V. 1. f. When the Lord your God brings you into the land etc. you will strike them etc.
Moses goes on to indicate other occasions of ungodliness against the first commandment, and enters into the outward work in a very proper order; having first corrected the heart, the source of the works, he can afterwards correct the hand and the other members, teaching that they shall kill and banish the nations of the land, neither make marriages with them nor enter into covenants with them, and destroy the altars, the pillars, the groves, and the images. In this work he also keeps the order that he first commands to destroy the creators of the images, then also the images, because the images will be destroyed in vain if the creators and the teachers of them are allowed to remain as their worshippers.
Here it is to be noted that he does not speak the sentence that one should exterminate these peoples, but if they persist in their obduracy. Otherwise one would have had to offer them peace and carry them if they converted to Israel, as happened to the Gibeonites and the harlot Rahab. Then he commanded this work, not because he wanted this to be necessary for his people at all times, but because he had decided to completely exterminate these peoples because of their sins; to this work he wanted to use his people, while he turned Sodom without another people, and otherwise used to punish one people by another. Therefore, this literal and carnal understanding of the first commandment must not be applied to Christians, to whom it belongs to kill the Gentiles and destroy the images with the sword of the Spirit. For this work in particular is given to this people for a time, as is everything else that is commanded to this people, as well as marriage, covenants, and all outward ceremonies in general.
Here I must digress [a little] and speak of our new prophets, who are struggling
They say that they are urged by the first commandment (although they do not want to be Jews but Christians) to destroy the images by force and with their hands. And here they rage extraordinarily and boast that they are completely full of the spirit, and condemn all as guilty of the first commandment and of insulting the majesty. But I maintain that they are bloodhounds, rebels and murderers, who have nothing else in mind than murder and death. I can easily prove this from this passage, in this way: If they want that in the first commandment there is nothing concerning ceremonies (ceremoniale), but claim that everything must be done in a necessary way, they will be forced by this passage to kill the whole world, which has images, although it does not worship them. For it is commanded here that they should kill the nations as well as destroy the images, and if one is asserted, they will have to concede the rest with necessity; yes, he commands here to kill the heathen first, as the more necessary work, before the images are destroyed.
And this is what I saw coming, if their doctrine would prevail, that the people could not be restrained from killing, because they would rely on this commandment and their doctrine. Therefore I have advised (censui) that they should be driven out of the country as real bloodhounds and rebels who have nothing else to do in their whole life but shed blood. Since it is now certain that among Christians the wicked do not have to be killed with the bodily sword, and this part of the law is annulled as merely ceremonial, since it only applied for a time until Christ, it follows at the same time that the images also do not have to be taken away because of necessity, since they belong to this part of the law. Therefore, no one who sees the iconoclasts (imaginicidas) raging against wood and stone should doubt that a murderous spirit is hidden there, not a life-giving one, and that, when the images are removed, they will not be able to destroy them.
If the opportunity presented itself, they would also kill people, as some of them have begun to teach. But they are forced by a necessary consequence to teach and to do so, because the law of Moses urges them to do so, although others, cunning people, conceal this murderous spirit very finely.
There is also another rage of this spirit, that they do not distribute the execution of this law, even if it should concern us, properly [among the persons to whom it belongs]. For Moses, both in this book and elsewhere, has first appointed the sovereign persons who are to execute the laws. But these swarm spirits command this to the common people with contempt for the persons in authority. For God has not only commanded in one place that sins are to be dealt with in public courts, witnesses and judgments, but they fall upon them with their own (privato) rage. For one does not read any example that the people without a leader or an authority, be it the ordinary one or one given by God, did the images, as one can see in Gideon [Judges 6, 25], Hezekiah [2 Kings 18, 4], Josiah [2 Kings 23, 4] and Jehu 1) [2 Kings 10, 27.ff].
