Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Mga Hukom 2:2

I believe there are three reasons why the Torah saw fit to write this verse. 1) The Torah warns us not to appear as comparable to the nations of the world in their deeds. Had the Torah not first mentioned that we must not bow down to and worship their deities, it would never have occurred to anyone that kneeling or prostrating oneself on the floor even for a perfectly secular activity would be forbidden. We would have been convinced that the Torah merely forbade a Jew to prostrate himself for idolatrous purposes. Now that the Torah writes: "Do not prostrate yourself and serve their deities" the Torah reveals what had been meant by the words: "do not act as they do." It refers to activities which were intended to be perfectly secular in character if such activities represented a religious rite for the pagans. We are not to wear the kind of garments idol worhipers wear (as a religious symbol) nor are we to sport the kind of haircut which they use in deference to some religious belief of theirs. The Torah here includes a variety of activities listed in Shabbat 67. The second reason why the words we have in verse 24 are necessary is because the Torah informs us that everything the pagans do contains an idolatrous element. G'd knows man's thoughts and the root of everything he does. If a Jew were to perform deeds which are exclusively the domain of the Gentiles he would unconsciously savour the taste of idol worship. The third reason why the Torah has to warn us here again is that G'd does not only want us not to practice any semblance of idol worship but He wants us to uproot its traces wherever and whenever we are able to do so. This is why He had to introduce the commandment to destroy all such deities by first forbidding us to prostrate ourselves in front of them. G'd implies that if a Jew does not prostrate himself in front of an idol but does not destroy it either, he is considered as if he had actually worshiped this idol. G'd is alert to our thinking, and He interprets the reasons for our not destroying such idols as a reluctance to uproot the philosophies symbolised by such deities from our hearts. You will find that the commandment to destroy such deities and their temples became operational only after the Israelites entered the Holy Land and began to conquer it. (compare Deuteronomy chapter 20).