to be introduced into thy territories. Thou shalt make no league with them, either civil or religious. They shall not dwell in thy land — Unless they renounce their idolatry, which is plainly understood; for, upon their becoming proselytes to the Jewish religion, they might dwell among them, and were called the strangers. If thou serve — Thou wilt serve, this will be the fruit of thy cohabitation with them. It will be a snare unto thee — Will bring great calamities upon thee, and, at last, be thy ruin, which accordingly came to pass.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 32. Thou shalt make no covenant with them] They were incurable idolaters, and the cup of their iniquity was full. And had the Israelites contracted any alliance with them, either sacred or civil, they would have enticed them into their idolatries, to which the Jews were at all times most unhappily prone; and as God intended that they should be the preservers of the true religion till the coming of the Messiah, hence he strictly forbade them to tolerate idolatry.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(32) Thou shalt make no covenant with them—i.e., no treaty of peace; no arrangement by which one part of the land shall be thine and another theirs. (Comp. Exo_34:12.)

Nor with their gods.—It was customary at the time for treaties between nations to contain an acknowledgment by each of the other’s gods. (See the treaty between Rameses II. And the Hittites in the Records of the Past, vol. iv., pp. 27-32.) Thus a treaty with a nation was a sort of treaty with its gods.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

To worship them, as they made a covenant with Jehovah to worship him. The sense is, Thou shalt not engage thyself, either to the people or to their gods, but shalt root out both.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

32. No covenant with them — To enter into any treaty with a hopelessly depraved and heaven-doomed people, or with their gods, was to trample under foot their own covenant with Jehovah, and treat with contempt these Sinaitic laws.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 32, 33. FINAL WARNING AGAINST IDOLATRY. The "Book of the Covenant" ends as it began, with a solemn warning against idolatry. (Exo_20:23) "Thou shalt make no covenant with them nor with their gods." Thou shalt not even suffer them to dwell side by side with thee in the land, on peaceable terms, with their own laws and religion, lest thou be ensnared thereby, and led to worship their idols and join in their unhallowed rites (ver. 33). The after history of the people of Israel shows the need of the warning. From the exodus to the captivity, every idolatry with which they came into close contact proved a sore temptation to them. As the author of Kings observes of the Ten Tribes The children of Israel did secretly those things which were not right against the Lord their God, and they built them high places in all their cities And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree; and there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger; for they served idols, whereof the Lord had said unto them, "Ye shall not do this thing". (2Ki_17:9-12)

Thou shalt make no covenant with them. See below, Exo_34:12-15. According to the forms usual at the time, a treaty of peace would have contained an acknowledgment of the gods of either nation, and words in honour of them. (See the "Treaty of Rameses II with the Hittites," given in the Records of the Past, vol. 4. pp. 27-32.) This would have been equivalent to "making a covenant with their gods.

Vers. 32, 33. The Peril of Idolatry.

Idolatry is the interposition of any object between man and God, in such sort that the object takes the place of God in the heart and the affections, occupying them to his exclusion, or to his disparagement. Idolatry proper, the interposition between God and the soul of idols or images, seems to have possessed a peculiar fascination for the Israelites, either because their materialistic tendencies made them shrink from approaching in thought a mere pure Spirit, or perhaps from their addiction to the sensual pleasures which accompanied idolatry, as practised by the greater part of the heathen. (See the comment on ver. 24.) In modern times, and in countries where Protestantism is professed by the generality, there is little or no danger of this gross form of the sin. But there is great danger of other forms of it. In order to make any practical use of those large portions of the Old Testament which warn against idolatry, we have to remember

I THAT COVETOUSNESS IS IDOLATRY. Wealth is made an idol by thousands in these latter days. All hasten to be rich. Nothing is greatly accounted of which does not lead to opulence. God is shut out from the heart by desires, and plans, and calculations which have money for their object and which so occupy it that there is no room for anything else. The danger has existed at all times, but it has to be specially guarded against at the present day, when Mammon has become the most potent of all the spirits of evil, and men bow down before, not an image of gold, but gold itself, whatever shape it may take.

II THAT SELFISHNESS IS IDOLATRY. Men make idols of themselves of their own happiness, quiet, comfort allowing nothing to interfere with these, and infinitely preferring them to any intrusive thoughts of God, his glory, or his claims upon them. Persons thus wrapped up in themselves are idolaters of a very gross type, since the object of their worship is wholly bad and contemptible.

III THAT PROFLIGACY IS IDOLATRY. Men idolise a wretched creature, a girl, or woman, possessed of some transient beauty and personal attractions, but entirely devoid of a single estimable quality. For such a creature they peril all their prospects, both in this life and the next. They make her the queen of their souls, the object of their adoration, the star by which they direct their course. The ordinary consequence is shipwreck, both here and hereafter. When so poor an idol as a weak wanton has stepped in between the soul and God, there is little chance of a real repentance and return of the soul to its Maker.

IV THAT AMUSEMENT MAY BE IDOLATRY. It is quite possible so to devote oneself to amusement as to make it shut out God from us. Those who live in a whirl of gaiety, with no time set apart for serious duties, for instructing the ignorant, consoling the afflicted, visiting the poor and needy nay, with scant time for private or family prayer are idolaters, andwill have to give account to a "jealous God," who wills that his creatures should worship him and not make it their highest end to amuse themselves.

V THAT LOVE OF FASHION MAY BE IDOLATRY. Vast numbers of persons who find no amusement in the pursuit, think it necessary to do whatever it is the fashion to do. Their life is a perpetual round of employments in which they have no pleasure, and which they have not chosen for themselves, but which the voice of fashion forces upon them. They drag themselves through exhibitions which do not interest them; lounge at clubs of which they are utterly weary; dine out when they would much rather be at home; and pass the evening and half the night in showing themselves at balls and assemblies which fatigue and disgust them. And all because Fashion says it is the correct thing. The idol, Fashion, has as many votaries in modern Europe as ever the Dea Syra had in Western Asia, or Isis in Egypt; and her votaries pass through life as real idolaters as the worshippers of the ancient goddesses, albeit unconscious ones.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

THOU SHALT MAKE NO COVENANT WITH THEM, NOR WITH THEIR GODS. He warned here against making a covenant with them [the seven nations] to save them and keep them alive; nor with their gods, this being a warning against making a covenant with the nations to leave them their idols, but instead we are to destroy them and break their pillars in pieces. It is possible that the verse is stating that we are not to make a covenant with them and their gods together, but we are to destroy them and break their idols in pieces, and the intention is to state that as long as they worship their gods we are not to make any covenant with them, but if they accepted upon themselves not to worship the idols, we may leave them unharmed.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.