Commentary - Deuteronomy 7:12-16

Bird's-eye view

In this portion of Deuteronomy, Moses is laying out the terms of the covenant relationship between Yahweh and Israel. This is not a contract between two equal parties; it is a covenant sovereignly administered by God. He sets the terms, and those terms are straightforward: obedience brings blessing, and disobedience brings cursing. This passage focuses on the glorious blessings that flow from covenant faithfulness. It is a cascade of goodness, touching every aspect of Israel's life, from their families and farms to their national security. This isn't a "health and wealth" gospel; it's a "covenant gospel" where tangible, real-world blessings are the direct result of a heart that fears the Lord and walks in His ways. The central logic is simple: God is a faithful God, and He delights in showing His covenant loyalty to those who love Him and keep His commandments.

The blessings described here are comprehensive. They are agricultural, biological, and military. Fruitful wombs, healthy livestock, abundant crops, freedom from disease, and victory over enemies. This is what we call Deuteronomic blessing, and it's a picture of what God intends for His people when they live in right relationship with Him. But these blessings are not the ultimate goal. They are signs and pointers to the ultimate goodness of God Himself. And this pattern of blessing for obedience finds its ultimate fulfillment in the new covenant. What was offered to Israel in types and shadows is now offered to the whole world through the gospel of Jesus Christ. The promised land of Canaan is a type of the entire world, which Christ is in the process of claiming for His own.

Outline

Context In Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy is structured as a series of sermons by Moses to the generation of Israelites poised to enter the Promised Land. The previous generation had perished in the wilderness due to their unbelief. This book is a renewal of the covenant, a second giving of the law (which is what "Deuteronomy" means), preparing the people for the conquest of Canaan. Moses is exhorting the troops just before the invasion.

Chapter 7 begins with strict commands to utterly destroy the Canaanite nations, making no treaties and showing no mercy. The reason is theological, not racial. The Canaanites were steeped in idolatry so vile that their continued existence would be a spiritual snare to Israel (Deut. 7:4). God chose Israel not because of their greatness, but out of His sovereign love and His promise to the patriarchs (Deut. 7:7-8). This passage (vv. 12-16) flows directly from that context. Having stated the negative commands (what not to do), Moses now lays out the positive consequences of obedience. It is a classic covenant structure: here are the stipulations, and here are the sanctions, both positive (blessings) and negative (curses, detailed later in chapter 28).

Verse by Verse Commentary

v. 12 “Then it will be, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that Yahweh your God will keep with you His covenant and His lovingkindness which He swore to your fathers.

The verse begins with a crucial linkage: "Then it will be, because..." This establishes the principle of covenant consequence. The blessings that follow are not arbitrary; they are the direct result of a particular posture toward God's Word. The condition is threefold: you must listen, keep, and do. This is more than passive hearing. To "listen" (shema) here means to hear with an intention to obey, as in the great Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4. To "keep" means to guard the commandments in your heart, to treasure them. And to "do" them means to put them into practice in the warp and woof of daily life. Obedience is the pipeline through which the blessings of the covenant flow.

And what is God's response to this kind of faithfulness? He "will keep with you His covenant and His lovingkindness." God's side of the bargain is His unwavering faithfulness. The word for "lovingkindness" is the rich Hebrew term hesed. This is not just a feeling of affection; it is covenant loyalty, steadfast love, a faithfulness that is bound up in a sworn oath. God's hesed is His commitment to be for His people, to act on their behalf because He has bound Himself to them by a promise. This promise wasn't new; it was the oath He "swore to your fathers", Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is not making things up as He goes. His dealings with this generation are rooted in His ancient promises. He is a God who remembers His word across the centuries.

v. 13 And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your fathers to give you.

Here the blessings begin to pour forth. It starts with God's disposition: "He will love you." This is not just the covenantal love of election mentioned earlier (v. 8), but an affective, responsive love. As a father delights in an obedient son, so God delights in His obedient people. And this divine love is not an abstract sentiment; it manifests itself in tangible ways. He will "bless you and multiply you." Blessing in the Old Testament is never ethereal. It is concrete, visible, and robust. A key component of this is multiplication. God's plan from the beginning has been for His people to be fruitful and fill the earth (Gen. 1:28), and this command is echoed here.

The blessing is comprehensive. It touches the family: "the fruit of your womb." Children are a heritage from the Lord, a sign of His favor. It touches the farm: "the fruit of your ground." This covers every aspect of their agrarian economy, grain for bread, new wine for gladness, and oil for sustenance and light. It touches their livestock: "the increase of your herd and the young of your flock." In an ancient economy, this was the measure of wealth and prosperity. All of this is to take place "in the land which He swore... to give you." The blessing is tied to the place, the inheritance God is giving them. This is a theology with dirt under its fingernails.

v. 14 You shall be blessed above all peoples; there will be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle.

