Deuteronomy 7:3
Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.
The verse forbids marriage in both directions with the surrounding peoples, neither giving an Israelite daughter to their sons nor taking their daughters for Israelite sons. It was given as Christ led Israel into the land to dispossess idolatrous nations and destroy their worship, lest such unions turn Israel and their children away to serve other gods and bring destruction. The ban belongs to Israel's calling as a holy, chosen and peculiar people, loved and redeemed from Egypt to keep covenant and reveal God to the world. It does not shut God's people away from the world or deny light to others, but guards association and marriage from conformity to unbelief while Israel remains a channel of truth. For today it forbids one who belongs to Christ to marry an unbeliever, even one worthy or agreeable in other respects, since expecting to win the partner is a vain hope and close union imperils faithfulness and draws the heart from God.
Command and Historical Setting
The prohibition bars marriage exchange in both directions with the surrounding peoples, forbidding an Israelite daughter to be given to one of their sons and forbidding one of their daughters to be taken for an Israelite son. It was addressed to Israel concerning the nations in the land, specifically the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. It forbids making marriage alliances with them and forming such ties through sons and daughters on either side.
The one who spoke this ban was Christ as the invisible leader, guide, and protector of the children of Israel from the pillar of cloud, the same Physician who healed the sick in Palestine. It was given as Israel was brought into the land to dispossess those seven nations when delivered before them. With it came the command to make no covenant with them and show them no mercy, but to smite and utterly destroy them. With it also came the command to destroy their altars, break down their images, cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.
The verse belongs to Moses' farewell teaching of statutes, commandments, and judgments to the children of Israel before he left them, enforcing God's law again and again with the blessings of obedience. It stands within the whole of Deuteronomy 7 and within Deuteronomy 4-8, together with Deuteronomy 1, 5, 6, and 8. Those chapters are to be read, read carefully, searched by every soul for himself, and obeyed, with the Word as the study book and with special interest in doing what it says. They include the parental charge to have God's words in the heart and teach them diligently to children from very infancy when sitting in the house, when walking by the way, when lying down, and when rising up.
Reason to Prevent Idolatry
The prohibition was given because such unions would turn Israel and their children away from following God to serve other gods, so that the anger of the Lord would be kindled to destroy them suddenly. It forbade giving an Israelite daughter to one of their sons and taking one of their daughters for an Israelite son, as marriages into the idolatrous nations they were commanded to dispossess. The instruction belongs to Israel's call to remain separate and faithful as a holy and chosen people, keeping His commandments and rejecting idolatrous worship, and it shows that God's people today are to guard strictly against worldliness. The command marks a clear boundary between God's people and idol-worshiping nations who know His law but will not obey it, protecting covenant loyalty, worship and blessing from idolatry. Accepting alliance with them could admit idolatry and cost Israel the blessing of obeying God.
Marriage with worldlings is forbidden, with no commingling with idolaters and no intimate connection with the openly wicked and unbelievers. The reason is that companionship with unbelievers corrupts by their sentiments and practices and draws the obedient into sin and dishonor to God, as sin loses its offensiveness when constantly beheld. Such association could also draw hearts toward their attractive places of worship and turn minds from God. Breaking the command contaminates Israel with heathen principles and practices and leads to violation of God's law. That breach introduced polygamy, replaced the pure religious service instituted by God with idolatry of the darkest hue including human sacrifices, and countenanced licentious heathen rites. It began the downfall of Israel in the rejection of the ways of God for the ways of men, continuing until the people became a prey to the very nations whose practices they had chosen to follow.
Israel's Holy Calling
The ban on intermarriage was set within Israel's calling as a holy people unto the Lord, chosen to be a special people to Himself above all peoples on the earth as His peculiar treasure. It belonged to the command to remain separate and faithful, to keep His commandments and reject idolatrous worship, lest marriage ties turn their children from following Him to serve other gods and kindle His anger to judgment and sudden destruction. That holiness required knowing that the Lord their God, He is God, honoring Him, bringing character into harmony with Him, and even speaking kindly in the family without fretfulness, crossness, or irritability.
Israel was chosen not because they were more in number than any people, for they were the fewest of all people. The ground of choice was that the Lord loved them and would keep the oath sworn to their fathers, having brought them out with a mighty hand and redeemed them out of the house of bondmen from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. He keeps covenant and mercy to a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments, showing faithfulness, blessing, and respect. To the obedient He gives blessing and respect, but those who hate Him He repays.
