verses 9-10
God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant, showing mercy to those who love Him, even to the thousandth generation, but repaying those who hate Him to the face. This development of the nature of God Moses introduces from Exo 20:5-6, as a light warning not to forfeit the mercy of God, or draw upon themselves His holy wrath by falling into idolatry. To this end He emphatically carries out still further the thought of retribution, by adding להאבידו, “to destroy him” (the hater), and וגו יאהר לא, “He delays not to His hater (sc., to repay him); He will repay him to his face.” “To the face of every one of them,” i.e., that they may see and feel that they are smitten by God (Rosenmüller).
Verse 11
This energy of the grace and holiness of the faithful covenant God was a powerful admonition to keep the divine commandments.
verses 12-26
The observance of these commandments would also bring great blessings (Deu 7:12-16). “If ye hearken to these demands of right” (mishpatim) of the covenant Lord upon His covenant people, and keep them and do them, “Jehovah will keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which He hath sworn to thy fathers.” In עקב, for אשׁר עקב (Gen 22:18), there is involved not only the idea of reciprocity, but everywhere also an allusion to reward or punishment (cf. Deu 8:20; Num 14:24). חסד was the favour displayed in the promises given to the patriarchs on oath (Gen 22:16).
verses 13-16
This mercy flowed from the love of God to Israel, and the love was manifested in blessing and multiplying the people. The blessing is then particularized, by a further expansion of Exo 23:25-27, as a blessing upon the fruit of the body, the fruits of the field and soil, and the rearing of cattle. שׁגר, see Exo 13:12. צאן עשׁתּרת only occurs again in Deu 28:4, Deu 28:18, Deu 28:51, and certainly signifies the young increase of the flocks. It is probably a Canaanitish word, derived from Ashtoreth (Astharte), the female deity of the Canaanites, which was regarded as the conceiving and birth-giving principle of nature, literally Veneres, i.e., amores gregis, hence soboles (Ges.); just as the Latin poets employ the name Ceres to signify the corn, Venus for love and sexual intercourse, and Lucina for birth. On Deu 7:14 and Deu 7:15, see Exo 23:26. In Deu 7:15, the promise of the preservation of Israel from all diseases (Exo 15:26, and Exo 23:25) is strengthened by the addition of the clause, “all the evil diseases of Egypt,” by which, according to Deu 28:27, we are probably to understand chiefly the malignant species of leprosy called elephantiasis, and possibly also the plague and other malignant forms of disease. In Egypt,
