Joshua 23:12

"Else if you do at all go back, and cleave unto the remnant of these nations, even these that remain among you, and shall make marriages with them, and go in unto them, and they to you; know for a certainty that Jehovah your God will no more drive these nations out of your sight; but they shall be a snare and a trap unto you, and a scourge in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which Jehovah your God hath given you."

These verses indicate that the Promised Land was to belong to Israel only so long as the people were faithful to God. Failing in that faithfulness, God here, through Joshua, promised that Israel should "perish from off this good land." People who believe that God gave Israel a permanent title to Palestine regardless of what Israel did are grossly mistaken. God actually did dispel Israel from Palestine, and despite the fact that a remnant returned from Babylon, that was only a temporary measure that was necessary until the Messiah should be born. After the birth of Christ Israel (in the secular sense) lost all further right to Palestine, nor do they have any such right today.

Blair pointed out that, "God's continued help of Israel was contingent on Israel's faithfulness to the covenant. Apostasy would mean the turning of all the good they had ever known into terrible evil."[6]

These terrible words are an exact blueprint of what really happened to Israel. They intermarried with the pagan populations they left remaining in the land. Next, they accepted the worship of those pagan gods; even a king named his son after Baal (1 Chronicles 8:33; 9:39). In time, the true worship of God was abandoned altogether, and Israel degenerated into a condition exactly like that of the Canaanites they and displaced. In fact, Hosea (Hosea 12:7) denominates Israel as "a Canaanite." The word in our version is "trafficker," but the true meaning of it is "Canaanite!" (See Vol. 2 of my minor prophets commentary, pp. 198,199.) The result was exactly what was prophesied here: "God REMOVED them from that good land." Why? They deserved to he removed, no less than the shameful nations God had driven out before them!