The blessing is not just absolute, but also relative. Israel is to be blessed "above all peoples." God is setting them apart as a demonstration plot for the world. Their prosperity and fruitfulness are to be a testimony to the nations of the goodness of their God. When the world looked at Israel, they were supposed to see a people overflowing with life and vitality, a stark contrast to the death-worshipping cultures around them.

The promise against barrenness is striking. "There will be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle." In the ancient world, barrenness was a profound sorrow and often seen as a curse. God here reverses that curse for His faithful people. This promise is total, extending from the people to their animals. It signifies a world bursting with life, a direct counter-mandate to the culture of death practiced by the Canaanites, who sacrificed their children to Molech. God is the author of life, and His blessing is life, abundant and overflowing.

v. 15 And Yahweh will take away from you all sickness; and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known, but He will give them to all who hate you.

The blessing extends to physical health. "Yahweh will take away from you all sickness." This is a staggering promise of divine protection. Sickness and disease are a consequence of the fall, a part of the curse, and here God promises to hold it at bay for His covenant people. Specifically, He mentions the "harmful diseases of Egypt." The Israelites had firsthand knowledge of the plagues and pestilences that God had brought upon their enemies. Those judgments, which they witnessed, would not be their portion.

Instead, in a stunning reversal, God says He will "give them to all who hate you." This is covenantal warfare. The curses that belong to covenant-breakers will be visited upon the enemies of God's people. This is not a promise for individuals to claim against their personal rivals, but a national, redemptive-historical promise. Those who set themselves against Yahweh's chosen people set themselves against Yahweh, and they will receive the judgments they have stored up for themselves. The diseases of Egypt, emblems of God's judgment on a pagan empire, will be the lot of all other pagan empires who oppose God's kingdom.

v. 16 And you shall consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God will give over to you; your eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.

This final verse in our passage shifts from the blessings received to the duty required. The blessings of God are not intended to make Israel soft, but to make them strong for the task at hand. "You shall consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God will give over to you." The language is stark. This is holy war, a divinely mandated conquest. The Canaanites were not being dispossessed for ethnic reasons, but for judicial ones. Their iniquity was full (Gen. 15:16). They were a cancer in the land, and Israel was God's scalpel to remove it.

The command is sharpened with a crucial prohibition: "your eye shall not pity them." This sounds harsh to our modern, sentimental ears. But this is not about cruelty for its own sake. It is about radical obedience and the recognition that misplaced pity for the wicked is actually cruelty to the future generations of God's people. Any compromise would lead directly to the next prohibition: "nor shall you serve their gods." The reason is given plainly: "for that would be a snare to you." The history of Israel, as recorded in Judges and Kings, is a sad commentary on their failure at this very point. They showed pity, they made alliances, they intermarried, and they inevitably began to worship the foul gods of the land. Idolatry was the snare that repeatedly caught them, leading them into the very curses they were warned about. God's command for total conquest was a radical act of spiritual quarantine, a severe mercy designed to protect His holy people and preserve the line through which the Messiah would come.

Application

So what does this mean for us, living under the new covenant? First, we must recognize that the fundamental principle remains: covenant faithfulness reaps covenant fruitfulness. The blessings may look different in their particulars, but the God who blesses obedience has not changed. We are not an agrarian society looking for rain and healthy goats, but we are a people who are to be blessed in our households, in our work, and in our churches. As Paul tells the Ephesians, honoring parents still comes with the promise of a long life in the land (Eph. 6:2-3). The Deuteronomic blessings have been universalized and escalated in Christ.

Second, we must see that these tangible blessings are meant to flow out into the world. Our fruitfulness, spiritual, familial, and cultural, is a primary tool of evangelism. A joy-filled Christian home, a thriving and generous church, a business run with integrity and excellence, these things are a testimony to a watching world. They are a foretaste of the kingdom, a demonstration plot of what happens when Jesus is Lord. This is central to a postmillennial vision of the future: we believe the Great Commission will be successful, and the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. This happens as God's people walk in faithfulness and His blessings overflow from them to their neighbors and to the nations.

Finally, we must take the command to "consume" our enemies with the utmost seriousness, understanding its new covenant application. Our enemies are not the Hittites and the Amorites, but rather principalities and powers, spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12). We are to show them no pity. We are to make no treaty with sin, no alliance with worldly ideologies. We are to tear down strongholds of false worship, not with swords of steel, but with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The command to not pity our idolatrous enemies means we must be ruthless with our own sin and with the intellectual and cultural idols of our age. Any compromise is a snare, and it will lead to our ruin. We are in a conquest, and the goal is nothing less than the complete Christianization of the world, one heart, one family, one church, and one nation at a time, all for the glory of our King, the Lord Jesus Christ.