Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Numbers 33:50
And the LORD spoke unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan [near] Jericho, saying,
50 56. Commands with regard to the settlement in Canaan. With the exception of Num 33:54 the passage is derived from D . In it is enjoined the destruction of the Canaanite objects of worship, a command which is peculiarly characteristic of Deuteronomic portions of the Pentateuch; cf. Exo 23:24; Exo 23:31-33; Exo 34:11-16, Deu 7:1-6; Deu 12:2 f. On the other hand Num 33:54 is an insertion by a writer of the P school. It deals with the division of the land by lot, and is expressed in the language and redundant style of P . It should be compared with Num 26:52-56.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The expulsion of the Canaanites and the destruction of their monuments of idolatry had been already enjoined (see the marginal references); and Num 33:54 is substantially a repetition from Exo. 26:53-55. But the solemn warning of Num 33:55-56 is new. A call for it had been furnished by their past transgressions in the matter of Baal-peor, and by their imperfect fulfillment, at the first, of Moses orders in the Midianite war.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Num 33:50-56
Ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you.
The expulsion of the Canaanites
I. The imperative command.
1. To utterly expel the inhabitants of Canaan.
2. To completely destroy all idolatrous objects and places.
3. To equitably divide the land.
4. The authority by which they were to do these things.
II. The solemn warning.
1. Those whom they spared would become their tormentors. Under these metaphors, says Dr. A. Clarke, the continual mischief that should be done to them, both in soul and body, by these idolaters, is set forth in a very expressive manner. What can be more vexatious than a continual goading of each side, so that the attempt to avoid the one throws the body more forcibly on the other? And what can be more distressing than a continual pricking in the eye, harassing the mind, tormenting the body, and extinguishing the sight? That which we are willing should tempt us we shall find will vex us.
2. The God whom they disobeyed would disinherit them. (W. Jones.)
The danger of allowing sin
The Israelites were now on the confines of the land of promise. So God speaks to them about the future, tells them what it was His will that they should do when they enclosed the land of promise, and what would be the consequence of disobedience. These, then, are the two points which we may consider–Israels calling, and the consequences of neglecting it.
I. Israels calling. This was to drive out all the inhabitants of the land, to dispossess them, and themselves to dwell in it. If we view this with reference to the inhabitants themselves, we must regard it as the righteous judgment of God upon them on account of their sins. But we may also regard this visitation with reference to Israel, and then it will become evident that it was necessary for their safety. The Israelites themselves were so prone to fall away from God that their being surrounded by many idolatrous and degraded nations would be sure to lead them gradually away from Him. They would soon cease to be a separate people–a people consecrated to Jehovah. That little word all is very expressive. It shows that the judgment was to be universal. It proved the greatness of Gods care for Israel. It was also the test of Israels obedience; and it was a test, we know, which they did not stand. They substituted a partial for an unreserved obedience, and drove out same, but not all, the inhabitants of the land. We find a long list of Israels defects of obedience in Jdg 1:21. Now, in this, as in so many other points, Israels calling is typical of the Christian life. In what way? We often take Canaan to be a type of heaven. Yet it is easy to see that there are many points in which Canaan was no type of heaven; and one of these evidently was that whereas in heaven there will be no sin, no enemies, no temptations, in Canaan all these existed. In this point of view, then, Canaan was not a type of heaven, but rather of the Christian life now; and to that command, Drive out all the inhabitants of the land, and dispossess them, we shall find an analogous one, descriptive of the Christian calling, Put off the old man with his deeds. There is a principle of evil, called in Scripture the old man, which comprehends sinful desires and evil habits; and this we are called to dispossess of the land. The old man is daily to be put off, the new man to be put on. The old man, though nailed to the cross, is never utterly extinct until the earthly house of our tabernacle is exchanged for the building of God, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. The new man requires to be constantly strengthened by fresh gifts of the Spirit of God. When, then, God says, Drive out all the inhabitants of the land, it has a meaning for the Christian; and its meaning virtually is, Mortify the old man, crucify the whole body of sin. Do not spare any sin. Let all be resisted and overcome. Now, the old man is in no sense the same in every Christian. It is the principle of sin, the principle of self. In whatever heart it is, its nature is the same; but in other aspects it is not always the same–for instance, it is not always the same in its power. In one Christian it prevails much, in another more believing and watchful heart it is kept under control. Then, again, it is made up of different elements, and the elements which constitute it are not always the same in their proportions. Thus, the chief element in one case will be pride, in another self-righteousness, in another hypocrisy, in another vanity, in another temper, in another impurity. Sometimes two will appear together in intimate alliance, and those not unfrequently two very opposite evils. In endeavouring, then, to carry out the injunction, Drive out all the inhabitants of the land, it is important, on the one hand, that we should be aware of the element of the old man which is most prominent in it; and, on the other, that we should never forget that our besetting sin is not the only evil against which we have to contend, but against the old man as a whole.
II. The consequences of neglecting this calling. We see it in Israel. They did not fulfil the command, Drive out all the inhabitants of the land. Most of the tribes allowed some to remain, whom they brought under tribute; in fact, with whom they made a league. The consequence was that those few inhabitants, though not powerful, caused them constant trouble; sometimes they seized an opportunity to attack them again; still oftener they proved a snare to them by leading them into sin, so that in the expressive language of Scripture they were pricks in their eyes, and thorns in their sides. Thus Israels sin was made their punishment. They spared those whom they ought not to have spared, and they suffered terribly in consequence. All this bears upon the Christians life. There is a deep mystery in the spiritual life. How wonderful it is that there should be two principles–two natures in perpetual warfare with each other in the Christians heart–the one of God, the product of the Spirit, the other of Satan, the result of the Fall; the one the ally of God, holding communion with Him, the other allied with the powers of darkness, an enemy in the camp ever ready to open the gates! It seems to be Gods purpose not to put His people at once and for ever beyond the reach of temptation, but to exercise their faith and patience, and to show the power of that Divine principle which His own grace has put into their hearts. Do not, then, be cast down when you are deeply and painfully conscious of this inward conflict. Take it as Gods appointment. Remember that it is to prove you, and that God proves you in mercy, to make you more than conqueror. But there is another point of view in which we must look at this. There are many cases in which this painful severity of conflict is owing, in great measure, to previous unfaithfulness to God. Suppose a person to have indulged in some sinful habit at any period of his life; it may be a want of truth, or impurity, or in any other sin, though the power of that sin will be broken by the entrance of the Spirit of God into the heart, yet it will cast its shadow long after it. The habitual sins of the unrenewed man are the snares and temptations of the renewed man. There is much of practical warning in this solemn truth. If ever you are tempted to indulge any sinful thought in your heart, remember that that indulgence will certainly find you out again. God may, in mercy, forgive it; but if He does so that act of unfaithfulness will bring bitterness into the soul, will prepare the way for new conflicts and temptations. We should cast ourselves wholly on Jesus for the forgiveness of all past and present sins, and for strength to drive out every inhabitant of the land–the old man, with all his deceitful lusts. (G. Wagner.)
