When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations you are entering to dispossess, and you drive them out and live in their land,
Parallel translations
- WEB When Yahweh your God cuts off the nations from before you, where you go in to dispossess them, and you dispossess them, and dwell in their land;
- KJV When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land;
- NKJV “When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land,
- NASB “When the Lord your God cuts off from you the nations which you are going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and live in their land,
- NLT “When the Lord your God goes ahead of you and destroys the nations and you drive them out and live in their land,
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
When God cuts off the Canaanite nations and Israel dispossesses them, a new danger arises. Conquest brings the temptation to adopt the defeated peoples' religion.
Overview
Moses anticipates the moment after conquest when Israel settles in lands the nations once held. This very success carried spiritual peril, since the conquered culture and its gods would remain a temptation. The warning sets up the following verses and reminds us that victory can breed complacency, calling believers to vigilance against worldly compromise.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Josh 23:4See, I have allotted as an inheritance to your tribes these remaining nations, including all the nations I have already cut off, from the Jordan westward to the Great Sea.
- Deut 19:1When the LORD your God has cut off the nations whose land He is giving you, and when you have driven them out and settled in their cities and houses,
- Ps 78:55He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
- Deut 9:3But understand that today the LORD your God goes across ahead of you as a consuming fire; He will destroy them and subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them swiftly, as the LORD has promised you.
- Exod 23:23For My angel will go before you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will annihilate them.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Moses promised a Prophet like himself to whom Israel must listen (18:15); Jesus is that Prophet, the one who keeps the covenant we broke and becomes the curse for us by hanging on a tree (Gal 3:13).
How Deuteronomy 12:29 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.