Obedience to His law was joined to Israel's appointed work to preserve sacred truth and share its light with the world, as a channel through which divine truth could reach the nations whose idolatry and turning from light had deepened their moral darkness. That obedience was also joined to revealing His character and to the prosperity, protection, and standing He promised them. Their safety lay in preserving their peculiar holy character as depositary of His law behind the barrier He erected against marriages and political alliances with idolatrous nations.
Obedience and Violation Examples
Abraham kept the ban on giving and taking in marriage with the surrounding peoples by refusing a Canaanite wife for Isaac because the Canaanites were idolaters. He bound his servant with a solemn oath before the Lord not to take a wife for Isaac from the Canaanites but to go to believing kindred who worshiped the true God and choose her there. He refused to let Isaac be taken back to an idolatrous country to find a wife, and released the servant from the oath only if no believing woman would leave her kindred to come. The choice was a matter of grave importance because Isaac was the divinely appointed keeper of God's law and father of the chosen people, and he needed one who would not lead him from God.
Solomon broke the plain command by marrying Pharaoh's daughter and then multiplying wives from idolatrous nations. He pursued political and commercial alliances, often sealed by marriage to heathen princesses, and set aside God's commands for surrounding customs when his heart was lifted up in pride to seek greater wealth and power. The apparent benefits did not justify the disobedience, including Pharaoh's gift of Gezer and the inflow of temporal honor, riches, and gold. The hope that his wives would be converted and that surrounding nations would be drawn to revere God's law was a weak excuse, a vain hope, and a fatal deception, for his faith was perverted rather than his wives being converted. Though God mercifully overruled the first mistake and the Egyptian wife was converted and united in worship of the true God, the prohibition remained even when the alliance seemed from a human point of view to strengthen the kingdom, and no one is strong enough in wisdom and example to resist the influence of heathen associates.
His wives turned away his heart after other gods so that it was no longer perfect with God. This brought God's anger, loss of the kingdom, and the rise of adversaries. Such unions and close association weakened Israel's loyalty to God, introduced heathen customs and worship, and helped bring about national apostasy. Once over the barrier he took one fatal step after another away from hope and happiness and heaven, from wisest of rulers to despot and slave of passion who sacrificed integrity to the bewitching power of woman, with temporal advantage dearly bought by sacrifice of principle and the fine gold of character tarnished by the corrupting influence of paganism.
Intermarriage became Israel's common practice, and idolatrous mothers taught their children heathen rites while continued contact weakened love for God and abhorrence of idol worship. Some replaced worship instituted by God with heathen rites, and the nation went into apostasy. Israel's unfaithfulness and willingness to intermarry helped bring about its enslavement and bondage in Egypt. Samson's marriage to a Philistine woman likewise violated the command and began a downward course of sin.
Purpose Not Exclusive Isolation
The restriction on association with idolaters, including marriage, was placed to prevent conforming to heathen practices, not to command shutting away from the world or refusing mercy to outsiders. It did not mean light was refused to other nations, for the ban on uniting with them was to keep idolatry from corrupting Israel and obstructing the calling to preserve sacred truth and share its light with the world. Their idolatry and turning from the light deepened their moral darkness, while Israel was to be a channel through which divine truth could reach the world.
The safeguard meant to protect faith was misinterpreted and perverted into a wall of separation between Israel and all other nations. Jerusalem was treated as an exclusive heaven, mercy was begrudged to Gentiles, and obedience was turned into selfish outward service for national greatness instead of love. By that perversion Israel failed to become the light of the world and kept others from receiving the blessings it was called to share.
Application for Marriage Today
Deuteronomy 7:3 is a plain and positive direction from God, not from man, forbidding a child of God, a subject of Christ's kingdom purchased by His blood, to marry an unbeliever. It forbids any such union with one who does not acknowledge Christ's claims and is not controlled by His Spirit, including one who has not accepted present truth even if in all other respects worthy. The same prohibition applies to those who do not know or fear God even when they are moral, refined, wealthy, or agreeable. God gave this charge to His ancient people again and again because He knows what is best for present good and the soul's eternal interest.