Thoroughness
The subject is evidently thoroughness. Do the work completely–root and branch, in and out, so that there may be no mistake as to earnestness–and the result shall be security, peace, contentment; do the work partially–half and half, perfunctorily–and the end shall be disappointment, vexation, and ruin. Causes have effects; work is followed by consequences. Do not suppose that you can turn away the law of causation and consequence. Things are settled and decreed before you begin the work. There is no cloud upon the covenant, no ambiguity in its terms. He is faithful who hath promised–faithful to give blessing and faithful to inflict penalty. There was so much to be undone in the Canaan that was promised. It is this negative work which tries our patience and puts our faith to severe tests. We meet it everywhere. The colonist has to subdue the country, take down much that is already put up, root out the trees, destroy the beasts of prey, and do much that is of a merely negative kind, before he begins to sow corn, to reap harvests, and to build a secure homestead. This is the case in all the relations of life. The weed is not the green thing on the surface; that is only the signal that the weed is underneath. The work that has to be done is a work of eradication. The weed must be torn up by its every fibre. The theory of the Bible is that it has to encounter a human nature that is altogether wrong. It is not our business, at this point, to ask how far that theory is true. The Bible itself proceeds upon the assumption that All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; There is none righteous, no, not one; God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions; there is none that doeth good, no, not one; the whole head and the whole heart are not righteous or true before God. That being the theory of the Bible, see what it proposes to do. What iconoclasm it must first accomplish! How it must swing its terrific arms in the temples of our idolatry and in the whole circuit of our life, breaking, destroying, burning, casting out, overturning, overturning! What is it doing? It is preparing; it is doing the work of a pioneer; it is uttering the voice of a herald. Mark the audacity of the book! It speaks no flattering word, never uncovers before any man, bids every man go wash and be clean. A book coming before society with so bold a proposition must expect to be encountered with resolute obstinacy. If we suppose that we are ready-made to the hand of God, to be turned in any direction He is pleased to adopt, we begin upon a false basis; our theory is wrong, and our conception will lead us to proportionate disappointment. God has to do with a fallen intelligence, an apostate heart, a selfish will; and therefore He undertakes much negative work before He can begin constructive processes. What a temptation there is, however, to reserve something. Point to one instance in all the Biblical history in which a man actually and perfectly accomplished the Divine will in this matter of destruction. A good deal of destruction was accomplished, unquestionably; but was there nothing left? What meaneth, then, this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? The temptation to reserve something is very strong. In many a life great improvement takes place without eradication being perfected. We are not called in the Bible merely to make great improvement. That is what we have been trying to do by our own strength and wit, and which we have always failed in doing. Nowhere do the sacred writers encourage us to make considerable advance upon our old selves. The exhortation of the Bible is vital. Suppose a man should have been addicted to the meanest of all vices–the vice of lying, the vice that God can hardly cure–suppose such a man should lie less, is be less a liar? Suppose he should cease the vulgarity of falsehood and betake himself to the refinement of deceit, has he improved? Bather, he has aggravated the first offence–multiplied by infinite aggravations the conditions which first constituted his character. So we are not called to great improvements, to marvellous changes of a superficial kind; we are called to newness of birth, regeneration, the washing of the Holy Ghost, the renewal the recreation of the inner man. If not, punishments will come. If you will not do this, 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; they will tease you, excite you, irritate you; they will watch for the moments of your weakness, and tempt you into apostasy. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Unexpelled sin a thorn in the side
Every one can trace in his own life how one unconquered sin becomes a thorn in the side. For ours also is commonly but a half-completed conquest. We have not made war upon our sin in its fastnesses and breeding-places, in the lurking-places of thought and of our habitual tone. We did not believe that happy was he who dashed the little ones against the stones; we did not grapple and put an end to the young things that grow up to be strong and subduing sins. We were not remorseless, did not rouse ourselves to take stern and extreme measures. But it is not enough to let sin alone so long as it does not violently molest us. If we know our own hearts at all, we know that sin may be lodging in them, and gathering strength, without making incursions that visibly devastate the life. And so it has come true in our experience that God has not driven out what we would not rouse ourselves to drive out, and our sin has become a thorn in our side. Again and again that thing we would not slay makes us cry out before God that life is not worth having if it is to be life with this sin. We may learn to wear the thorn under our garment, and go about smiling, as if there were not terrible havoc being made of our peace with God; we may wear it as the ascetic wears his spiked girdle under his frock; but it is there, reminding us by pain and misery and weakness of our slackness in cleansing our life. One sin thus excepted and overlooked cleaves to us and makes itself felt in all our life: not a day passes but something occurs to give it occasion; it is a thorn in our flesh, carried with us into all companies, cleaving to us at all times; our one inseparable; exasperating, saddening, heart-breaking in its pertinacity. (Marcus Dods, D. D.)
.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
50-53. ye shall drive out all theinhabitants of the land from before younot, however, byexpulsion, but extermination (De7:1).
and destroy all theirpicturesobelisks for idolatrous worship (see on Le26:1).
and destroy all their moltenimages, and quite pluck down all their high placesby metonymyfor all their groves and altars, and materials of worship on the topsof hills.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the Lord spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan, near Jericho,….
[See comments on Nu 33:48],
[See comments on Nu 22:1],
saying; as follows.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
These instructions, with which the eyes of the Israelites were directed to the end of all their wandering, viz., the possession of the promised land, are arranged in two sections by longer introductory formulas (Num 33:50 and Num 35:1). The former contains the divine commands ( a) with regard to the extermination of the Canaanites and their idolatry, and the division of the land among the tribes of Israel (Num 33:50-56); ( b) concerning the boundaries of Canaan (Num 34:1-15); ( c) concerning the men who were to divide the land (Num 34:16-29). The second contains commands ( a) respecting the towns to be given up to the Levites (Num 35:1-8); ( b) as to the setting apart of cities of refuge for unintentional manslayers, and the course to be adopted in relation to such manslayers (Num 35:9-34); and ( c) a law concerning the marrying of heiresses within their own tribes (Num 36:1-13). – The careful dovetailing of all these legal regulations by separate introductory formulas, is a distinct proof that the section Num 33:50-56 is not to be regarded, as Baumgarten, Knobel, and others suppose, in accordance with the traditional division of the chapters, as an appendix or admonitory conclusion to the list of stations, but as the general legal foundation for the more minute instructions in Num 34-36.
