“When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are about to enter and occupy, he will clear away many nations ahead of you: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. These seven nations are greater and more numerous than you.
Parallel translations
- WEB When Yahweh your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, and casts out many nations before you, the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than you;
- KJV 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;
- BSB When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to possess, and He drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—
- NKJV “When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, 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 you,
- NASB “When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to take possession of it, and He drives away many nations from before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you,
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
God will bring Israel into the land and cast out seven nations greater and mightier than they. The conquest is God's doing against superior foes.
Overview
Moses names the Canaanite peoples Israel will dispossess, all stronger than Israel itself. This underscores that victory depends on God's power, not Israel's might or merit. The driving out of these nations is an act of divine judgment on entrenched wickedness, as later verses make clear.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 21
- Deut 31:3Yahweh your God himself will go over before you. He will destroy these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua will go over before you, as Yahweh has spoken.
- Acts 13:19When he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land for an inheritance, for about four hundred fifty years.
- Deut 4:38to drive out nations from before you greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today.
- Deut 20:1When you go out to battle against your enemies, and see horses, chariots, and a people more than you, you shall not be afraid of them; for Yahweh your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
- Exod 33:2I will send an angel before you; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite:
- Ps 44:2–3You drove out the nations with your hand, but you planted them. You afflicted the peoples, but you spread them abroad.
- Deut 9:1Hear, Israel! You are to pass over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to the sky,
- Gen 15:18–21In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I have given this land to your offspring, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:
- Deut 4:1–3Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances, which I teach you, to do them; that you may live, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, gives you.
- Deut 9:4Don’t say in your heart, after Yahweh your God has thrust them out from before you, saying, “For my righteousness Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land”; because Yahweh drives them out before you because of the wickedness of these nations.
- Deut 11:29It shall happen, when Yahweh your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, that you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim, and the curse on Mount Ebal.
- Deut 6:23and he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he swore to our fathers.
- Num 14:31But your little ones, that you said should be captured or killed, them I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have rejected.
- Deut 31:20For when I have brought them into the land which I swore to their fathers, flowing with milk and honey, and they have eaten and filled themselves, and grown fat; then they will turn to other gods, and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant.
- Ps 78:55He also drove out the nations before them, allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
- Deut 6:19to thrust out all your enemies from before you, as Yahweh has spoken.
- Exod 6:8I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it to you for a heritage: I am Yahweh.’”
- Deut 6:10It shall be, when Yahweh your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you, great and goodly cities, which you didn’t build,
- Exod 15:7In the greatness of your excellency, you overthrow those who rise up against you. You send out your wrath. It consumes them as stubble.
- Deut 6:1Now this is the commandment, the statutes, and the ordinances, which Yahweh your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it;
- Exod 23:28I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 7:1 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.