Joshua 23:7 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Come not among these nations, i.e. avoid all familiar converse and contracts, but especially marriages, with them, as it is explained, Joshua 23:12, and as the Hebrew word intimates, being oft used of coming or going in to a woman. Neither make mention of the name of their gods, to wit, unnecessarily and familiarly, lest the mention of them breed discourse about them, and so by degrees bring a man to the approbation and worship of them. Compare Exodus 23:13 Deuteronomy 12:3 Psalms 16:4 Ephesians 5:3. Nor cause to swear by them; nor require nor compel the Gentiles to swear by them, as they used to do; especially in leagues and contracts, which therefore the Israelites are here implicitly forbidden to make with them. Neither serve them, nor bow yourselves unto them; neither give them any inward reverence, or outward adoration. Here is an observable gradation, whereby he shows what notable progress sin usually makes, and what reason there is to look to the beginnings of it, forasmuch as a civil and common conversation with their persons was likely to bring them, and indeed did actually bring them, by insensible steps, to the worship of their gods. So it is no wonder if some things not simply and in themselves evil be forbidden by God, as here the naming of their gods is, because they are occasions and introductions to evil.