EXTRACT

This chapter (Deuteronomy 20) would teach us that the inheritance cannot be held without conflict. There are enemies great in resources and numbers but they are not to be feared, “for Jehovah thy God is with thee”. We can only avoid conflict by giving up what is of God, but all spiritual war is approached with priestly encouragement. God gives His people the assurance that He is with them in the battle. In all times of conflict we should listen to the voice of the priest; he represents that element among the people of God that has clearness of spiritual vision, and that considers for God. Any conflict that has not the support of the priestly element will not be “the battles of Jehovah”, but some battle of our own.

C. A. Coates (‘Outline of Deuteronomy’, p.266)

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