19 to drive away all thine enemies from thy presence, as Jehovah hath spoken.
`And I have sent the hornet before thee, and it hath cast out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee; I cast them not out from before thee in one year, lest the land be a desolation, and the beast of the field hath multiplied against thee; little `by' little I cast them out from before thee, till thou art fruitful, and hast inherited the land.
then ye have dispossessed all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and have destroyed all their imagery, yea, all their molten images ye destroy, and all their high places ye lay waste, and ye have possessed the land, and dwelt in it, for to you I have given the land -- to possess it.
And a messenger of Jehovah goeth up from Gilgal unto Bochim, and saith, `I cause you to come up out of Egypt, and bring you in unto the land which I have sworn to your fathers, and say, I do not break My covenant with you to the age; and ye -- ye make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land -- their altars ye break down; and ye have not hearkened to My voice -- what `is' this ye have done? And I also have said, I do not cast them out from your presence, and they have been to you for adversaries, and their gods are to you for a snare.'
And these `are' the nations which Jehovah left, to try Israel by them, all who have not known all the wars of Canaan; (only for the sake of the generations of the sons of Israel's knowing, to teach them war, only those who formerly have not known them) -- five princes of the Philistines, and all the Canaanite, and the Zidonian, and the Hivite inhabiting mount Lebanon, from mount Baal-Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath; and they are to prove Israel by them, to know whether they obey the commands of Jehovah that He commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.
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Commentary on Deuteronomy 6 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 6
De 6:1-25. Moses Exhorts Israel to Hear God and to Keep His Commandments.
1-9. Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them … whither ye go to possess it—The grand design of all the institutions prescribed to Israel was to form a religious people, whose national character should be distinguished by that fear of the Lord their God which would ensure their divine observance of His worship and their steadfast obedience to His will. The basis of their religion was an acknowledgment of the unity of God with the understanding and the love of God in the heart (De 6:4, 5). Compared with the religious creed of all their contemporaries, how sound in principle, how elevated in character, how unlimited in the extent of its moral influence on the heart and habits of the people! Indeed, it is precisely the same basis on which rests the purer and more spiritual form of it which Christianity exhibits (Mt 22:37; Mr 12:30; Lu 10:27). Moreover, to help in keeping a sense of religion in their minds, it was commanded that its great principles should be carried about with them wherever they went, as well as meet their eyes every time they entered their homes. A further provision was made for the earnest inculcation of them on the minds of the young by a system of parental training, which was designed to associate religion with all the most familiar and oft-recurring scenes of domestic life. It is probable that Moses used the phraseology in De 6:7 merely in a figurative way, to signify assiduous, earnest, and frequent instruction; and perhaps he meant the metaphorical language in De 6:8 to be taken in the same sense also. But as the Israelites interpreted it literally, many writers suppose that a reference was made to a superstitious custom borrowed from the Egyptians, who wore jewels and ornamental trinkets on the forehead and arm, inscribed with certain words and sentences, as amulets to protect them from danger. These, it has been conjectured, Moses intended to supersede by substituting sentences of the law; and so the Hebrews understood him, for they have always considered the wearing of the Tephilim, or frontlets, a permanent obligation. The form was as follows: Four pieces of parchment, inscribed, the first with Ex 13:2-10; the second with Ex 13:11-16; the third with De 6:1-8; and the fourth with De 11:18-21, were enclosed in a square case or box of tough skin, on the side of which was placed the Hebrew letter (shin), and bound round the forehead with a thong or ribbon. When designed for the arms, those four texts were written on one slip of parchment, which, as well as the ink, was carefully prepared for the purpose. With regard to the other usage supposed to be alluded to, the ancient Egyptians had the lintels and imposts of their doors and gates inscribed with sentences indicative of a favorable omen [Wilkinson]; and this is still the case, for in Egypt and other Mohammedan countries, the front doors of houses (in Cairo, for instance) are painted red, white, and green, bearing conspicuously inscribed upon them such sentences from the Koran, as "God is the Creator," "God is one, and Mohammed is his prophet." Moses designed to turn this ancient and favorite custom to a better account and ordered that, instead of the former superstitious inscriptions, there should be written the words of God, persuading and enjoining the people to hold the laws in perpetual remembrance.
20-25. when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying—The directions given for the instruction of their children form only an extension of the preceding counsels.