To unite with such a person is forbidden of Heaven and cannot be done without peril to the soul. Entering such a marriage is stepping onto forbidden ground that must not be approached, a snare that draws the heart and affections away from God and keeps the soul in constant peril. Close companionship can draw a believer away from God and put faithfulness to right at risk, estranging from God, abandoning sacred faith and principle, and bringing sorrow upon self and reproach upon God's cause. One whose affections are strong and whose disposition is gentle and yielding is in special danger of sacrificing principle for the sake of harmony if united with one who does not fear God amid the corrupting influences of surrounding unbelievers. Because marriage is a life-lasting contract it demands deep thought, with no room for infatuation or deception.
As God's property bought by Christ's blood, obedience to this requirement is necessary to see Jesus as He is, to be made like Him, and to receive the crown of eternal life. Expecting to influence an unbelieving partner for good is a vain hope and a fatal deception. No one is strong enough in wisdom and example to resist the influence of heathen associates, and instead the believer may be drawn away, abandon sacred faith and principle, and bring sorrow and reproach on God's cause. This prohibition remains even when the alliance seems from a human point of view to strengthen interests and even when the heathen companion is thought to be converted and to unite in worship of the true God.
Marriage was not left to children to decide for themselves, but required the consent and counsel of parents. Anciently parents chose for their children, and it was considered a crime for children to contract marriage upon their own responsibility. The matter was first laid before the parents, who were to consider whether the person to be brought into close relation to them was worthy and whether the parties could provide for a family. Even after children are married they remain under solemn obligation to their parents, and their own judgment is not sufficient without parental counsel, whose wishes they are required to respect and obey unless those wishes conflict with the requirements of God. The command carries the greatest importance for worshipers of the true God not to intermarry with an idolatrous people, lest their families be led away from God.
Parents entrusted with children lay under solemn obligation to guard the younger members of the Lord's family from babyhood. They must correct sinful neglect and regard nothing as important enough to take the place of their work for their children. They are to have God's words in the heart and teach them diligently to children when sitting in the house, when walking by the way, when lying down, and when rising up, by precept and by right example in word and act. They are to do no half-hearted work, but to make the home an educating school that shields children from association with the children of disobedience, from all commingling with idolaters and intimate connection with the openly wicked and unbelievers. For today the verse is a lesson of warning to take special pains to be separate, instead of mingling or confederating with those who have no respect or appreciation for the truth, and God's people today are to guard themselves strictly against worldliness.
Its command of separation is written for admonition of those upon whom the ends of the world are come. It belongs to Deuteronomy 4-8, which must be studied to understand what God required of His ancient people that they might be a holy people unto Himself. Those chapters are to be read with profit, read to the people and read carefully with heed, searched by every soul for himself with the Word of the Lord as the study book and with special interest in doing what it says. The requirement still applies to those preparing for future eternal life as they near the day of God's great final review, when people must stand before the Judge of all the earth to answer for their deeds. The present time is the time of investigation, when before that review every character will have been investigated and every case decided for eternity.
Keeping His commandments and His covenant to a thousand generations brings His blessing and His respect. The verse calls for full surrender and continuing simplicity of obedience, with none of the important things specified in His Word neglected. Keeping it guards against rebellion, calls every soul to sanctify himself daily according to the Word of the Lord, and brings glory to the Lord through obedience. Only those who keep them, tried and loving God supremely, will be translated to heaven when He comes and have the dead raised, see the King in His beauty, and be welcomed by Christ Jesus through the gates into the holy city and the golden city. God will not bring in a disobedient father or mother or children to spoil the heavenly courts, because having had one rebellion He will never have another.
Solomon broke through that wise barrier forbidding marriages and political alliances with idolatrous nations when his heart was lifted up in pride and he sought still greater wealth and power through such alliances. Though honor and riches and the gold of Tarshish flowed in, temporal advantage was dearly bought by sacrifice of principle and the fine gold of character was tarnished by the corrupting influence of paganism. Once over the barrier he took one fatal step after another away from hope and happiness and heaven, from wisest of rulers to despot and slave of passion who sacrificed integrity to the bewitching power of woman. Mingling with God's enemies corrupts the soul, and his life is a beacon of warning to God's people in every age and especially to those living amid the perils of the last days. Satan's devices with all deceivableness of unrighteousness are no less now and redouble as Christ's second coming nears, and youth especially are in constant and fearful danger of being overcome.