Num 33:50-56 Command to Exterminate the Canaanites, and Divide their Land among the Families of Israel.
Num 33:51-53 When the Israelites passed through the Jordan into the land of Canaan, they were to exterminate all the inhabitants of the land, and to destroy all the memorials of their idolatry; to take possession of the land and well therein, for Jehovah had given it to them for a possession. , to take possession of (Num 33:53, etc.), then to drive out of their possession, to exterminate (Num 33:52; cf. Num 14:12, etc.). On Num 33:52, see Exo 34:13. , an idol of stone (cf. Lev 26:1). , idols cast from brass. Massecah, see at Exo 32:4. Bamoth, altars of the Canaanites upon high places (see Lev 26:30).
Num 33:54-56 The command to divide the land by lot among the families is partly a verbal repetition of Num 26:53-56. : literally, “into that, whither the lot comes out to him, shall be to him” (i.e., to each family); in other words, it is to receive that portion of land to which the lot that comes out of the urn shall point it. “According to the tribes of your fathers:” see at Num 26:55. – The command closes in Num 33:55, Num 33:56, with the threat, that if they did not exterminate the Canaanites, not only would such as were left become “thorns in their eyes and stings in their sides,” i.e., inflict the most painful injuries upon them, and make war upon them in the land; but Jehovah would also do the very same things to the Israelites that He had intended to do to the Canaanites, i.e., drive them out of the land and destroy them. This threat is repeated by Joshua in his last address to the assembled congregation (Jos 23:13).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Canaanites Doomed. | B. C. 1452. |
50 And the LORD spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying, 51 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; 52 Then 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: 53 And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it. 54 And 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. 55 But 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. 56 Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them.
While the children of Israel were in the wilderness their total separation from all other people kept them out of the way of temptation to idolatry, and perhaps this was one thing intended by their long confinement in the wilderness, that thereby the idols of Egypt might be forgotten, and the people aired (as it were) and purified from that infection, and the generation that entered Canaan might be such as never knew those depths of Satan. But now that they were to pass over Jordan they were entering again into that temptation, and therefore, 1. They are here strictly charged utterly to destroy all remnants of idolatry. They must not only drive out the inhabitants of the land, that they may possess their country, but they must deface all their idolatrous pictures and images, and pull down all their high places, v. 52. They must not preserve any of them, no, not as monuments of antiquity to gratify the curious, nor as ornaments of their houses, nor toys for their children to play with, but they must destroy all, both in token of their abhorrence and detestation of idolatry and to prevent their being tempted to worship those images, and the false gods represented by them, or to worship the God of Israel by such images or representations. 2. They were assured that, if they did so, God would by degrees put them in full possession of the land of promise, Num 33:53; Num 33:54. If they would keep themselves pure from the idols of Canaan, God would enrich them with the wealth of Canaan. Learn not their way, and then fear not their power. 3. They were threatened that, if they spared either the idols or the idolaters, they should be beaten with their own rod and their sin would certainly be their punishment. (1.) They would foster snakes in their own bosoms, v. 55. The remnant of the Canaanites, if they made any league with them, though it were but a cessation of arms, would be pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides, that is, they would be upon all occasions vexatious to them, insulting them, robbing them, and, to the utmost of their power, making mischief among them. We must expect trouble and affliction from that, whatever it is, which we sinfully indulge; that which we are willing should tempt us we shall find will vex us. (2.) The righteous God would turn that wheel upon the Israelites which was to have crushed the Canaanites: I shall do to you as I thought to do unto them, v. 56. It was intended that the Canaanites should be dispossessed; but if the Israelites fell in with them, and learned their way, they should be dispossessed, for God’s displeasure would justly be greater against them than against the Canaanites themselves. Let us hear this, and fear. If we do not drive sin out, sin will drive us out; if we be not the death of our lusts, our lusts will be the death of our souls.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Verses 50-56:
The text begins the final section of the Book of Numbers, this being Moses’ final instructions to Israel’s new generation just prior to his death.
This text is a repetition of the earlier instructions regarding Israel’s relationship with the inhabitants of Canaan, Ex 23:23-33; 34:11-17.
“Drive out,” yarash, “dispossess,” so translated in verse 53.
“Pictures,” maskith, “imagery, imagination,” a stone shaped into a likeness of a human, Le 26:1.
“Molten images,” tselem massekah, see Ex 32:4-17.
“Quite pluck down,” literally, “completely demolish.”
“High places,” shrines and temples of pagan deities erected on the hilltops or mountains.
The Canaanites’ immorality and idolatry polluted the Land, and for this reason God dispossessed them. He then deeded the Land to His people Israel.
The Land was to be equitably divided among the tribes, see Nu 26:52-56. Israel was to expel the Canaanites from the Land. Jehovah promised to help them in this. But if they failed to do so, the natives would become a snare to them.
“Pricks,” sek, a slender-pointed thorn. Sept. kentron.
“Thorns,” tseninim, a large thorn, see Jos 23:13.
God promises blessings for obedience, and judgment and chastening for disobedience.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
50. And the Lord spake unto Moses. The end and design of God in willing that these nations should be expelled, I have elsewhere explained, (226) viz, lest they should adulterate the pure worship of God by their admixtures, should corrupt the people by their bad examples, and thus be pollutions to the Holy Land. But Moses now refers to another point, for, when about to speak of the division of the land, he begins by saying that it must be emptied of its inhabitants, that its free and full enjoyment may remain for the children of Israel. We must remark the connection here, for else this passage would have been a supplement of the First Commandment, to which I have indeed appended the latter part of the verse: but, since God declares connectedly, “Ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein, for I have given you the land to possess it,” it would have been absurd that one clause should be disjoined from the other.