Their third grievance is that they absolutely destroy all images, even though Moses commanded this only of those whom one serves and trusts. This is indicated not only by the text itself, but also by the intention of the first commandment, since it says that one should not make any likeness of God to worship it. But images other than God's, especially those that are not worshipped, are nowhere forbidden by God. Yes, He Himself erected the bronze serpent in the same people and tolerated it until they began to worship it. Yes, also the Reubenites erected an altar at the Jordan [Jos. 22, 10.], of which the other [tribes] judged that it was ungodly, but since they heard that it was only built for a sign and monument, not to sacrifice and worship on it, they left it untouched. Moreover, it is clearly stated in Deut. 26:1 that one should not make images to worship them.
That is why we want these bloodhounds 2) mei-
1) Erlanger: ädak instead of ästin.
2) viros sanbniirnm. For the translation, compare 2 Sam. 16, 7.
and not let ourselves be drawn into Judaism. To us Paul says [1 Cor. 8:4], "We know that an idol is nothing in the world," and that all these outward things are free, though they are images intended for some divine worship. For we are to do away with them by the word, or by the public (communi) consent of the authorities and of those under whose power (ditione) they are. But those we have only for a sign and memorial we may have freely, lest at last we also fall into the spirit of murder and sedition, when we suffer freedom to be made a necessity. For one would at least be willing to bear these raging people if they only destroyed the images and did not also make the conscience that it was a necessary work, and sent us under the wrath of the law and deprived us of freedom. But now that we must exist in the freedom that God has given us, we are to tell them that Moses in all his laws is none of our business, but only of the Jews, except where it coincides with the natural law, of which Paul teaches in Rom. 2:15 that it is written in the hearts of the Gentiles. Everything that is not written there, we should count as ceremonies that are necessary for the people of Moses, but free for us, just as the Sabbath is, as Paul, Col. 2, 16, and Isaiah, Cap. 66, 23, testify.
But one must wonder why these enemies of the images are so pious and kind against the images on gold and silver coins, likewise against those that are placed on silver vessels. Why do they only love these images and do not also burn them or throw them away? Can we not understand here the wickedness of Satan, who rules in their hearts through the greatest avarice and the highest frenzy? Further, why then do they not also rend their hearts, since they cannot be without an image, as often as they hear either Christ crucified preached, or they themselves think of him, or of other saints? Or is an image in the eyes, which is outside us, more harmful than that which is in the heart within us? It is a raging and a nonsense by which they seek only honor, as if it were an excellent work. For us it is
enough to know that an idol is nothing in the world. If it is nothing, it will do no harm, whether it stands or falls. But I also do not love the images very much, and would not want them to be set up in the church, not because I have only that in mind that they are worshipped, which I believe happens very rarely, but because a trust is placed in the work, since they cost so much and have such a beautiful appearance, as if by this work a service is rendered to God, while in the meantime the costs and everything that is spent on it, which should be used for a better use for the need of the brethren, is lost. Otherwise, I cannot condemn having beautifully painted (levi pictura) pictures in a private house. But because others have shown this cause, and the raging prophets see that they cannot gain any glory in it, they invent a necessity of the law against the freedom of the spirit, which is in no way to be tolerated.
V. 2. So you shall banish them.
This word [banish] is frequently used in the books of Moses, Joshua, and Judges, which is Hebrew XXX, Latin excommunicare. Hence comes XXX or XXXX, ban, Greek άυά&εμα. Therefore Paul says
1 Cor. 16:22: "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, Maharam Motha." Thus the Gentiles were banished by the sword of the children of Israel and became a curse, being made nothing at all and irretrievably brought to ruin. For God willed to destroy them utterly from the earth by the decreed judgment, even with a curse. Moses actually calls this Haram or Herem, so that no hope of life or salvation would be left, just as what is banished is cursed and a curse, Deut. 27.
But although these peoples were worthy of death, no one, not even Israel, would have been allowed to kill them if they had not been compelled by a certain and clear commandment and word of God, so that the saying would stand firm [Matth. 26, 52.]: "Whoever takes the sword shall perish by the sword", and again [Rom. 12, 19.]: "Vengeance is mine, I will punish.
