Deuteronomy

The Ban

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: 26-110

Genre: Talk

Track: 026

Dictation Name: RR187N26

Location/Venue:

Year: 1993

Let us worship God. I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy mercy and in fear will I worship towards Thy holy temple. Let the words of my mouth and the mediations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Let us pray.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father we come into Thy presence rejoicing that Thou art God, that in Thy hands are the issues of life and not in the hands of men. Give us grace therefore to trust in Thee, to take hands of our life and to commit them into Thy keeping. We commit unto Thee all our hearts, our fears, our joys and our sorrows. Do with us that which is well pleasing in Thy sight, use us for Thy names sake. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture this morning is Deuteronomy 7:1-11. Our subject: The Ban. is Deuteronomy 7:1-11.

“When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

2 And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:

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.

4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.

5 But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

6 For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

7 The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:

8 But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

9 Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;

10 And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.

11 Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them.”

Both the substance and the details of these verses were repeated previously on other occasions by Moses. The substance of it is a ban on certain nations and their practices. The people of Canaan belonged to fertility cults, their cultures were saturated with homosexuality, bestiality and a routine exultation of things that were evil. The ban had a moral purpose. First, it demanded in God’s name a total separation from these pagan cultures and practices. In the wars against these peoples there was to be no mercy shown. Verse five makes clear that while the armies are to be destroyed, the continuation of the peoples is foreseen. There must be no covenant made between Israel and these peoples.

The treaty presupposes a common religious nature to their laws. And no such common ground existed for either alliances or marriages. One of the great evils of our time is that we suppose that peoples from different parts of Asia and Africa have the same legal premises that we do. This is not even true within Europe nor the Americas. The Marxist, for example, have a totally different concept of law then do Christians and as a result any kind of treaty or alliance made that is cross cultural is a surrender because one side is assuming a common ground which does not exist. Moreover in our time we have seen some disastrous marriages such as between Americans of a Christian backgrounds and Islamic students. On return to the husband’s homeland the American bride finds that every standard is the reverse of what she has known. No common premise for life exists. The ban denies to the army and peoples any right to profit by the confiscations and destructions. What is not here marked for destruction is devoted to God, for example, any booty, gold, silver, and properties, all these must be given to God. A total ban means the total destruction of everything. For this reason such a religious ban has been scarce in history in that victors prefer to profit by their victories. Had it been otherwise armies would readily invoke religious bans as a step towards their seizure. The biblical ban prevents this. The moral purpose of the ban was paramount and central. A sharp line was drawn towards good and evil, it could not be crossed during war time or peace time. The difference was strongly affirmed. Not only were men barred from allying themselves from evil but they could not profit from evil in the name of having fought against it.

Now the ramifications of this law and ban are very important. The modern state as the warring body cannot morally seize money and property from guilty, let alone innocent people, and retain such assets. This the drug administration and very many other branches of the federal government are doing routinely. But this law prevents that. Even when the total destruction of the people is imagined can one profit from destroying evil. If restitution needs to be made to innocent parties it must be done but for the state to profit from the most justifiable seizures means that such profiting will lead to unjustifiable seizures which is what is happening in our day. What is clear is that violations of the ban involved first mixed marriages between the covenant people and the ungodly. Second, failure to destroy the prescribed pagan images and properties and third, the personal use of what belonged to God or was to be destroyed at his orders. Failures in these areas place one under the same ban. About a century ago the Reverend Andrew Harper of Melbourne, Australia saw very clearly the coming nature of the twentieth century. He saw a new form of ban beginning to appear and he said and I quote:

“In wide circles both within and without the church it seems to be held that pain is the only intolerable evil.” Unquote.

Since then pain has been with many groups placed under a ban from men and animals, no spanking, no hunting, no use of furs, no plain speaking that might hurt and distress someone, and so on and on. The ban in humanistic form is very much with us. In verses six through eight Israel is told why they must enforce the ban. God had chosen them by His sovereign grace, God’s choice meant no merit whatsoever on Israel’s part nor any strength. Although they had been made a specially protected and loved people they were in reality an insignificant group. God’s miraculous deliverances simply witnessed to God’s grace, not Israel’s merit nor usefulness. There was simply no humanistic reason whatsoever for Israel’s election, nor for ours.

The required separation rested not on Israel’s superiority but on God’s requirement. In verse six it is stated clearly: for thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God. Now this holiness is not self-generated. It is not a self-serving merit. IT is a part of their calling unto the Lord thy God. No ground for self-satisfaction is permitted. In spite of their sin and stupidity God had chosen them in a decree to their deliverance from Egypt. Nothing in the history of their escape from Egypt gave them any ground for other than shame at their conduct and gratitude toward God for His mercy. In verse nine the command is, know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, a faithful God which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations. Know therefore means now recognize and feel the force of God’s sovereign power and mercy. God keeps a covenant of grace and mercy to the thousandth generation to them that love Him. But He will repay to their faces and destroy those who hate Him. We began with a ban that God’s people must impose on His enemies. Now we come to another ban. This promised by God to His chosen people if they despise His grace, law and sovereign election. God’s ban will be the more enduring exacting and thorough one. History is the story of God’s ban in action. History is the story of God’s ban in action. Men are ready to discuss the ban Israel was told to enforce. They are less ready to discuss the ban God promised to Israel and to us if we are faithless. In verse seven the smallness of Israel is compared to other nations. But this emphasis is basic to the chapter. Israel’s trust was not to be in any supposed advantage they themselves possessed inherently but it was to be in God’s grace and law. The covenant people had to stand in terms of the covenant God. Anything short of that was unbelief. God thus in requiring the ban of the Canaanite people was also setting forth the requirements on Israel to avoid being banned by God.