(226) See ante, vol. 2: p. 397, etc.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
VI. FINAL INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING THE SETTLEMENT OF CANAAN (Num. 33:50-56; Numbers 34; Numbers 35; Numbers 36)
A. ON CLEARING THE LAND (Num. 33:50-56)
TEXT
Num. 33:50. And the Lord spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying, 51. Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; 52. Then 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: 53. And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it. 54. And 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 mans inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth: according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit. 55. But 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 be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell. 56. Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them.
PARAPHRASE
Num. 33:50. Then the Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab near the Jordan opposite Jericho, saying, 51. Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, When you cross over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 52, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their carved stones, and destroy all their molten images, and devastate all their high places. 53. You shall take possession of the land and live in it, for I have given the land unto you to possess it. 54. And you shall inherit the land by lot according to your families; to the larger you shall give the greater inheritance; and to the smaller you shall give the smaller inheritance. Wherever the lot falls to anyone, it shall be his. You shall inherit according to the families of your fathers. 55. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come about that those whom you allow to remain will become as thorns in your eyes and as pins in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land in which you live. 56. And it shall happen that as I plan to do to them, I shall do to you.
COMMENTARY
Here quite briefly, but in details which are certainly adequate, the children of Israel are told precisely what to do when they enter into the land of Canaan: first, they are to drive out all the inhabitants; second, every evidence of their pagan worship, idols, symbols, stones, and sites of desecration, are to be totally destroyed; third, they are to possess and settle in the entire land outlined unto them; and, finally, they are to determine by lot the area to which each tribe is to be assigned, with the division generally awarding larger territories to larger tribes, and smaller territories to smaller tribes. As a corollary, God informs His people of the dire consequences of anything less than total obedience: any of the residents who are left in the land will become a source of irritation and spiritual disruption; and, the Lord will bring upon Israel the same fate as should have come upon the Canaanites.
Two matters are established in Gods proclamation that the people of Canaan are to be driven from the land in order that Israel might occupy it. God is at the same time pronouncing judgment upon a polytheistic, decadent and immoral people; and, He is making provision to establish a nation whose laws and conduct He may approve. All of this is an essential link in the chain of promise-fulfillment made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and his words to Moses are tantamount to saying, This is your land, just as I have promised. It shall be the land of your people as long as they are worthy of it. But should they become like the other nations, in idolatry and in conduct, they shall forfeit any claims whatsoever, and shall suffer the same end as those who held it before their coming.
Itemized as those factors which are especially offensive to the Lord are the pictures, or, more accurately, their carved stone images; the molten images, or images which have been cast or engraved of metal; and the high places or sites upon which idolatrous rites occurred, often in elevated areas. They were all to be totally demolished. No vestige of these offensive elements were to be left, lest they pollute the thoughts and corrupt the practices of Israel. It would be impossible to misunderstand the meaning of these instructions. They would either be fully carried out, or the very pledge of long standing with the patriarchs was no longer valid. Holding the land was directly associated with religious puritya factor which should never be forgotten. Failure to apprehend this principle will result in a failure to understand the dozens of associated prophecies which God would later speak through His appointed messengers. It is unfortunate that many otherwise devout and learned students of the Word of God have not given this premise to all their exegesis of the prophetic treatment of Israel, both past, present and future.
Only the unbeliever or the self-appointed expert can question the right of the Creator to declare a portion of His creation for the use of those whom He has chosen. Israel will become stewards of Canaan simply because the previous occupants were poor landlords, worshiping the created rather than the Creator. While Israel retains a faithful stewardship, the land will belong to successive generations.
As in Num. 26:53-56, division of the land by lot is commanded now, along with the provision that the sizes of the tribes are to be factors in allocation of the portions. We may well remember that the size of the allotment alone in some instances is an indecisive factor. Although the territory given Simeon was great, much of it was wasteland (the Negev area); and although the portion awarded Dan by lot was relatively small, it was a most productive and desirable location for shepherding or agriculture. It is not possible, however, to establish a rigid formula relating these factors unexceptionally to the division of the land.
During his final address to the nation, Joshua alluded to the curse God promised upon Israel if she were disobedient to his laws and plans (Jos. 23:13), and the figure is implicit in Jdg. 2:3, although it is not completely expressed. Little imagination is required to feel the impact of the thought, since anyone who has had sharp grit in an eye, or a thorn in his flesh can appreciate its meaning; and the experiences are virtually universal. Just so, Gods blessings become curses to an ungrateful and disobedient people regardless of time or place.
QUESTIONS AND RESEARCH ITEMS
614.
Outline the commandments and conditions laid out by the Lord to Israel regarding their duties in occupying the land of Canaan.
615.
How can we justify Gods command to exterminate or drive out the people who were already living in the land?
616.
What specific items were to be demolished, and why?
617.
By what basic principle would their happiness or punishment in the land be determined?
618.
Show how God was honoring His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at this time.
619.
Can we reconcile the two instructions about dividing the land by lot and awarding the larger portions to the larger tribes?
620.
What other considerations come to mind when we attempt this reconciliation?
621.
Under what later circumstances were the figures of punishment against Israel used?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
THE COMMAND TO EXTERMINATE THE CANAANITES, AND TO DISTRIBUTE THEIR LAND. Num 33:50 to Num 34:29.
52. Destroy all their pictures Literally, idols of stone, R.V., “figured stones.” Painting is the product of a more advanced civilization.
Molten images Idols cast from brass. This verse is not to be construed as a charter for universal iconoclasm. In the case of Israel, strongly inclined to idolatry, this was the only safe course.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2). The Dividing Up Of The Land That Was Set Before Them ( Num 33:50 to Num 34:29 ).
Having arrived at the plains of Moab with the land visible over the Jordan, a preliminary indication of what would be expected of them, and what they might expect to receive, was now provided for them. This will be followed in Numbers 34 by a brief description of the land and the names of those who will divide it out between them. The picture is being dangled in front of their eyes of the prize that lies before them.
Instruction Concerning Dividing Up The Land By Lot in the Future So That Each Man Has His Lot and For the Purifying of the Land ( Num 33:50-56 ).
a Introductory words of Yahweh (Num 33:50-51).
b When they enter the land they are to drive out the inhabitants of the land (Num 33:50-52).
c They are to take possession of the land (33:53).
c They are to inherit the land by lot fairly, and each is to have his ‘lot’ (Num 33:54).
b If they do not drive out the inhabitants of the land they will be a constant pain and trouble to them (Num 33:55).
a Final warning of Yahweh (Num 33:56).
There were two prongs to the requirements. One was that they were to receive the land by lot. It was theirs for the taking, and Yahweh Himself would dispose of it among them. And the second was that they must remember His word about driving out the Canaanites in their totality. The land must be purified from all the sin and idolatry that had been committed in it.