Likewise [Heb. 10:30], "The Lord will judge his people." For he who gave life can justly take it away, against whom also they alone have sinned. Therefore he used here of the Israelites for his service, that he might execute his wrath at their hands, even as from the beginning he was always wont to destroy one nation by another, and to transfer one kingdom by another [to another possessor] where they had sinned, as he speaks in the prophets Daniel [Cap. 2, 44.] and Amos [Cap. 9, 8.], "Behold, I come upon a sinful kingdom, to crush it." But in this the swords of other nations are distinguished from the swords of Israel, that God makes use of the fury of those out of a secret judgment, and crushes the wicked by the wicked, but the sword of these is sanctified by a manifest and certain commandment of God, so that with a holy and pure conscience the godly destroy the wicked, and shed blood in holy worship (religione).
This is why he decrees by a verdict that the Amorites and Cananites are to be killed and does not let the Israelites rage against any people as they please. For he excepted the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites, who were no less godless nations than the Amorites and Cananites, to show that even so great a sinner may not be killed with a clear conscience, if he is not delivered up and named by the command and will of God. For who is there among men who is not worthy of death in the sight of God, except the one whom God, anticipating with His mercy, first made alive by His word and then commanded him to kill others? so that the Jews have no cause to boast as if they alone among men were born to kill the Gentiles, while they were chosen by God only for the purpose that God should execute His wrath on the Cananites by their sword.
And Moses shows this beautifully here, when he says [v. 6]: "For the Lord has chosen you as a people of possession" etc., as if he wanted to say: Not you have chosen the Lord-
Nor did you come to kill these nations by your own merit, but because God chose you, called you, and commanded you to do so. Yes, so that you know that there is no difference in the sight of God between you and the Gentiles, take this to heart, that if you do not fulfill the word of God and do not kill these Gentiles, but make covenants and marriages with them, the same wrath also awaits you. He says [v. 4.], "Then shall the wrath of the Lord be kindled against thee, and shall soon destroy thee." This same punishment indicates that they will be guilty of the same ungodliness before God, so that they should know that they have an advantage over those Gentiles by the word of God alone; if they did not have this, no Gentiles could be so ungodly that they would not be equal to them both in guilt and punishment.
V. 7-11 The Lord has not accepted you and chosen you to be more than all the nations.
See how diligently Moses acts the first commandment. Above he had taught the true service of God in faith, in the fear and in the love of the spirit. But here, having come to the outward work, lest they should finish in the flesh what they had begun in the spirit, and be puffed up because of their work, and having outwardly destroyed the ungodly and idols, they themselves would become worse evildoers and set up worse idols in their hearts, namely trusting in the work and glory of the same (as the flesh is wont to do), and just by this, on the occasion of such an apparent work, would sin more grievously against the first commandment than the Gentiles whom they killed: He salutarily precedes them, and preserves them in the right use of the law, by entirely abolishing the glory of the work and the trust in it, and calling them to trust in grace alone, saying, "Not that yours are more than all the nations. "etc. As if to say: That God uses your sword is not because he needs your strength, or because he cannot do it without you, since yours are very few. The glory of the work is not yours, but the glory of the one who uses your small number and
will destroy such a great multitude. Otherwise, if he had wanted to win through the multitude, he would not have chosen you, but other nations, whose number is greater than yours.
So what is left for you to boast about in this work? Nothing is yours, "but that the Lord loved you (he says), and that he keeps his oath" etc. You see that in every work nothing is held up to human trust but the undeserved love of God, by which He is moved to precede us with His word and with His promise, even before we are born. So much is lacking in his repaying anything after we are born or have done any work. And this is the plain and pure understanding of the first commandment, that we may know that we have nothing by our own merits, but have, obtain, are able, and do all things for his glory by his mercy and love alone. As he first promises this mercy by his word, so he confirms it afterwards also by the work, which he does through us, as with a sign, as he mentions here the exodus from Egypt and the extermination of the Cananites.
