Exodus 34:12 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Take heed to thyself It is a sin thou art prone to, and that will easily beset thee; carefully abstain from all advances toward it; make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land If God, in kindness to them, drove out the Canaanites, they ought, in duty to God, not to harbour them: If they espoused their children, they would be in danger of espousing their gods. That they might not be tempted to make molten gods, they must utterly destroy those they found, and all that belonged to them, the altars and groves, lest, if they were left standing, they should be brought in process of time either to use them, or to take pattern by them.