Num 33:50
‘And Yahweh spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying,’
These are triumphant words. This time when Yahweh spoke to Moses it was on the very borders of the promised land.
Num 33:51-52
“ Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places.”
Their solemn duty on possessing the land is again stressed. They must drive out all the inhabitants of the land, and must destroy all tokens of idolatry and places for their worship (compare Num 32:21; Exo 23:24-33; Exo 34:10-14; Deu 7:2; Deu 7:5 and often). The land had to be cleansed by the driving out or destruction of all that offended Yahweh, for the iniquity of these nations had now reached overflowing (compare Gen 15:16).
Num 33:53
“ And you shall take possession of the land, and dwell in it; for I have given to you the land that you might possess it.”
And on the positive side they themselves were to possess it and dwell in it, to live in its cities and farm its fields. For Yahweh was giving it to them for this purpose. This was the dream for which they would fight.
Num 33:54
“ And you shall inherit the land by lot according to your families; to the more you shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer you shall give the less inheritance. Wherever the lot falls to any man, that shall be his; according to the tribes of your fathers shall you inherit.”
And when they did inherit the land it was to be by lot, which would indicate Yahweh’s will in its disposal, and they were to do it by and in accordance with their clans. The many would receive much, the fewer less. This was their inheritance from Yahweh. All was to be by lot and not by man’s devising. Each man would receive what the lot indicated. And all would receive within their tribes, and dependent on their size.
Num 33:55
“ But if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then will those whom you allow to remain of them be as pricks in your eyes, and as thorns in your sides, and they will vex you in the land in which you dwell.”
But if they failed to drive out the inhabitants of the land, those inhabitants would remain, ever to be to them a sore in their eyes, thorns in their sides, a vexation. (compare Jos 23:12-13; Jdg 2:3; Psa 106:34; Psa 106:36). It would permanently mar the enjoyment of their dwelling in the land.
Note the vivid picture. They would be well aware from their days of wandering of the prickly bushes that could tear at the eyes, and the thorns that could pierce their sides. This was not something that they would want to find in the new land.
Num 33:56
“ And it will come about, that, as I thought to do to them, so will I do to you.”
And even more, if they neglect to purify the land from idolatry Yahweh Himself will do to Israel what He had thought to do to those nations. They would come to be in such a state that He would drive them out, and destroy their places of worship. And they would have brought it all on themselves. This is the basis of all the warnings and prophecies elsewhere, see especially Lev 26:14-39; Deu 28:15-68.
There is a reminder here for us that as we too go forward with God we must remove from our lives all that could hinder our forward march, so that we might please Him Who has chosen us to be soldiers (2Ti 2:4-5). We too must set aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us (Heb 12:1). We too must avoid what attacks the eye (Mat 5:29; Mat 6:23; Mat 18:9) and the thorns that seek to tear at us (1Ti 6:9)
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Command to Exterminate the Inhabitants of Canaan
v. 50. And the Lord spake unto Moses in the Plains of Moab by Jordan, near Jericho, saying, v. 51. Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan, v. 52. then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, v. 53. and ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, v. 54. And ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families, v. 55. But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, v. 56. Moreover, it shall come to pass that I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Num 33:50-52. The Lord spakeye shall drive out i.e. Entirely root out and destroy the inhabitants, for their idolatry and abominable vices, Exo 23:33. Deu 20:16; Deu 20:20. As they were shortly to pass into the promised land, God commands Moses to give the Israelites a general but strict notice, how they should treat the inhabitants of that land, as the instruments of his just providence in the punishment of their long and incurable course of wickedness; and for preventing themselves from being tainted and misled, by their vicious example, into any superstitious practices. See this command, delivered by Moses, Deu 7:1; Deu 7:26. Respecting the word pictures, and their images and high places, see Lev 1:17 and Exo 23:24.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
ELEVENTH SECTION
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 8pictures, 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 9among your families; and to the more ye shall 10give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall 11give the less inheritance: every mans 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. 1256Moreover 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 Israels 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.
Footnotes:
[8]statues (stones with imagesStier, De Wette).
[9]according to.
[10]Heb. multiply his inheritance.
[11]Heb. diminish his inheritance.
[12]And.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
It is worthy our closest observation, how frequently in the sacred word, those precepts of totally destroying every vestige of the enemy, is mentioned. And the reason is told us; GOD is jealous of his honour-jealous of the affections of his people. And when we call to mind that an everlasting and irreconcilable opposition subsists between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, the whole is explained. Deu 7:25-26 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Thoroughness
Num 33:50-56
The subject is evidently thoroughness. Do the work completely root and branch, in and out, so that there may be no mistake as to earnestness; and the result shall be security, peace, contentment; Do the work partially half and half, perfunctorily; and the end shall be disappointment, vexation, and ruin. Causes have effects; work is followed by consequences. Do not suppose that you can turn away the law of causation and consequence. Things are settled and decreed before you begin the work. There is no cloud upon the covenant, no ambiguity in its terms. He is faithful who hath promised faithful to give blessing, and faithful to inflict penalty. Faithfulness in God is not a one-sided quality or virtue. Do not fear to call God “Judge.” We mistake and misapply the term when we think of it only in its vengeful aspect. To “judge” is to do right. God will “judge the fatherless and the widow,” God will “judge” every worker. He will come into the Canaan which he has appointed to us, and see whether we have done the work thoroughly or only partially; if thoroughly, Canaan will be as heaven; if partially and selfishly, then the very land of promise shall become the land of disappointment. It is well the words were spoken before the work began. There is no after-thought with God. Hell is not a recent invention of Omnipotence: it is as old as right and wrong. Let us have no affectation of surprise, no falling-back as from uncalculated violence; the covenant is written in plain ink, uttered in distinct terms so written, so uttered, that the wayfaring man need not err.
