Deuteronomy 7:25

The graven images … burn with fire Deuteronomy 7:5. Curiously in the Pl., as there is an otherwise Sg. context (the text is confirmed by Sam. and LXX). Steuern marks the verse as secondary, but unnecessarily; the isolated Pl. may be due to a scribe whose eye or ear was impressed with Deuteronomy 7:5 (so, too, Bertholet). Burn, the body of the image therefore was of wood, but plated or ornamented with metal (yet cp. Exodus 32:20). Hence further

thou shalt not covet the silver or the gold that is on them Cp. Joshua 7:1; Joshua 7:21, Achan's trespass in the devoted thing. The former of these is editorial; the latter, with Achan's confession that he had coveted200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold, belongs to JE.

snared See on Deuteronomy 7:16.

an abomination The Heb. tô-ebahis that which is ritually unlawful, and therefore unclean and abhorrent, in respect to some religious system. Thus it is used of Israel's own sacrifices as unlawful in Egypt, which the Egyptians would stone Israel for performing there, Exodus 8:26, J (see note on that verse). Similarly it is frequently used in D) (either alone or followed by Jehovah) of the rites and religious practices of heathen nations as unlawful and unclean for Israel, Deuteronomy 12:31; Deuteronomy 13:14 (the effort to seduce to those rites), Deuteronomy 17:4; Deuteronomy 18:9; Deuteronomy 20:18; and by metonymy of the things used in those rites, Deuteronomy 7:25-26; Deuteronomy 27:15 (images, cp. Deuteronomy 32:16 parallel to strange gods); of a blemished sacrifice, Deuteronomy 17:1, and unclean food, Deuteronomy 14:3; and also of persons participating in such rites, Deuteronomy 18:12; Deuteronomy 23:18, or following other unlawful courses, Deuteronomy 22:5 (wearing the garments of the other sex), Deuteronomy 25:16 (using unjust weights); and finally, Deuteronomy 24:4, of re-marriage with one's divorced wife after she has been married to another. All these 16 instances occur in Sg. passages with two exceptions, Deuteronomy 20:18, a Pl. clause in a Sg. context, and Deuteronomy 32:16 a line in the Song (the verb, to abhor, Deuteronomy 7:26; Deuteronomy 23:7). No such use of the noun with reference to Israel occurs in JE, but-in Leviticus 17-26, the Holiness-Code, it is used several times of the sin of unchastity. In Proverbs Jehovah's abominationhas an ethical force.