Exodus 23:25-33

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Exodus 23:20-33

Three gracious promises are here made to Israel, to engage them to their duty and encourage them in it; and each of the promises has some needful precepts and cautions joined to it. I. 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 (Exod. 23:20), my angel (Exod. 23:23), a created angel, say some, a minister of God's providence, employed in conducting and protecting the camp of Israel; that... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Exodus 23:25

And ye shall serve the Lord your God ,.... And him only, who had brought them out of Egypt, and done so many great and good things for them at the Red sea, and now in the wilderness; by which he appeared to be the true Jehovah, the one and only living God, and to be their God in covenant, who had promised them much, and had performed it; and therefore was in a special and peculiar manner their God, and they were under the highest obligations to serve and worship him in the way and manner he... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Exodus 23:26

There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren in the land ,.... There shall be no abortions or miscarriages, nor sterility or barrenness, either among the Israelites, or their cattle of every kind, so that there should be a great increase, both of men and beasts: the number of thy days I will fulfil ; which was fixed for each of them, in his eternal purposes and decrees; or what, according to the temperament of their bodies and the course of nature, which, humanly speaking, it... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Exodus 23:27

And I will send my fear before thee ,.... What should cause fear among the nations of the land of Canaan; either the hornets mentioned in the next verse as the explanative of this; or the fame of his mighty works, which he had done for Israel in Egypt, at the Red sea, and in the wilderness; which struck the inhabitants of Canaan with such a panic, that they were ready to faint and melt away, and lost all courage, Joshua 2:9 . and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come ;... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Exodus 23:28

And I will send hornets before thee ,.... Which may be interpreted either figuratively, and so may signify the same as fear before which should fall on the Canaanites upon hearing the Israelites were coming; the stings of their consciences for their sins, terrors of mind, dreading the wrath of the God of Israel, of whom they had heard, and terrible apprehensions of ruin and destruction from the Israelites: Aben Ezra interprets it of some disease of the body, which weakens it, as the leprosy,... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Exodus 23:29

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,... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Exodus 23:30

By little and little I will drive them out from before thee ,.... Not the beasts of the field, but the inhabitants of Canaan, who were left partly to keep up the cities and towns, that they might not fall to ruin, and to till the land, that it might not be desolate; and partly to be trials and exercises to the people of Israel, and to prove whether they would serve the Lord or not. Just as the corruptions of human nature remain with the people of God when converted, for the trial and... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Exodus 23:31

And I will set thy bounds ,.... The bounds of the land of Canaan, which in process of time it should reach unto, though not at once, not until the times of David and Solomon, 2 Samuel 8:1 which bounds were as follow: from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines : the Red sea was the boundary eastward, as the sea of the Philistines, or the Mediterranean sea, was the boundary westward: and from the desert unto the river ; the desert of Shur or Arabia, towards Egypt, was the... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Exodus 23:32

Thou shalt make no covenant with them ,.... A covenant of peace, a league, a confederacy, so as to take them to be their allies and friends; but they were always to consider them as their enemies, until they had made an utter end of them; though the Gibeonites by craft and guile obtained a league of them; but the methods they took to get it show they had some knowledge of this law, that the Israelites might not, or at least would not, make any league or covenant with the inhabitants of the... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Exodus 23:33

They shall not dwell in thy land ,.... The land of Canaan, given by God for an inheritance, and now would be in the possession of the Israelites; and therefore were not to suffer the old inhabitants to dwell with them in it, at least no longer than they could help it; they were to do all they could to root them out: lest they make thee sin against me ; by their ill examples and persuasions, drawing them into idolatry, than which there is no greater sin against God, it being not only... read more

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