So you must realize that it is the work of a great spirit that one can destroy the things that have a great appearance by presenting God's name and God's service, as there are the altars and worship services of the pagans. For who should not be deterred and deceived when God's name is held up to him? indeed, who should not be blown away by that feigned piety? Certainly these pagans, as I have said, worshipped only the true God, but with false and self-invented service and opinion not commanded by God. But a much greater spirit belongs to it, that one does not boast of having destroyed such a service, and instead of the external idol does not set up an internal idol of a completely futile trust. This is such a great thing, that one should purely recognize, sincerely fear, revere, love and believe in the true and only God, that Moses has to spend so many words on it in order to explain the first commandment. Therefore, he also repeats here the words of the first commandment and says [v. 9:]
"Know therefore that the Lord your God is a faithful God, who keeps the covenant and mercy," etc., that he might show that this belonged to the understanding of the first commandment, which he had said of reliance on works.
V. 12-16. And when ye hear these statutes, and keep them etc.
What is this? Hitherto he has taught that the people are loved, not by their merit, but by the election of God who precedes them. Now he promises the works and merits the love, the blessing, yes, what is more, the reliability (fidem) of the covenant and the promise he attributes to their works, saying: "If you keep, the Lord will also keep the covenant and mercy", which he interprets here by a long text of the temporal welfare. I answer, It is well known the distinction of the antecedent and subsequent mercies, which we have so often given. The antecedent (praeveniens) is that by which we are chosen, called, and justified before all our works. The subsequent one is, since we make mercy certain to ourselves by works, and feel the preceding mercy, of which it is said [Mal. 3, 7.], "Turn ye unto me (this is by the preceding mercy), and I will turn unto you also"; this is the subsequent mercy, which gives peace, assurance, and all good things to those already justified, so that one may be said to be mercy, the other peace; or, the one is the gift and the thing, the other is the assurance of the gift received and the thing possessed. Thus he says: If you keep these commandments (which they could not do without grace), you will know that the Lord is faithful to give you the promised land and, having given it to you, to keep it.
V. 17-20. But will you say in your heart, This people is more than I am etc.
Moses removes another cause for breaking the first commandment, namely the lack of trust, which arises from the inability and weakness of our powers,
when the same is compared with the thing and the work commanded. By this the spies sinned, who deterred the people from entering the land, because they made much of the fact that giants, enakim, and fortified cities were in it, as we have seen above.
But Moses teaches again how God's commandments must be fulfilled, namely not by our strength, but by the divine power promised to us, by erasing with one word both the trust and the presumption in our strength, as well as the mistrust and the despair because of our weakness; the presumption by indicating that greater things are commanded than we are able, as he here admits that the Gentiles, whom he commands to be destroyed, are more and stronger than Israel, their destroyer; the despair by the fact that the Lord will do through them whatever he commands them.
Therefore, if the children of Israel had looked at their powers and compared them to the powers of the Gentiles, who were to be destroyed, they would have completely despaired of them and disregarded the commandment of God. Now, however, God promises that He will help them so that they may fulfill everything in faith, and He adds to the promise the example of His previous mercy, that He delivered them from the hands of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, so that He might thus provoke them to faith by word and deed, in which they should destroy the Gentiles by command of God. Yes, he also promises them by a new promise that he will send hornets [among the enemies], so that you may see how much it matters that faith be strengthened. By faith, then, one serves God, by faith the commandments of God are fulfilled, by faith we merit to be assisted by the divine power in all our works, so that Christ rightly said [Marc. 9, 23.]: "All things find possible to him that believeth."
