Anticipation of Canaan, Renewed Command Respecting the Expulsion of the Canaanites and the Obliteration of the Public Signs of their Idolatry
Num_33:50-56
50And the Lord spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying, 51Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; 52Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places: 53And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it. 54And ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families; and to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance: every man’s inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth; according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit. 55But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell. 56Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Comp. Exo_23:31; Lev_26:1; Deu_7:2; Deu_9:4-5; Jos_23:13; Jdg_2:3. Command to exterminate the Canaanites. So Keil entitles this section. The text does not admit of this extravagant, traditional representation. The religious assumption underlying the stern measures against the Canaanites is this, that Israel in Canaan can and must by no means tolerate any Canaanitish, or indeed any sort of idolatrous community, because it will affect Israel ruinously, This latter motive is reiterated again and again, and the most various changes rung on it. Hence in the Promised Land no sorts of signs of idolatry shall stand in places, or by the roads, or on bridges. But it is first of all assumed that they are not to exterminate the heathen as individual heathen in the land; already in the Decalogue there is mention of the stranger that is in Israel’s gates. This stranger, toward whom they are again and again commanded to behave themselves justly and kindly (Exo_22:21; Exo_23:9; Lev_19:33; Deu_10:19) might in later times be made a proselyte of the gate; originally he was only one that recognized the supremacy of the Israelitish established religion, and had renounced all public announcement of any heathen feeling. Hence it is the first task of the Israelites to expel the heathen from the land, as this sort of crowding out and pushing farther of one people by another frequently happened in ancient times. By such crowding out the Germans came to Germany, and the Celts have experienced crowding in many ways. If, however, the heathen made warlike opposition, the meaning was that they would maintain heathenism in the land itself, and then the cherem resulted, the prostrating of the warlike men, and only in consequence of that storm of war or vengeance, a more universal cherem. But in reference to this, a distinction must be made between the social task of Israel, and the religious sentence that was referred back to the decree of Jehovah. According to the latter, a universal judgment of extermination fell on the Canaanites; according to the social task, the extermination was conditioned in many ways, and in general the national spirit of the Jews continued to be tempted rather by a false, dangerous tolerance which it could not yet bear, than by an opposing, excessive fanaticism. The intercourse of Moses with pious heathen, the history of the Gibeonites, the book of Judges, and the later history of Israel serve for illustration. Solomon had a fall by anticipating the public freedom of worship.
Num_33:51. The meaning of the reiterated command is quite plain. The inhabitants of Canaan are driven out, while all public signs of idolatrous worship are destroyed. The most inconspicuous are memorial stones by the way-side having on them figures of idols or idolatrous inscriptions; of higher degree are molten images; still higher are the high-places, consecrated groves or enclosed places of worship with altars. More the religion of the law cannot and will not do. Press hearts, convert souls by constraint,—this dark thought of the middle ages and of the Syllabus cannot occur on Biblical ground, or, if it does, only as the heathenism of Jezebel, of Nebuchadnezzar, and of Antiochus Epiphanes. Thus they are to possess the land purely and wholly, but also in just relations, whence Num_33:54 repeats the command of Num_26:55. The law is enforced by threatening punishment for the transgressors. The natural consequences are these: the heathen become thorns in their eyes and pricks in their sides; their eyes become obscured for faith; their life will be trained in the way of superstition. But in the land that is given to them, the heathen will oppress and afflict them; and just because of this intolerance of heathenism they must not tolerate heathenism. It is here: either or; anvil or hammer. How long the vulgar liberalism showed itself too insipid to understand that! But the positive punishment shall be that Jehovah will, in that case, reject them also as He now does the Canaanites, Jos_23:13.