There was so much to be undone in the Canaan that was promised. It is this negative work which tries our patience, and puts our faith to severe tests. We meet it everywhere. The colonist has to subdue the country, take down much that is already put up, root out the trees, destroy the beasts of prey, and do much that is of a merely negative kind, before he begins to sow corn, to reap harvests, and to build a secure homestead. This is the case in all the relations of life. The weed is not the green thing on the surface; that is only the signal that the weed is underneath. The work that has to be done is a work of eradication. The weed must be torn up by its every fibre. We are apt to lop off the top, and think we have completed the work of destruction. We must learn the meaning of the word eradication the getting out of the root, the sinking right down to the very farthest point of residence, and then having no pity, but pulling out the weed, not for the sake of destruction, but to make room for a flower that shall please the very vision of God. But the colonist is a character of whom we know little. The illustration by being so remote does not immediately touch our life; but an illustration can be drawn from our own experience and conduct. In the work of education, for example, how much has to be undone! When the first thing the teacher has to do is to destroy a man’s supposed wisdom, he encounters the most obstinate hostility of the man. The student comes with lines that have pleased him, with conclusions which he thinks established, and with processes of accomplishing results which he regards as perfect. Solemn is the work of the teacher, even to pathos and tears, when the first thing he has to do with the young man is to tell him that he cannot speak his mother-tongue. At home he was quite an idol in the family; they considered him a paragon; they called upon him to recite his poems and to display his talents, and he answered the challenge in gay response; and now some learned chief in the temple of wisdom tells him that he does not know how to utter the alphabet of his mother-tongue; he battles with him over the very first letter: he will not have it so pronounced but quite otherwise; he will have the alphabet reconstructed as to tone, colour, fire; and, in the end, he who thought himself so excellent in speech will deliver himself in a tongue which will be foreign to those at home. This holds good in nearly every department of education. There is so much to be undone: so many prejudices have to be conquered, so many evil habits have to be eradicated, like the weed we would not spare; so that, at the end of a few months, when idolatrous friends ask how the young student is advancing, they find that he is actually worse at the end of six months than he was when he went to be taught. So he is, in a certain sense. But we must not punctuate processes by our impatience: we must await the issue; and when the educator says, “It is finished,” we may pronounce the word of judgment.
The theory of the Bible is that it has to encounter a human nature that is altogether wrong. It is not our business, at this point, to ask how far that theory is true. The Bible itself proceeds upon the assumption that “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way;” “There is none righteous, no, not one;” “God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions;” there is none that doeth good, no, not one; the whole head and the whole heart are not righteous or true before God. That being the theory of the Bible, see what it proposes to do. What iconoclasm it must first accomplish! How it must swing its terrific arms in the temples of our idolatry and in the whole circuit of our life, breaking, destroying, burning, casting out, overturning, overturning! What is it doing? It is preparing; it is doing the work of a pioneer; it is uttering the voice of a herald. Mark the audacity of the Book! It speaks no flattering word, never uncovers before any man, bids every man go wash and be clean. A book coming before society with so bold a proposition must expect to be encountered with resolute obstinacy. If we suppose we are ready-made to the hand of God, to be turned in any direction he is pleased to adopt, we begin upon a false basis; our theory is wrong, and our conception will lead us to proportionate disappointment. God has to do with a fallen intelligence; an apostate heart, a selfish will; and, therefore, he undertakes much negative work before he can begin constructive processes What a temptation there is, however, to reserve something. Point to one instance in all the Biblical history in which a man actually and perfectly accomplished the divine will in this matter of destruction. A good deal of destruction was accomplished, unquestionably; but was there nothing left? “What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” The temptation to reserve something is very strong. Take it as a matter of old companionship. It does seem to be ruthless to cut off the old comrades as with the blow of a sword. They do not understand the process of excision; they say, We can still be friends; you have changed your theological convictions and your religious standpoint: you attend church, you pay respect to the altar, you read the Bible with a new attentiveness, let it all be granted; but surely there is neutral ground: there are occupations that are not directly touched by the religious sanctities; surely we need not wholly separate one from another, as if we had never seen each other’s face? Such a plea is not without tenderness: there is a touch of humanity in it; but to the man who is earnestly religious before God there is no neutral ground, there is no secular occupation, there is no non-religious relation; the dew of the heavenly baptism has fallen upon all life, all duty, all suffering. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” We cannot clutch time with one hand and eternity with the other, in any sense of dividing them into secular and religious; we cannot serve God and Mammon. Then take the thought in relation to old places, where we used to spend the happy evening, where the recreation was innocent and, in a sense, helpful, reinvigorating jaded faculties, and giving a new start to weary or exhausted impulses. Why not look in just once more, or now and then, say, annually, on particular occasions, when the men are at their best and the institution is in state? It will look friendly; in fact, we may do good by some such arrangement, because we shall show that we are not Pharisees and pedants; we have not betaken ourselves to a monastic life, but we can return to old places and old associations, and breathe upon them a new spirit. The reasoning is specious: there is no doubt about its plausibility; but take care how you carry a naked candle into a high wind; take care lest the battle should go the other way. It is dangerous for immature experience to expose itself to rooted prejudices and established habits. There is a time in the growth of some lives when a loud laugh may blow out the trembling light of a young profession. Our language, therefore, must be that of caution; the exhortation, charged with tenderness, must begin with the words, “My son,” and flow out in most sacred and persuasive emotion. It is not enough to adjure, to hurl the bolt of avenging judgment: we must wrestle and reason and pray.
The words of the text are complete in their force and range. In many a life, great improvement takes place without eradication being perfected. We are not called in the Bible merely to make great improvement. That is what we have been trying to do by our own strength and wit, and which we have always failed in doing. Nowhere do the sacred writers encourage us to make considerable advance upon our old selves. The exhortation of the Bible is vital. Suppose a man should have been addicted to the meanest of all vices the vice of lying, the vice that God can hardly cure, that last deep dye that the blood of God’s own Christ’s heart can hardly get at, that defies the very detergents of heaven; suppose such a man should lie less, is he less a liar? Suppose he should cease the vulgarity of falsehood and betake himself to the refinement of deceit, has he improved? Rather, he has aggravated the first offence multiplied by infinite aggravations the conditions which first constituted his character. Suppose he should neither lie nor deceive on any great scale, but should betake himself to the act of speaking ambiguously that is to say, using words in two senses, meaning the hearer to accept the words in one sense, whilst he construes them in another; he then becomes a verbal trickster, a conjurer in speech; he has mental reservations; he has a secret or esoteric backway by which he interprets to his own conscience the language which he uses in public and which he intends to be construed by public lexicography. Has he improved? He has gone to a deeper depth of evil. The vulgar criminal may be hopefully encountered; but the man who has twisted language, coloured and flushed with new significance terms which ought to have been pure in their meaning and direct in their intent; the man who trifles with the conscience and intelligence of his fellow-creatures, and does so in cold blood, is no black criminal: he is a skilled artist in the devil’s pay, and so far in that the divine finger can hardly touch his supposed security. So, we are not called to great improvements, to marvellous changes of a superficial kind: we are called to newness of birth, regeneration, the washing of the Holy Ghost, the renewal the recreation of the inner man. “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” There is a great work of destruction to be done which we dare not undertake. You can never reason down many of the institutions of Christian countries which are at this moment mocking the sanctuary, and secretly laughing with jeers and bitterest sarcasm at Christianity. We must use force in relation to some institutions not the force of the arm, which is the poorest of all strength, but the force of reasoned law, righteous legislation, laws made at the altar and sanctified by the very spirit of prayer. There are institutions in every nominally Christian city that can burn up any number of tracts, blow away any force of eloquence, turn aside any dart of argument. Nothing can touch them but the mighty arm of rational that is to say, intelligent and righteous legislation.
