In this message we will consider, as a part of the general advices and warnings, the rehearsal of the law in 7:1—8:20.
After the children of Israel had been brought by God into the promised land as their inheritance, they were to utterly destroy all the nations (7:1-2a). They were not to make a covenant with these nations, show them any favor, or make marriage alliances with them (vv. 2b-3). The nations were to be utterly destroyed without mercy. However, some who read the Bible according to their natural, human thought may not agree with God's requirement that the nations in the promised land be destroyed. But according to the divine thought, these nations had to be exterminated because they were devilish and mingled with demons.
Verse 5 says, "You shall deal with them in this way: their altars you shall tear down, their pillars you shall shatter, their Asherim you shall hew down, and their idols you shall burn with fire." The pillars were used in the worship of idols, and the Asherim were images of the goddess Asherah.
God's people were to destroy the nations and their idols in order to be a holy people to Jehovah their God, who had chosen them, "from among all the peoples which are upon the face of the earth, to be a people for His personal treasure" (v. 6). The Hebrew word translated "personal treasure" has a double meaning; it means both personal possession and peculiar treasure. God treasured the children of Israel, setting His affection on them, loving them, being willing to keep His promise to them, bringing them out and ransoming them from the house of slavery (vv. 7-8).