Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Deuteronomy 12:4
They Must Be Obedient to His Covenant and Destroy All That Is Related To Idolatry (Deuteronomy 12:1).
‘ These are the statutes and the ordinances which you (ye) shall observe to do in the land which Yahweh, the God of your (thy) fathers, has given you (thee) to possess it, all the days that you (ye) live on the earth.'
(Note the combination of ‘ye' and ‘thee, thy' in the one virtually indivisible sentence. The ‘ye' stresses their plurality, the ‘thee' their oneness as a nation which has been given the land and with a special emphasis on each individual's need to respond to Yahweh. This will be followed by ‘ye' in Deuteronomy 12:2, and ‘thou' in Deuteronomy 12:13, with the exception of Deuteronomy 12:16 where in MT ‘none of ye' is required. Deuteronomy 12:32 reverts to ‘ye'. The subtle distinctions continue).
Here Moses introduces the whole section. It continues on from the previous chapter. He had closed off chapter 11 with ‘you (ye) shall observe to do all the statutes and ordinances which I set before you this day', now he says, ‘these are the statutes and ordinances which you (ye) shall observe to do --'. In pursuance of what had gone before he will now outline the statutes and ordinances, the written regulations and the judgments based on them, which they must ‘observe to do' in the land which Yahweh, the God of their fathers has given them. Here we again have the main basis of their entry. It is Yahweh's land. He is giving it to them for the sake of their fathers. They must therefore hear His voice and walk in His ways by their obedience to His statutes and ordinances. Thus will it be theirs (and their children's) as long as they remain on the earth. Conditional on obedience, possession will be permanent, but it is conditional on obedience. They are entering under the kingly rule of Yahweh in His land, from which all that is evil will be spued out.
For us it is the Kingly Rule of God that is at stake. If we would be permanently under His kingly rule, we must obey Him, for that is what being ‘in His kingdom' is all about. In fact whenever we read the words ‘the land' we can for our part read ‘the kingly rule of God', for that is what the land represented.
Destruction of All Canaanite Sanctuaries And The Setting Up Of The One Sanctuary (Deuteronomy 12:2).
‘ You shall surely destroy (‘destroying you shall destroy') all the places in which the nations that you will dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree, and you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and you shall destroy their name out of that place.'
Possession of the land for Yahweh was to be ensured by their total destruction from the land of all traces of the false and depraved religion of the Canaanites. All areas must have their idolatry removed and be put under Yahweh's control. They must destroy all ‘the places' (meqomoth - plural of maqom). This is probably a technical term for holy places which later became replaced by ‘high places' (bamoth) to distinguish them from Yahweh's ‘holy place'. There they served their gods, whether on the high mountains (a favourite place for idolatrous worship for they were seen as abodes of the gods), on the hills (ditto), or under every green tree (certain living trees were seen in themselves to possess a kind of divinity and as promoting fertility. This included green trees with thick foliage (Ezekiel 6:13; Ezekiel 20:28), like the vigorous oak which attains a great age (Isaiah 1:29; Isaiah 57:5), and the poplar or terebinth, which continues green even in the heat of summer (Hosea 4:13)). The threefold description expressed completeness, covering all abodes of the gods.
The altars built up in such places were to be broken down, their pillars (stones set up to represent the divine for worship) were to be smashed to pieces, their Asherah-images burned with fire (these were images or poles made of wood, set up next to the altars and the pillars, evidence for which has been found in many places), their graven images to be cut down, and the very name of the gods was to be destroyed from each of those places. ‘Destroying the name of their gods' indicated that the places were not to be seen as having any remnants of ‘holiness' or association with these gods left. Each ‘place' was to be emptied of significance so that they would become ‘common' places, not revered by men. It is noteworthy that no instruction is given that they should be ‘defiled'. That idea comes later (2 Kings 23:8; 2 Kings 23:10; 2 Kings 23:13). Here the gods were to be removed as nonentities and had not been worshipped by Israel.
The ‘pillars' (matstseboth) that were to be condemned were those set up that men might worship before them, examples of which have been discovered in a number of Canaanite cities, especially at Hazor. Jacob in contrast set up memorial pillars to Yahweh (Genesis 28:18; Genesis 31:13; Genesis 31:45; although gratitude could be expressed at them by pouring a libation over them - Genesis 35:14) and Isaiah spoke of a similar memorial pillar being set up on the borders of Egypt when Egypt had begun to seek Yahweh (Isaiah 19:19), both of which were acceptable. We can compare with this the memorial altar in Joshua 22:26 on the border of Transjordan. Memorial pillars were common (Genesis 31:45; Genesis 35:20; Exodus 24:4; Joshua 4:1; Joshua 24:26; 2 Samuel 18:18). But men were not to worship before them.
For us the gods to be rejected may be different ones. Our ‘gods' are anything that comes between us and God. Let us but find something that hinders our worship of Him and our joyful service for Him and that is our false god that must be destroyed. Beware especially of covetousness, says Paul, for that is idolatry of the worst kind (Colossians 3:5). Those who come under the Kingly Rule of God must avoid all covetousness.
‘ You shall not do so to Yahweh your God.'
It was to be very different with the worship of Yahweh. That is not how they were to worship Him, at hundreds of different ‘places' spread throughout the land wherever they desired. He could only be officially worshipped in one ‘place'.