In Deuteronomy28:15 following we have God’s description of his ban at work. We can look at the world around us in similar terms. Every effort is being made to despise God’s covenant and law. The form of the covenant still prevails in the Constitutional oath of office. And this is a fact which aggravates the offense against God. It would be morally wrong to disbelieve that without repentance and reformation we too will not be banned by God. The Hebrew word for ban is related to the English word harem which refers to the separation of women for an exclusive possession. The concept is also related to excommunication, a ban which on certain conditions can be lifted. It’s main use in the Bible is first to ban certain Canaanite peoples, second, to ban Israelites or covenant peoples from certain anti-covenantal practices ranging from mixed marriages to secret idolatry and third, to devote certain things or persons to a particular use only. The ban must only be in terms of God’s law. In the Christian era Judaism seriously damaged the ban by applying for refractions of various kinds as decreed by the elders of the synagogue. The church is also excommunicated people too often for refractions of church rules rather than of God’s law and has therefore damaged its own strength and credibility. The ban is an important aspect of the Bible. It is not something that only took place in Old Testament times. God is now exercising the judgment of the ban on the world and unless men repent they will be set aside by God. Let us pray.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father we give thanks unto Thee that Thy word is truth, give us grace to heed Thy word. Grant that we may repent and become again a godly people so that we may be banned by Thee. Make us again a nation wherein righteousness or justice dwells, a people that delights in Thy word. Grant us this we beseech Thee, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] No, the idea of the ban is not popular, there is a book that has been written by a film critic against Hollywood and in it he says that the greatest sin for too many people today is to be judgmental, to be judgmental, so we have a ban in action today. You’re banned from being judgmental and unloving and you are savagely criticized, you are a nasty person because you insist on being judgmental. And they will talk about our Lord saying ‘judge not lest ye be judged’ but the whole point of that passage is you’re not the judge in terms of personal standards as I’ve pointed out many a time, but we are to judge righteous judgment in terms of God’s word. And they won’t have that. You are being judgmental, they bleat. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] In certain instances, yes, but in a war where people were to be declared banned by God, no booty was to be taken.

[Same guy speaks again]

[Rushdoony] Yes now we don’t talk about taking booty now a days but it is done officially now in a massive way. For example, the confiscation of patents and assets, this is done on a massive scale in a time of war by the winners. This can be even confiscation of an ally’s asset. For example, when imperial Russia collapsed we immediately seized the assets of Russians even of American citizens who happened to be in Russia at the time or in Europe because they were deposited from Russia they were seized and many, many millions of dollars were taken this way, especially of patents however and companies, the seizure in war time is always incredible. It makes old time taking of booty pale by comparison. Yes?

[Question] This catch-all phrase that states use, like federal government has used to prosecute foreign wars, that this war is in the ‘quote’ vital interests of the United States generally winds up to or boils down to preserving either access or some particular assets of the United States as in some of these countries, these oil interests in the Middle East and so forth.

[Rushdoony] Yes we have even seized or frozen assets of countries we are not at war with. For example when the Shah was over thrown we froze all of Iran’s assets and that’s what led to the seizure of the hostages at the Embassy. Because we had frozen millions of dollars. And we had done it at the request of the New York Bank in particular that held most of these Iranian assets. So the public was treated to the terrible thing that was done in seizing these hostages but nothing about the fact that money rightfully belonging to the Iranian state deposited in banks in this country had all been frozen. And we do that routinely, so much so that we don’t hear of such things taking place anymore.

[Question] Verse five almost seems like the agenda of the American civil liberties union to destroy altars and bring down their images…becomes unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well yes, they would insist that these are cultural and art objects of great value and must be preserved. It is interesting that the priests who early translated the Mayan documents that set forth the mass human sacrifices of tens of thousands of people routinely was damned as having slandered the Mayans and for a few centuries we’ve been treated to the idea that they Mayans were a simple people, harmless, loving, who never harmed anybody. When they were mass murderers, routinely. Now finely they have admitted that the priest’s translation was valid. But even yet, people refer to the ancient Mayans as sweet dear children of nature who were wronged by the Catholic missionaries. We are determined to see everything non-Christian in idealistic terms. Are there any other questions or comments?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes blessing is essentially from God to man. And blessing can be spiritual and it can be material. It can be done to prosper a man and it can be done to give him growth and wisdom and knowledge in the Lord. When man blesses God he thanks Him so when from man from God it means to pour out your being in thanksgiving to God.

[Question] That would be taken in the sense of showing gratitude, when you say the blessing.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well if there are no further questions, let us unite in prayer.

Our Father, we give thanks unto Thee that in Thy grace and mercy Thou hast made us Thy people. Grant that we may in service to Thee shed light to others. Make them members of Thy kingdom; feed them the blessed food of Thy word. Strengthen us in Thy service and give us ever increasing faithfulness, perseverance and joy. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.