The nations here excepted from mercy, are evidently types of the open and determined foes of the church of JESUS. There can be no coalition, no agreement between CHRIST and Belial. The seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent have an everlasting war. LORD! grant that under the supposed idea of mercy, I may never fancy myself more charitable than my GOD, and thus be found cherishing in my bosom the sworn foes to GOD and his CHRIST. Reader! is there not another instruction of a spiritual nature to be gathered from this passage? Instead of looking wholly without to the enemies of JESUS for the destruction of the Canaanites, may not you and I look within, and behold in the lusts of our nature both the foes of GOD and of our own souls also? And shall you and I give quarter to these deadly enemies of our peace, and which have nailed JESUS to the cross? Shall we wish to save any alive of this kind that breatheth? Oh my GOD! root them out and utterly destroy them, and do then reign alone in my heart, the LORD of every passion.
Related Commentaries of Deuteronomy 20:16
Deuteronomy 20:16-18
16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:
18 That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.