Exodus 23:29

I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(29) The beast of the field.—Comp. 2Kings 17:25-26, where we find that this result followed the deportation of the Samaritans by the Assyrians.

Benson Commentary

Exodus 23:29. Lest the land be desolate — The Israelites were not numerous enough to people all the land immediately. Providence had likewise another end in view in suffering some of the Canaanites to remain in the land: they were to prove Israel, and show whether they would hearken unto the commandment of the Lord, Jdg 3:4. And the beast of the field multiply — The wild beasts from Arabia Deserta made frequent inroads into Canaan, in quest of prey, and were not to be driven out but by continual hunting.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:20-33 It is here promised that they should be guided and kept in their way through the wilderness to the land of promise, Behold, I send an angel before thee, mine angel. The precept joined with this promise is, that they be obedient to this angel whom God would send before them. Christ is the Angel of Jehovah; this is plainly taught by St. Paul, 1Co 10:9. They should have a comfortable settlement in the land of Canaan. How reasonable are the conditions of this promise; that they should serve the only true God; not the gods of the nations, which are no gods at all. How rich are the particulars of this promise! The comfort of their food, the continuance of their health, the increase of their wealth, the prolonging their lives to old age. Thus hath godliness the promise of the life that now is. It is promised that they should subdue their enemies. Hosts of hornets made way for the hosts of Israel; such mean creatures can God use for chastising his people's enemies. In real kindness to the church, its enemies are subdued by little and little; thus we are kept on our guard, and in continual dependence on God. Corruptions are driven out of the hearts of God's people, not all at once, but by little and little. The precept with this promise is, that they should not make friendship with idolaters. Those that would keep from bad courses, must keep from bad company. It is dangerous to live in a bad neighbourhood; others' sins will be our snares. Our greatest danger is from those who would make us sin against God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Beast of the field - i. e. destructive animals.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

29, 30. I will not drive … out … in one year; lest the land become desolate—Many reasons recommend a gradual extirpation of the former inhabitants of Canaan. But only one is here specified—the danger lest, in the unoccupied grounds, wild beasts should inconveniently multiply; a clear proof that the promised land was more than sufficient to contain the actual population of the Israelites.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Desolate, void of inhabitants in a great measure, because thy present number is not sufficient to occupy and manage their whole land.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I will not drive them out from before thee in one year,.... This is observed before hand, lest the Israelites should be discouraged, and fear they should never be rid of them; and it was so ordered in Providence for the following reason:

lest the land become desolate; there being not a sufficient number of Israelites to replace in their stead, to repeople the land, and to cultivate it; and yet their number was very large, being, when they came out of Egypt, as is generally computed, about two millions and a half, besides the mixed multitude of Egyptians and others, and during their forty years in the wilderness must be greatly increased:

and the beast of the field multiply against thee; there being so much waste ground for them to prowl about in, they would so increase as to make head against them, and be too many for them; or, however, it would be difficult to keep them under control: the Targum of Jonathan adds,"when they shall come to eat their carcasses (the carcasses of the Canaanites slain in war), and may hurt thee.''

Geneva Study Bible

I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

29, 30. The expulsion of the Canaanites will however be gradual: it will not be completed till the Israelites are numerous enough to fill effectually the territory vacated by them. Hence, with verbal variations, Deuteronomy 7:22. The representation is in striking contrast to the idealized pictures of rapid conquests drawn in the Deuteronomic sections of the book of Joshua, from which the popular conception of the ‘extermination of the Canaanites’ is derived (e.g. Joshua 10:28-43; Joshua 11:16-23; Joshua 21:43-45); but it agrees with the accounts given in the older strata of Joshua and Judges, according to which there were many districts from which the Israelites were unable to expel the Canaanites, and the country as a whole was only occupied by them gradually (Joshua 13:13; Joshua 15:63; Joshua 16:10; Joshua 17:11-18, Jdg 1:19; Jdg 1:21; Jdg 1:27-35; Jdg 1:9). The historical reason why the Canaanites thus remained so long in many parts of the land was because the Israelites had not the military resources enabling them to cope with them (cf. Jdg 1:19); but the fact nevertheless remained one which many religiously-minded Israelites found it difficult to reconcile with their sense of Jehovah’s sovereignty; and different moral, or religious, theories were framed to account for it. Here it is explained as due to Jehovah’s care that unoccupied spots should not be left in the land, on which wild beasts might multiply and become a danger to the Israelites (2 Kings 17:25 f.; cf. Leviticus 26:22, Ezekiel 14:15; Ezekiel 14:21): for other theories, see Jdg 2:20 to Jdg 3:4 (comp. LOT.8 p. 165 f.).

31a. Israel’s territory will reach, beyond Canaan itself, from the Red Sea to the ‘sea of the Philistines’ (i.e. the SE. coast of the Medit. Sea including the Philistine territory itself), and from ‘the wilderness (i.e. the wilderness on the S. of Palestine) to the Euphrates. An ideal description of the extent of Isr. territory, once, at least according to tradition, realised in history, under Solomon (1 Kings 4:21). For similar promises, see Genesis 15:18, Deuteronomy 11:24 (whence Joshua 1:4); and cf. (in the picture of the restored Israel of the future) Isaiah 27:12.

the River] i.e. the River, κατʼ ἐξοχήν, to the Hebrews, the Euphrates. The word, when the Euphrates is intended, is always in RV. printed with a capital R: see e.g. Isaiah 7:20; Isaiah 27:12, Psalm 72:8; Psalm 80:11.