Thoroughness gives confidence in all things. Take it in the matter of language. How many men know just enough of any language not to dare to speak it! How many persons know the first syllables of a word, but dare not commit themselves to a precise termination! The grammar lies where the sting lies, at the tail of the word. So, how we huddle up our terminations, broaden, or sharpen, or blur the final vowels, so that men may not know whether we have used the one vowel or the other, coming out with tremendous emphasis on the syllables about which there is no doubt. Thoroughness gives confidence. The man who understands the language in and out, through and through, speaks off-handedly, freely, with dignified carelessness; he knows that he is fully master of the language, and can speak it with a master’s ease. That is true in theology. If we do not believe our theology, we cannot preach it; if we do not believe the Gospel, we can only preach about the Gospel, make complimentary references to it, set it in a very dignified place in the lyceum of intellect; but knowing it, we breathe it like a great healing, purifying wind over the whole earth, saying, “One thing I know: once I was blind, now I see.” Where are the Pharisees that can frighten us, or the critics that can displace our crown? Do not go beyond your own knowledge; keep strictly within the line of experience and living testimony; and then you will be Herculean in strength, Job-like in patience, Paul-like in heroism and courage.
If not, punishments will come. If you will not do this, “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;” they will tease you, excite you, irritate you; they will watch for the moments of your weakness, and tempt you into apostasy. What keen eyes the spared enemies have! Looking upon our life, they say, Now a malign suggestion might be effected try it; behold, he halts, Now speak to him, and tell him that just near at hand is a place to which he may resort for the recruiting of his strength; listen! the old emphasis has gone out of his voice: he does not speak as he used to speak: his convictions are halting, faltering, now say unto him, but gently, “Where is thy God?” Take him up to an exceeding high mountain: show what he might be under given conditions. Lift him to the pinnacle of the temple, and show that it is possible for a man to hold churches and temples under his feet to stand above them and to be more than they; but speak it quietly, softly, as if you had his interest at heart, and, who knows? you may prevail. Has it, then, come to a battle of skill against skill, faculty against faculty? Nothing of the kind. On the Christian side it comes to a question of character. How is that character created and established? By the Spirit of the living God. We cannot explain the process. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” If we are to meet temptation by cleverness, it is impossible for any cleverness to rival the ingenuity of the devil; whenever it was a battle of words, the devil won; he is mighty in conversation, he is most excellent in speech. We can only oppose him by the higher Spirit the divine Spirit, living in the heart, breathing in the soul, established in the character; so that when he cometh, he findeth nothing in us, altar everywhere, prayer in all the spirit, righteousness at the foundations, and the whole man burning with the presence of the unconsuming fire. When Satan cometh, may he have nothing in us! Let us begin the work of destruction tear the enemy out, cut him in pieces, and never repeat the habit. Do not say you will touch with the tips of your fingers the Old Canaanitish idols and temptations: say, Lord of heaven and earth, make me a sword, and give me an arm to wield it; may I go forth as thy warrior, sparing nothing that is impure and unlike thyself. Do not attempt to build a Christian character upon rotten foundations. That is a miracle you cannot accomplish. Do not suppose you can heap up a great pile of noble theological dogmas upon rottenness and bog. The work is foundation work, vital work, work in the heart; and until that negative, iconoclastic work is done, we cannot begin to build. Overturn! overturn! overturn! then He will come whose right it is.
Selected Note
The Israelites were delivered from Egypt by Moses, in order that they might take possession of the land which God had promised to their fathers. This country was then inhabited by the descendants of Canaan, who were divided into six or seven distinct nations. These nations the Israelites were commanded to dispossess and utterly to destroy. The destruction, however, was not to be accomplished at once. The promise on the part of God was that he would “put out those nations by little and little,” and the command to the Israelites corresponded with it; the reason given being, “lest the beast of the field increase upon thee.”
