I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you.
Parallel Translations
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I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you.
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And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
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And I will send the hornet before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (2)
Passages linked to Exodus 23:28 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Deuteronomy 7:20 Moreover Yahweh your God will send the hornet among them, until those who are left, and hide themselves, perish from before you.
- Joshua 24:11-12 “ ‘You went over the Jordan, and came to Jericho. The men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I delivered them into your hand. I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; not with your sword, nor with your bow.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Exo 23:28 And I will send hornets before thee,…
Exo 23:28 And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
Ver. 28. Hornets before thee.] Understand it either literally, as in Jos 24:12; or figuratively, of the stinging terrors of their self-condemning consciences.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Hornets, properly so called, as may be gathered from…
Hornets, properly so called, as may be gathered from Jos 24:12; Deu 7:20. Hornets are of themselves very troublesome and mischievous; but these it is very probable were like those Egyptian flies, Exo 8:21, of an extraordinary bigness and perniciousness. Nor is it strange that such creatures did drive many of these people from their habitations; for many heathen writers give us instances of some people driven from their seats by frogs, others by mice, others by bees and wasps; of which see Herodotus, Diodorus, Pliny, Elian, Justin, &c. He names these three people, either for all the rest, because they were the most potent about the time of Israel’s first entrance into Canaan, and gave them most trouble; or because these three were more infested with hornets than the other nations, as being more numerous and dangerous.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain By little and little I will drive them out…
By little and little I will drive them out from before thee,.... Not the beasts of the field, but the inhabitants of Canaan, who were left partly to keep up the cities and towns, that they might not fall to ruin, and to till the land, that it might not be desolate; and partly to be trials and exercises to the people of Israel, and to prove whether they would serve the Lord or not. Just as the corruptions of human nature remain with the people of God when converted, for the trial and exercise of their graces, and that they may have their dependence not on themselves, but on the grace of God to keep them in his ways, and to preserve them safe to eternal glory; and by completing the work of grace, which is gradually done, they might be made meet for it:
until thou be increased, and inherit the land; for as their enemies were driven out gradually, by little and little, so they multiplied gradually, until at length they became a sufficient number to fill all the cities and towns in all the nations of Canaan, and take an entire possession of it, as their inheritance given unto them by God.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 28. I will send hornets before thee] הצרעה…
Verse 28. I will send hornets before thee] הצרעה hatstsirah. The root is not found in Hebrew, but it may be the same with the Arabic [Arabic] saraa, to lay prostrate, to strike down; the hornet, probably so called from the destruction occasioned by the violence of its sting. The hornet, in natural history, belongs to the species crabro, of the genus vespa or wasp; it is a most voracious insect, and is exceedingly strong for its size, which is generally an inch in length, though I have seen some an inch and a half long, and so strong that, having caught one in a small pair of forceps, it repeatedly escaped by using violent contortions, so that at last I was obliged to abandon all hopes of securing it alive, which I wished to have done. How distressing and destructive a multitude of these might be, any person may conjecture; even the bees of one hive would be sufficient to sting a thousand men to madness, but how much worse must wasps and hornets be! No armour, no weapons, could avail against these. A few thousands of them would be quite sufficient to throw the best disciplined army into confusion and rout. From Jos 24:12, we find that two kings of the Amorites were actually driven out of the land by these hornets, so that the Israelites were not obliged to use either sword or bow in the conquest.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Hornets - Compare the marginal references. The word is…
Hornets - Compare the marginal references. The word is used figuratively for a cause of terror and discouragement. Bees are spoken of in the like sense, Deu 1:44; Psa 118:12.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Hornets, or wasps, Wisdom xii. 8. Josue (xxiv. 12)…
Hornets, or wasps, Wisdom xii. 8. Josue (xxiv. 12) assures us this was verified. Thus scorpions forced the Ethiopians to abandon their country, and flies and wasps drove away the Mysians and Phaselides. See Bochart, iv. 13. The latter people were of Phœnician extraction, and probably fled before Josue. Most of the Chanaanites withdrew into Africa; some perhaps into America. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain I will send hornets before thee, &c. (See on…
I will send hornets before thee, &c. (See on Jos 24:12) --Some instrument of divine judgment, but variously interpreted: as hornets in a literal sense [BOCHART]; as a pestilential disease [ROSENMULLER]; as a terror of the Lord, an extraordinary dejection [JUNIUS].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 28. I will send hornets before thee — There…
28. I will send hornets before thee — There is no necessity to explain this literally, and there is no evidence that any such miracle as the driving out of the Canaanites by swarms of hornets occurred during the entire history of the conquest of Palestine. There are, indeed, divers accounts of certain ancient tribes being driven out of their lands by armies of wasps and other noxious creatures; and the armies of locusts which occasionally sweep through those countries are a most destructive plague. But a comparison of Deu_1:44, Jos_24:12, Psa_118:12, and Isa_7:18-19, will show that this expression was employed metaphorically to denote any marked interposition of God to discomfit the enemies of his people.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 28. the hornet] so Deu_7:20; Jos_24:12 (E). The writer…
28. the hornet] so Deu_7:20; Jos_24:12 (E). The writer imagines swarms of this terrible insect employed to clear the Canaanites away before Israel, and expel them even from their hiding-places (see Dt. l.c.).
the Hivite, &c.] see on Exo_3:8.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (28) I will send hornets.—Heb., the hornet. Comp. Jos_24:12,…
(28) I will send hornets.—Heb., the hornet. Comp. Jos_24:12, where “the hornet” is said to have been sent. No doubt hornets might be so numerous as to become an intolerable plague, and induce a nation to quit its country and seek another (see Bochart, Hierozoic. iv. 13). But as we have no historical account of the kind in connection with the Canaanite races, the expression here used is scarcely to be taken literally. Probably the Egyptians are the hornets intended. It was they who, under Rameses III., broke the power of the Hittites and other nations of Palestine, while the Israelites were sojourners in the wilderness. Possibly the term was chosen in reference to the hieroglyphic sign for “king” in Egypt, which was the figure of a bee or wasp. The author of the Book of Wisdom seems, however, to have understood the expression literally (Wis_12:8-9).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain And I will send hornets before thee. This is…
And I will send hornets before thee. This is scarcely to be taken literally, since no actual plague of hornets is mentioned in the historical narrative. "Hornets" here, and in Deu_7:20; Jos_24:12, are probably plagues or troubles of any kind, divinely sent to break the power of the heathen nations, and render them an easier prey to the Israelites, when they made their invasion. Possibly, the main "hornets" were the Egyptians, who, under Rameses III, successfully invaded Palestine about the time of Israel"s sojourn in the wilderness, and weakened the power of the Hittites (Khita) The Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite. By a common figure of speech, a part is put or the whole three nations for seven. The three names seem to be taken at random,but include the two nations of most power the Canaanites and the Hittites.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.