Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them ,.... What was to be said, being what concerned the whole body of the people: when ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan ; near to which they now were, and Moses was about to leave them; and therefore it was the more necessary to give them some instructions and directions what they should do, when they were come into it. read more
Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you ,.... Not at once, but gradually; and the sense is, that they should use their utmost endeavours wholly to extirpate them: and destroy all their pictures ; their idolatrous ones; the pictures of their gods, or the statues and figured stones of them: the Targum of Jonathan interprets it,"all the temples of their worship;'and the Jerusalem Targum,"all their idols;'so called, as Jarchi notes, because they covered the... read more
And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein ,.... Turn them out of their cities, towns, and houses, and inhabit them: for I have given you the land to possess it ; who had a right to dispose of it, and a better title they needed not desire than the Lord could and did make them. read more
Ye shall - destroy all their pictures - משכיתם maskiyotham , from שחה sachah , to be like, or resemble, either pictures, carved work, or embroidery, as far as these things were employed to exhibit the abominations of idolatry. Molten images מסכתם צלמי tsalmey massechotham , metallic talismanical figures, made under certain constellations, and supposed in consequence to be possessed of some extraordinary influences and virtues. read more
When ye are passed over Jordan. Previous legislation had anticipated the time when they should have come into their own land (cf. Numbers 15:2 ; Le Numbers 23:10 ), but now the crossing of the river is spoken of as the last step on their journey home. read more
Ye shall drive out. The Hebrew word (from יָרַשׁ ) is the same which is translated "dispossess" in the next verse. The Septuagint has in both eases ἀπολεῖτε , supplying (like the A.V.) the word "inhabitants" in Numbers 33:53 . The Hebrew word, however, seems to have much the same sense as the English phrase "clear out," and is, therefore, equally applied to the land and the occupants of it. No doubt it implies extermination as a necessary condition of the clearance. Their... read more
I have given you the land. "The earth is the Lord's," and no one, therefore, can dispute his right in the abstract to evict any of his tenants and to put others in possession. But while the whole earth was the Lord's, it is clear that he assumed a special relation towards the land of Canaan, as to which he chose to exercise directly the rights and duties of landlord (see on Deuteronomy 22:8 for a small but striking instance). The first duty of a landlord is to see that the occupancy of his... read more
The expulsion of the Canaanites and the destruction of their monuments of idolatry had been already enjoined (see the marginal references); and Numbers 33:54 is substantially a repetition from Exo. 26:53-55. But the solemn warning of Numbers 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. read more
Numbers 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, Exodus 23:33; Deuteronomy 20:16-18. And destroy all their pictures Which seem to have been stones curiously engraven and set up for worship, Deuteronomy 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. read more
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Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Numbers 33:50-56
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... read more