The destructive war commenced with an attack on the Israelites, by Arad, king of the Canaanites, which issued in the destruction of several cities in the extreme south of Palestine, to which the name of Hormah was given ( Num 21:1-3 ). The Israelites, however, did not follow up this victory, which was simply the consequence of an unprovoked assault on them; but, turning back, and compassing the land of Edom, they attempted to pass through the country on the other side of the Jordan, inhabited by a tribe of the Amorites. Their passage being refused, and an attack made on them by Sihon, king of the Amorites, they not only forced their way through his land, but destroyed its inhabitants, and proceeding onwards toward the adjoining kingdom of Bashan, they in like manner destroyed the inhabitants of that district, and slew Og, their king, who was the last of the Rephaim, or giants. The tract of which they thus became possessed was subsequently allotted to the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
Prayer
Almighty God, thou hast set us in our places, and we would not change them but at thy bidding. We want to sit, when we are ambitious and left to our vain selves, one on the right hand and the other on the left; but now, being taught of the Spirit and being chastened by daily providence and touched into new sacredness of service and hope by grace divine, we are willing to go as thou dost point the way, to run, to stand, to serve, to wait; only give us some foothold within the living circle. Thou wilt not thrust us out “into the darkness immeasurable. God is light, God is love; his eyes are full of tears; his hands are loaded with gifts for men. Comfort us with these words, for our hearts sometimes give way, and we think the lamp of our hope is going quite out, and we never can light it again. We know we are wayward, for we are of the earth: we are rooted in the soil; we carry the clay in our whole form, and every feature is charged with the dullness of the dust. Yet we carry something more: we are filled with the presence of God: we have the divine treasure in an earthen vessel, and the divine treasure burns through the crust and makes it glow with immortal flame. We are made in the image and likeness of God. Sometimes we are all but in heaven: now and again the life-tide rises within us so high that it plashes against the very throne of God; sometimes we say we cannot be kept out of the inner places much longer. Then we come down again to darkness, and strife, and disappointment, and weariness; but, though we may sigh our impatience, we cannot utter our unbelief, for our hearts are still saying, each in its own way, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. So, we are still on the right side: our life is still lifted up in prayer, our souls are not without hope. So, we can bear the jeer and folly of frivolous men; they know not what they say, and they say it for no purpose. We would be found in the tabernacle, in the holy place just on the borderland that hardly separates earth from heaven; and, being there, we catch occasional warmth and occasional glimpses of better things, and we hear voices that touch our inmost spirit by their subtle music; and we hope, nor spend our hope in unprofitable sentiment, but receive it as an inspiration, and return to heal the sick and help the blind across a busy thoroughfare, and teach ignorance its alphabet, and break bread to the hungry; this is the proof of our hope; were it a merely coloured vapour, we should cast it away, but it is an inspiration: it rouses us to endeavour, it compels us to transfer ourselves into other people, and to carry, where we may, part, at least, of their heavy burdens. We bless thee for this Christian hope; it lives when all things fail; it goes upstairs with us when we go for the last time never to come down again until we are borne out by devout men; it is the Christian’s inheritance, his immediate and blessed paradise. Help us all according to our need. Speak to the aged pilgrim, and say the last mile is the very sunniest of all the road quite an eventide blessing resting upon it, a tenderness of light, a kind of opening door in the sky, showing how grand the prospect is. Help the young to measure their days, count them and allot them, setting them down in columns and adding them up, and dividing them wisely, to sec which is day and which is night, which is the young time, with all its blood, and which is the old time when the blood becomes pale and languid; and then let them set themselves to work out, like wise economists and devotees of God, the whole purpose of life’s little day. As for the prodigal, we send after him; our letters are left unanswered perhaps our prayers may be responded to. We will still think and love and hope, not knowing but the next knock on the door may be the announcement of return. Comfort the sick; they are very ailing and frail and all but breathless; may we give their looks large interpretations of love: may we spare them the trouble of speaking by knowing in looking at them just what they want; for we, too, shall be sick, and must be waited on. The Lord’s blessing be upon all families: unite them in the holy fear of God; upon all business: purify it from all evil and meanness, and pitiable selfishness. Look upon all kinds of honest life, giving them force and breadth, daily reinvigoration and continual blessing.
We speak our prayer in the sweet name of Jesus, crucified once, crowned for evermore. He died for us the just for the unjust; he rose again for us to show that death can snatch but a momentary triumph, the final and eternal victory being on the side of life. God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us; and in the shining of that face, we shall forget all the pale and mocking glory which once made us glad. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
10. Instructions Concerning the Conquest and the Boundaries of the Land
CHAPTERS 33:50-34
1. Command to drive out the inhabitants of the land (Num 33:50-56)
2. The division of the land (Num 34:1-15)
3. The names of the men who shall divide the land (Num 34:16-29)
The extermination of the Canaanites is first of all demanded. Everything of idolatry was to be destroyed. The land was to belong to a holy people who belong to Jehovah, therefore the Canaanite with his abominations had to be driven out of the land. If ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, those that 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. Moreover, it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them (Num 33:55-56). The same warning was repeated by Joshua in his last address (Jos 23:13). They did not drive them out as they were commanded, and they had to suffer in consequence of their disobedience.
The land of Canaan does not typify heaven, but our heavenly portion in Christ. In the annotations of the book of Joshua we hope to follow this more fully. The enemies in the land typify the wicked spirits, Satan and his powers. With these is our warfare, and we are commanded, like Israel, to conquer them. The boundaries of the land are given, and we find at the close of the chapter the names of the men who were to divide the inheritance unto the children of Israel. Notice the difference which is in the boundaries here as compared with Gen 15:18. The promise given to Abraham and to his seed was under the covenant of grace, but Israel entered into the land under the law-covenant. If they had kept the law-covenant and had been obedient to Jehovah, they would have received the whole land. This they could not do. The original promise made to Abraham and his seed will be fulfilled in the future when the Lord will bring Israel back to possess the land. This will be in the millennium. The land will then be divided in a new way, revealed in the closing two chapters of Ezekiel.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Num 33:48, Num 33:49
Reciprocal: Num 21:20 – country Num 35:1 – General Num 36:13 – in the plains of Moab
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Num 33:50-52. Ye shall drive out all the inhabitants They were to be entirely rooted out, that the Israelites might not be seduced by their abominable idolatries, Exo 23:33; Deu 20:16-18. And destroy all their pictures Which seem to have been stones curiously engraven and set up for worship, Deu 16:22. Destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places The chapels, altars, groves, or other means of worship here set up.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Num 33:50-56. A Command to Destroy the Objects of Canaanite Worship.The substance of this is given also in Exo 23:24; Exo 34:13, Deu 12:2 f. With Num 33:55 cf. Jos 23:13, Jdg 2:3.
Num 33:52. figured stones: stones covered with idolatrous emblemshigh places: since these could be demolished, the expression must here mean not natural heights (Isa 15:2; Isa 16:12) but artificial mounds or shrines (cf. 1Ki 11:7).
Num 33:54. Render, wheresoever the lot falleth for any (family or clan), to that it shall belong. The lot was an appeal to God (cf. 1Sa 14:41 mg., Act 1:24-26, Pro 16:33, Jon 1:7).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Instructions to drive out the Canaanites 33:50-56
This brief section of instructions introduces specific directions concerning the division of the land and its towns that follow in chapters 34-36.
The repetition of "all" (Num 33:52) stresses the importance of completely clearing the land of its inhabitants and their religious paraphernalia. God wanted to clean up the land spiritually and to make it a "holy land." The land was a gift from God to His first-born son, Israel (Num 33:53). God warned the Israelites what would happen to them if they were not completely obedient (Num 33:55-56). The Canaanites would be a constant source of irritation to them, and God would deal with His people as He planned to deal with the Canaanites.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
2. Anticipation of the Promised Land 33:50-36:13
"The section breaks down into two groups of three laws each, carefully introduced by the clause ’and Yahweh spoke to Moses’ (. . ., Num 33:50; Num 34:1; Num 34:16; Num 35:1; Num 35:9; cf. Num 36:6) and surrounded by the phrase ’on the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho’ (. . ., Num 33:50; Num 35:1; Num 36:13)." [Note: Ashley, p. 634.]