31b–33. Regarded by We., Di., Bä. and most critics as another expansion of the original text, similar to vv. 23–25a, partly because reverts to the subject of Israel’s attitude towards the gods of Canaan, already dealt with in v. 24, but chiefly because, whereas in vv. 27—Jehovah promises that He will Himself drive out the Canaanites before Israel, here their expulsion is laid as a duty upon Israel.

32, 33. No treaty of friendship or alliance to be entered into with the Canaanites, lest Israel be seduced by them into idolatry. The same warning (with the consequences of such alliance more fully developed), Exodus 34:12-16, Deuteronomy 7:2-5; cf. Joshua 23:12-13 (D2[197]), Jdg 2:2-3 (compiler).

[197] Deuteronomic passages in Josh., Jud., Kings.

33. for thou wilt serve their gods, for it will become a snare unto thee. So the Heb. literally. There must be some fault in the text; but the general sense of the passage is no doubt correctly given. ‘And thou shalt not serve,’ &c. (LXX., Pesh.; cf. Deuteronomy 7:16 b) would be the simplest change; but it is not easy palaeographically (ולא for כי).

a snare] i.e.—not, an enticement to sin, but—a lure to destruction. Cf. on Exodus 10:7; and see esp. 1 Samuel 18:21. Of the gods of Canaan, as here, Exodus 34:12, and in the reminiscences, Deuteronomy 7:16, Jdg 2:3; and of the Canaanites themselves, Joshua 23:13 (D2[198]). Warnings against holding intercourse with the Canaanites, and commands to overthrow their altars, &c. (vv. 23–25a, and 31b–33), are also characteristic of Deuteronomy: see e.g. Deuteronomy 7:2-5; Deuteronomy 12:2-3; Deuteronomy 12:29-31.

[198] Deuteronomic passages in Josh., Jud., Kings.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 29. - I will not drive them out from before thee in one year. The Divine action is for the most part "slack, as men count slackness" - it is not hasty, spasmodic, precipitate, as human action is too often. Men are impatient; God is strangely, wonderfully patient. He would not drive out the Canaanitish nations all at once -

1. Lest the land should become desolate, there being an insufficient population to keep down the weeds and maintain the tillage; and

2. Lest the beast of the field should multiply so as to become a danger to the new-comers. It is related that when the kingdom of Samaria was depopulated by the removal of the Ten Tribes, there was a great increase of lions, which preyed upon the scanty remnant left (2 Kings 17:25). Even in France, after the Franco-German war, it was found that in many districts wolves increased. A third reason why the nations were not subdued all at once, not mentioned here, is touched in Judges 2:21-23 - "The Lord left those nations, without driving them out hastily, that through them he might prove Israel, whether they would keep the way of the Lord to walk therein, or not." Exodus 23:29

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In addition to the fear of God, hornets (הצּרעה construed as a generic word with the collective article), a very large species of wasp, that was greatly dreaded both by man and beast on account of the acuteness of its sting, should come and drive out the Canaanites, of whom three tribes are mentioned instar omnium, from before the Israelites. Although it is true that Aelian (hist. anim. 11, 28) relates that the Phaselians, who dwelt near the Solymites, and therefore probably belonged to the Canaanites, were driven out of their country by wasps, and Bochart (Hieroz. iii. pp. 409ff.) has collected together accounts of different tribes that have been frightened away from their possessions by frogs, mice, and other vermin, "the sending of hornets before the Israelites" is hardly to be taken literally, not only because there is not a word in the book of Joshua about the Canaanites being overcome and exterminated in any such way, but chiefly on account of Joshua 24:12, where Joshua says that God sent the hornet before them, and drove out the two kings of the Amorites, referring thereby to their defeat and destruction by the Israelites through the miraculous interposition of God, and thus placing the figurative use of the term hornet beyond the possibility of doubt. These hornets, however, which are very aptly described in Wis. 12:8, on the basis of this passage, as προδρόμους, the pioneers of the army of Jehovah, do not denote merely varii generis mala, as Rosenmller supposes, but acerrimos timoris aculeos, quibus quodammodo volantibus rumoribus pungebantur, ut fugerent (Augustine, quaest. 27 in Jos.). If the fear of God which fell upon the Canaanites threw them into such confusion and helpless despair, that they could not stand before Israel, but turned their backs towards them, the stings of alarm which followed this fear would completely drive them away. Nevertheless God would not drive them away at once, "in one year," lest the land should become a desert for want of men to cultivate it, and the wild beasts should multiply against Israel; in other words, lest the beasts of prey should gain the upper hand and endanger the lives of man and beast (Leviticus 26:22; Ezekiel 14:15, Ezekiel 14:21), which actually was the case after the carrying away of the ten tribes (2 Kings 17:25-26). He would drive them out by degrees (מעט מעט, only used here and in Deuteronomy 7:22), until Israel was sufficiently increased to take possession of the land, i.e., to occupy the whole of the country. This promise was so far fulfilled, according to the books of Joshua and Judges, that after the subjugation of the Canaanites in the south and north of the land, when all the kings who fought against Israel had been smitten and slain and their cities captured, the entire land was divided among the tribes of Israel, in order that they might exterminate the remaining Canaanites, and take possession of those portions of the land that had not yet been conquered (Joshua 13:1-7). But the different tribes soon became weary of the task of exterminating the Canaanites, and began to enter into alliance with them, and were led astray by them to the worship of idols; whereupon God punished them by withdrawing His assistance, and they were oppressed and humiliated by the Canaanites because of their apostasy from the Lord (Judges 1 and 2).