The Pulpit Commentaries
Exodus 23:32-33
EXPOSITION
FINAL WARNING AGAINST IDOLATRY. The "Book of the Covenant" ends as it began, with a solemn warning against idolatry. (See Exodus 20:23.) "Thou shalt make no covenant with them nor with their gods." Thou shalt not even suffer them to dwell side by side with thee in the land, on peaceable terms, with their own laws and religion, lest thou be ensnared thereby, and led to worship their idols and join in their unhallowed rites (Exodus 23:33). The after history of the people of Israel shows the need of the warning. From the exodus to the captivity, every idolatry with which they came into close contact proved a sore temptation to them. As the author of Kings observes of the Ten Tribes''—The children of Israel did secretly those things which were not right against the Lord their God, and they built them high places in all their cities … And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree; and there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger; for they served idols, whereof the Lord had said unto them, "Ye shall not do this thing" (2 Kings 17:9).
Thou shalt make no covenant with them. See below, Exodus 34:12-2. According to the forms usual at the time, a treaty of peace would have contained an acknowledgment of the gods of either nation, and words in honour of them. This would have been equivalent to "making a covenant with their gods."
They shall not dwell in the land. This law did not, of course, affect proselytes; nor was it considered to preclude the continuance in the land of the enslaved Gibeonites. It forbade any Canaanite communities being suffered to remain within the limits of Palestine on friendly terms with the Hebrews. The precaution was undoubtedly a wise one.
HOMILETICS
The Peril of Idolatry.
Idolatry is the interposition of any object between man and God, in such sort that the object takes the place of God in the heart and the affections, occupying them to his exclusion, or to his disparagement. Idolatry proper, the interposition between God and the soul of idols or images, seems to have possessed a peculiar fascination for the Israelites, either because their materialistic tendencies made them shrink from approaching in thought a mere pure Spirit, or perhaps from their addiction to the sensual pleasures which accompanied idolatry, as practised by the greater part of the heathen. (See the comment on Exodus 23:24.) In modern times, and in countries where Protestantism is professed by the generality, there is little or no danger of this gross form of the sin. But there is great danger of other forms of it. In order to make any practical use of those large portions of the Old Testament which warn against idolatry, we have to remember—
I. THAT COVETOUSNESS IS IDOLATRY. Wealth is made an idol by thousands in these latter days. All hasten to be rich. Nothing is greatly accounted of which does not lead to opulence. God is shut out from the heart by desires, and plans, and calculations which have money for their object and which so occupy it that there is no room for anything else. The danger has existed at all times, but it has to be specially guarded against at the present day, when Mammon has become the most potent of all the spirits of evil, and men bow down before, not an image of gold, but gold itself, whatever shape it may take.
II. THAT SELFISHNESS IS IDOLATRY. Men make idols of themselves—of their own happiness, quiet, comfort—allowing nothing to interfere with these, and infinitely preferring them to any intrusive thoughts of God, his glory, or his claims upon them. Persons thus wrapped up in themselves are idolaters of a very gross type, since the object of their worship is wholly bad and contemptible.
III. THAT PROFLIGACY IS IDOLATRY. Men idolise a wretched creature,—a girl, or woman, possessed of some transient beauty and personal attractions, but entirely devoid of a single estimable quality. For such a creature they peril all their prospects, both in this life and the next. They make her the queen of their souls, the object of their adoration, the star by which they direct their course. The ordinary consequence is shipwreck, both here and hereafter. When so poor an idol as a weak wanton has stepped in between the soul and God, there is little chance of a real repentance and return of the soul to its Maker.
IV. THAT AMUSEMENT MAY BE IDOLATRY. It is quite possible so to devote oneself to amusement as to make it shut out God from us. Those who live in a whirl of gaiety, with no time set apart for serious duties, for instructing the ignorant, consoling the afflicted, visiting the poor and needy—nay, with scant time for private or family prayer—are idolaters, and will have to give account to a "jealous God," who wills that his creatures should worship him and not make it their highest end to amuse themselves.
V. THAT LOVE OF FASHION MAY BE IDOLATRY. Vast numbers of persons who find no amusement in the pursuit, think it necessary to do whatever it is the fashion to do. Their life is a perpetual round of employments in which they have no pleasure, and which they have not chosen for themselves, but which the voice of fashion forces upon them. They drag themselves through exhibitions which do not interest them; lounge at clubs of which they are utterly weary; dine out when they would much rather be at home; and pass the evening and half the night in showing themselves at balls and assemblies which fatigue and disgust them. And all because Fashion says it is the correct thing. The idol, Fashion, has as many votaries in modern Europe as ever the Dea Syra had in Western Asia, or Isis in Egypt; and her votaries pass through life as real idolaters as the worshippers of the ancient goddesses, albeit unconscious ones.