V. 21. Do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is among you, the great and terrible God.
Dear one, whom should this glorious word not puff up and compel to be proud, not only against those pagans who have been exterminated
but also against all the gates of hell? What wonder is it if one puts a thousand to flight, and as David says [Ps. 18:30]: "With my God I can leap over the walls"? What more proud and hopeful can be spoken: "The great and terrible God is in our midst"? Ps. 46, 6: "God is with her in it, therefore she will abide." So it is also said in 1 John 4:4: "He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world." So those Gentiles Enakim, giants, may be armed, what is the matter? Who is in their midst? Nothing but the vain confidence in their arm and in the sword of the flesh, but here the great God of spirits. Now this is said faithfully enough. Happy is he who believes it firmly, for it will come to pass as he has believed.
V. 22. You cannot destroy them in haste, lest the beasts of the field multiply against you.
How sweetly and fatherly he incites them to faith, so that he also anticipates the future weak thoughts of faith, so that they would not constantly think that when the promises of God began to be fulfilled, and the Gentiles were mostly defeated, but still some remained, they were abandoned, or they were deceived with the promise, But let it all be for their good, so that they may take the land the more firmly and completely, and not be forced to endure even more cruel wild beasts instead of the godless exterminated people, although this very delay is also given to the Gentiles for their conversion, so that those who want to may get along again.
Now let us deal a little with the secret interpretations of this chapter.
Our sword is the word of God, with which the spiritual people fight and first kill the Gentiles themselves, that is, convert them from the error in which they lived. Isa. 11, 4: "And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." The images are the ungodly teachings, which come from ungodly opinions, by which one thinks to worship God by works, without faith. The altars are the efforts
The groves are the works of the flesh by which we labor after these doctrines, and in vain do they torment us and bring us to utter ruin (mactamus). The groves are the enticements of the flesh, by which we please ourselves in these works and boast as if they were pleasing in the sight of God. All this must be made nothing by the word of faith, so that God alone may be among us, as he says here.
That hornets are sent before us among the Gentiles is that the ungodly are driven by the terror of the law and the deadly sting of conscience, so that they cannot hide themselves until they perish and are forced to confess their ungodliness. Furthermore, just as it was not in the hands of the Israelites to send hornets before them, so it is not in ours to frighten any ungodly person, but it is God who puts fear into their hearts and makes them fearful, so that, frightened, they say with Paul [Acts 9:6], "Lord, what wilt thou that I should do?" and with those in Acts, Cap. 2, 37: "Dear brethren, what shall we do?"
That the Gentiles should not be destroyed in haste, but gradually, so that the wild beasts in the land do not multiply, is because when the ungodliness of the heart is overcome, the ungodly is not yet completely cleansed, but the battle of the spirit and the flesh still remains, as Panlus teaches Rom. 7, 14. ff. and Gal. 5, 17. ff. This fight is necessary in this life, so that we are not hopeful and slothful and become worse, as Paul says in 2 Cor. 12:7: "Lest I exalt myself to high revelation, there is given me a stake in the flesh." Thus is left within our borders the Jebusite, the Cananite, and the Philistines, that is, the remnant of sin, who are to trouble us and exercise us in spiritual arms. Otherwise, how cruel and savage a beast is the sure presumption, the vainglory, the haughtiness, the sloth, in that we forget our weakness, and ascribe to our powers that which belongs to grace and mercy alone, which rules over us and does not impute to us our infirmities!
Of the gold of the idols nothing shall be
Neither the remnants of ungodly words nor works should be preserved in the conscience, but the hearts should be filled and preserved with the pure word of God, and with it alone, so that the ungodly nature does not finally infect us as well. For example, the ungodly word "free will" and all the doctrines that are spread about it should be completely abhorred and not allowed, as if it could be tolerated in good usage or with any gloss. So also are the monastic vows
and rules for a banished gold (aurum anathematis), and one should only act on them in order to punish and curse them, not in order that our consciences may be advised by them, with whatever little bell one may think it can be done. The house of conscience must be completely clean from them, because there is nothing more tender and softer than conscience and faith, as it is said: discipline and honor, faith and eye suffer no jest [all three are soon corrupted].