Then I said unto them,.... Having promised and swore to do such great and good things for them; which must lay them under an obligation to regard what he should command them: promises and blessings of goodness are great incentives to duty, and lay under great obligation to it:
cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes; which should be so, meaning idols; but which his eyes were taken with, and were lifted up unto, as his gods; though they ought to have been rejected with the utmost abhorrence, as abominable:
and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt; their "dunghill gods", as the word (f) signifies; which to worship, as it was an abomination to God, was defiling to themselves; yet these they were fond of, and prone to worship them; their eyes and their hearts were after them; and they needed such cautions and instructions as these, backed with the following strong reason against such idolatry:
I [am] the Lord your God; their Creator and Benefactor, their covenant God; the only Lord God, and whom only they ought to serve and worship; to whom they were under ten thousand obligations; and who was infinitely above all the idols of Egypt.
(f) בגלולי "stercoreis diis", Junius Tremellius, Polanus "stercoribus", Piscator, Cocceius.
Then I said unto them,.... Having promised and swore to do such great and good things for them; which must lay them under an obligation to regard what he should command them: promises and blessings of goodness are great incentives to duty, and lay under great obligation to it:
cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes; which should be so, meaning idols; but which his eyes were taken with, and were lifted up unto, as his gods; though they ought to have been rejected with the utmost abhorrence, as abominable:
and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt; their "dunghill gods", as the word (f) signifies; which to worship, as it was an abomination to God, was defiling to themselves; yet these they were fond of, and prone to worship them; their eyes and their hearts were after them; and they needed such cautions and instructions as these, backed with the following strong reason against such idolatry:
I [am] the Lord your God; their Creator and Benefactor, their covenant God; the only Lord God, and whom only they ought to serve and worship; to whom they were under ten thousand obligations; and who was infinitely above all the idols of Egypt.
(f) בגלולי "stercoreis diis", Junius Tremellius, Polanus "stercoribus", Piscator, Cocceius.