Deuteronomy 7 · a question people ask
The chapter says the LORD keeps "loving kindness to a thousand generations" (7:9), and tells Israel, "nor show mercy to them" (7:2). How do these sit in one chapter?
The two are in different sentences, and each says whom it is for. The LORD "keeps covenant and loving kindness to a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments" (7:9), "and repays those who hate him to their face, to destroy them" (7:10). The command "nor show mercy to them" (7:2) is for the "seven nations" named in 7:1, in the land Israel was entering; the law of war later sets their cities apart from "the cities which are very far off from you, which are not of the cities of these nations" (20:15). The dangers the chapter names are their gods (7:4, 7:16, 7:25), and it turns the same warning on Israel: "the LORD’s anger would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly" (7:4). Moses says it plainly in the next chapter: "As the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so you shall perish, because you wouldn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice" (8:20). Why the LORD commanded Israel to utterly destroy these peoples is the honest question in Numbers 21, which sets out the two main readings, each resting on its verses: judgment on these nations (9:5) and keeping Israel from other gods (20:17-18).
The verses
“When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, and casts out many nations before you—the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite—seven nations greater and mightier than you; and when the LORD your God delivers them up before you, and you strike them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them.”
“For that would turn away your sons from following me, that they may serve other gods. So the LORD’s anger would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.”
“Know therefore that the LORD your God himself is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness to a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments, and repays those who hate him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack to him who hates him. He will repay him to his face.”
“You shall consume all the peoples whom the LORD your God shall deliver to you. Your eye shall not pity them. You shall not serve their gods; for that would be a snare to you.”