Deuteronomy 7:17

"If thou shalt say in thy heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them? Thou shalt not be afraid of them: thou shalt well remember what Jehovah thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt; the great trials which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, whereby Jehovah thy God brought thee out: so shall Jehovah thy God do unto all the peoples of whom thou art afraid. Moreover Jehovah thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves, perish from before thee. Thou shalt not be affrighted at them; for Jehovah thy God is in the midst of thee, a great God and a terrible. And Jehovah thy God will cast out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. But Jehovah thy God will deliver them up before thee, and will discomfit them with a great discomfiture, until they be destroyed."

Concerning "the hornets" mentioned in Deuteronomy 7:20, we like the comment of Wright in the Interpreter's Bible, that the question of whether these were literally hornets or if this is a metaphor for some other type of opposition, "is not clear!"[33] We say "Amen" to that! Some commentators have voiced the opinion that, "There is no ground for interpreting the hornets literally; the reference symbolizes some form of God's activity on behalf of Israel."[34] An opposing view is that of Oberst who said, "I take these verses literally, believing that God actually did use wasps or hornets to assist Israel in battle. Why couldn't he?"[35] W. L. Alexander mentioned the fact that the Roman Emperor Julian was compelled to change the route of his retreat from Parthia "by a host of flies and gnats."[36] It appears to us that believers may choose either of these viewpoints. However, we should reject outright the know-it-all scholars who have taken the options away from us and changed the translation to conform to what they suppose the sacred author meant. Smith-Goodspeed, for example, rendered "leprosy" here instead of hornet; the Torah renders it as "plague"; Lamsa gives us "raiders"; and Baumgarmer translates it "depression and discouragement."[37] Needless to say, such renditions are not translations at all, but opinions of scholars passed off to the non-suspecting public as "the Word of God." For those who prefer the metaphorical interpretation of the hornets, perhaps the best support of such a view is found in Peter Lange's comment. (See the Bible commentary by Peter Lange).