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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Exodus 23:20 - 23:20
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Relation of Jehovah to Israel. - The declaration of the rights conferred by Jehovah upon His people is closed by promises, through which, on the one hand, God insured to the nation the gifts and benefits involved in their rights, and, on the other hand, sought to promote that willingness and love which were indispensable to the fulfilment of the duties incumbent upon every individual in consequence of the rights conferred upon them. These promises secured to the people not only the protection and help of God during their journey through the desert, and in the conquest of Canaan, but also preservation and prosperity when they had taken possession of the land.
Exo 23:20-27
Jehovah would send an angel before them, who should guard them on the way from injury and destruction, and bring them to the place prepared for them, i.e., to Canaan. The name of Jehovah was in this angel (Exo 23:21), that is to say, Jehovah revealed Himself in him; and hence he is called in Exo 33:15-16, the face of Jehovah, because the essential nature of Jehovah was manifested in him. This angel was not a created spirit, therefore, but the manifestation of Jehovah Himself, who went before them in the pillar of cloud and fire, to guide and to defend them (Exo 13:21). But because it was Jehovah who was guiding His people in the person of the angel, He demanded unconditional obedience (Exo 23:21), and if they provoked Him (תַּמֵּר for תָּמֵר, see Exo 13:18) by disobedience, He would not pardon their transgression; but if they followed Him and hearkened to His voice, He would be an enemy to their enemies, and an adversary to their adversaries (Exo 23:22). And when the angel of the Lord had brought them to the Canaanites and exterminated the latter, Israel was still to yield the same obedience, by not serving the gods of the Canaanites, or doing after their works, i.e., by not making any idolatrous images, but destroying them (these works), and smiting to pieces the pillars of their idolatrous worship (מַצֵבֹת does not mean statues erected as idols, but memorial stones or columns dedicated to idols: see my Comm. on 1Ki 14:23), and serving Jehovah alone. Then would He bless them in the land with bountiful provision, health, fruitfulness, and length of life (Exo 23:23-26). “Bread and water” are named, as being the provisions which are indispensable to the maintenance of life, as in Isa 3:1; Isa 30:20; Isa 33:16. The taking away of “sickness” (cf. Exo 15:26) implied the removal of everything that could endanger life. The absence of anything that miscarried, or was barren, insured the continuance and increase of the nation; and the promise that their days should be fulfilled, i.e., that they should not be liable to a premature death (cf. Isa 65:20), was a pledge of their well-being.
Exo 23:27
But the most important thing of all for Israel was the previous conquest of the promised land. And in this God gave it a special promise of His almighty aid. “I will send My fear before thee.” This fear was to be the result of the terrible acts of God performed on behalf of Israel, the rumour of which would spread before them and fill their enemies with fear and trembling (cf. Exo 15:14.; Deu 2:26; and Jos 2:11, where the beginning of the fulfilment is described), throwing into confusion and putting to flight every people against whom (בָּהֶם - אֲשֻׁר) Israel came. עֹרֶף אֶת־אֹיֵב נָתַן to give the enemy to the neck, i.e., to cause him to turn his back, or flee (cf. Psa 18:41; Psa 21:13; Jos 7:8, Jos 7:12). אֵלֶיךָ: in the direction towards thee.
Exo 23:28
In addition to the fear of God, hornets (הַצִּרְעָה 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 Jos 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 Rosenmüller 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 (Lev 26:22; Eze 14:15, Eze 14:21), which actually was the case after the carrying away of the ten tribes (2Ki 17:25-26). He would drive them out by degrees (מְעַט מְעַט, only used here and in Deu 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 (Jos 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 (Judg 1 and 2).
Exo 23:31-33
The divine promise closes with a general indication of the boundaries of the land, whose inhabitants Jehovah would give up to the Israelites to drive them out, and with a warning against forming alliances with them and their gods, lest they should lead Israel astray to sin, and thus become a snare to it. On the basis of the promise in Gen 15:18, certain grand and prominent points are mentioned, as constituting the boundaries towards both the east and west. On the west the boundary extended from the Red Sea (see Exo 13:18) to the sea of the Philistines, or Mediterranean Sea, the south-eastern shore of which was inhabited by the Philistines; and on the east from the desert, i.e., according to Deu 11:24, the desert of Arabia, to the river (Euphrates). The poetic suffix מֹו affixed to גֵּרַשְׁתָּ answers to the elevated oratorical style. Making a covenant with them and their gods would imply the recognition and toleration of them, and, with the sinful tendencies of Israel, would be inevitably followed by the worship of idols. The first כִּי in Exo 23:33 signifies if; the second, imo, verily, and serves as an energetic introduction to the apodosis. מֹוקֵשׁ, a snare (vid., Exo 10:7); here a clause of destruction, inasmuch as apostasy from God is invariably followed by punishment (Jdg 2:3).