Numbers 33:55 - Exposition

If ye will not drive out the inhabitants. As was in fact the case ( 1:1-36 ). The warning is here given for the first time, because the danger was now near at hand, and had indeed already shown itself in the matter of the Midianitish women and children. Pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides. Natural symbols of dangerous annoyances. Possibly the thickets which fringe the Jordan supplied them with present examples. In Joshua 23:13 we have "scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes," which sounds somewhat more artificial. In 2:3 , where this warning is quoted, the figure is not expressed at all: "they shall be in your sides."