Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go play the harlot after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call you, and you eat of his sacrifice;
Read Chapter 34
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Covenant. The same word occurs here, as (ver. 12,) in Hebrew and Septuagint. (Haydock)
It relates chiefly to contracts of marriage, which God forbids the faithful to enter into with the Chanaanites, and with other idolatrous nations, lest they should follow their example. Solomon is reprehended for transgressing this law, (3 Kings xi. 1,) and such marriages are called abominations. (1 Esdras ix. 1.; x. 2, 10.; Josephus)
But if any of those people became converts, the reason of the prohibition ceased. Hence a captive woman might be married, (Deuteronomy xxi. 11,) and Salmon took Rahab to wife. If Samson and Esther married with heathens, it might be done by God's dispensation, for weighty reasons. (Tirinus)
Fornication. On account of the dissolute behaviour of those idolaters, their worship is often condemned under this name, Jeremias ii. and iii.; Ezechiel xvi. (Calmet)
Sacrificed, and thus thou be drawn into a participation in his guilt. The other laws are here repeated from chap. xxiii. (Menochius)
