Hath a nation changed their gods?— That is, according to Bishop Warburton's interpretation, "Have any of the nations brought the God of Israel into the number of their false gods, as the Israelites have brought in them to stand in fellowship with the true?" For that the ancients frequently changed their tutelary gods, or one idol for another, is too notorious to need any proof. This contrariety, therefore, to their received custom is remarkable. The reason of it may be this: it was a thing well known to the neighbouring nation, that the God of Israel had an abhorrence to all community or alliance with the gods of the nations. This unsociable temper would deter those people, who all held him as a tutelary deity of great power, from ever bringing him into the fellowship of their country gods; for, after such declaration, they could not suppose that his company would prove very auspicious; and in truth they had a signal of his ill neighbourhood much to their cost, 1 Samuel 5:4; 1 Samuel 5:12. See Div. Leg. vol. 4.

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