I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you.
Parallel Translations
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I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you.
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I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.
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I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against thee.
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Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (5)
Passages linked to Exodus 23:29 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Deuteronomy 7:22 Yahweh your God will cast out those nations before you little by little. You may not consume them at once, lest the animals of the field increase on you.
- Joshua 17:12-13 Yet the children of Manasseh couldn’t drive out the inhabitants of those cities; but the Canaanites would dwell in that land. When the children of Israel had grown strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, and didn’t utterly drive them out.
- Judges 3:1-4 Now these are the nations which Yahweh left, to test Israel by them, even as many as had not known all the wars of Canaan; only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at least those who knew nothing of it before: the five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath. They were left to test Israel by them, to know whether they would listen to Yahweh’s commandments, which he commanded their fathers by Moses.
- Joshua 15:63 As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah couldn’t drive them out; but the Jebusites live with the children of Judah at Jerusalem to this day.
- Joshua 16:10 They didn’t drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwell in the territory of Ephraim to this day, and have become servants to do forced labor.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Exo 23:29 I will not drive them out from…
Exo 23:29 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.
Ver. 29. In one year.] God’s time is best: and to prescribe to him is to set the sun by our dial. His help seems long, because we are short. Wait upon him, who waits to show us mercy. {Isa 30:18}
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 Desolate, void of inhabitants in a great measure, because…
Desolate, void of inhabitants in a great measure, because thy present number is not sufficient to occupy and manage their whole land.
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 And I will set thy bounds,.... The bounds of…
And I will set thy bounds,.... The bounds of the land of Canaan, which in process of time it should reach unto, though not at once, not until the times of David and Solomon, Sa2 8:1 which bounds were as follow:
from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines: the Red sea was the boundary eastward, as the sea of the Philistines, or the Mediterranean sea, was the boundary westward:
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and from the desert unto the river; the desert of Shur or Arabia, towards Egypt, was the boundary southward, as the river Euphrates was the boundary northward, and is the river here meant, as the Targum of Jonathan expresses it; and so Jarchi interprets it, and generally others:
for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; the greater part upon their entrance into it, and settlement in it, and the rest afterwards:
and thou shalt drive them out before thee; not all at once, but by degrees, as before observed.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Exo 23:29. Lest the land be desolate — The…
Exo 23:29. Lest the land be desolate — The Israelites were not numerous enough to people all the land immediately. Providence had likewise another end in view in suffering some of the Canaanites to remain in the land: they were to prove Israel, and show whether they would hearken unto the commandment of the Lord, Jdg 3:4. And the beast of the field multiply — The wild beasts from Arabia Deserta made frequent inroads into Canaan, in quest of prey, and were not to be driven out but by continual hunting.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Beast of the field - i. e. destructive animals.
Beast of the field - i. e. destructive animals.
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 Beasts. Herod the great killed many in hunting. (Josephus,…
Beasts. Herod the great killed many in hunting. (Josephus, Jewish Wars i. 16.) Two bears rushed upon the children, 4 Kings ii. 24. How much would they have increased in all the countries from the Euphrates to the Nile, had they been destitute of any other inhabitants but the Hebrews, (Calmet) many of whom perished in the desert!
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 not drive . . . out .…
I will not drive . . . out . . . in one year; lest the land become desolate--Many reasons recommend a gradual extirpation of the former inhabitants of Canaan. But only one is here specified--the danger lest, in the unoccupied grounds, wild beasts should inconveniently multiply; a clear proof that the promised land was more than sufficient to contain the actual population of the Israelites.
Next: Exodus Chapter 24
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 29. Lest the land become desolate — And so…
29. Lest the land become desolate — And so the promised Canaan be turned into a howling wilderness instead of being a land flowing with milk and honey.
Beast of the field multiply — As was actually the case long afterward by depopulating the cities of Samaria after the deportation of the northern tribes of Israel. 2Ki_17:25-26.
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 29, 30. The expulsion of the Canaanites will however…
29, 30. The expulsion of the Canaanites will however be gradual: it will not be completed till the Israelites are numerous enough to fill effectually the territory vacated by them. Hence, with verbal variations, Deu_7:22. The representation is in striking contrast to the idealized pictures of rapid conquests drawn in the Deuteronomic sections of the book of Joshua, from which the popular conception of the ‘extermination of the Canaanites’ is derived (e.g. Jos_10:28-43; Jos_11:16-23; Jos_21:43-45); but it agrees with the accounts given in the older strata of Joshua and Judges, according to which there were many districts from which the Israelites were unable to expel the Canaanites, and the country as a whole was only occupied by them gradually (Jos_13:13; Jos_15:63; Jos_16:10; Jos_17:11-18, Jdg_1:19; Jdg_1:21; Jdg_1:27-35; Jdg_1:9). The historical reason why the Canaanites thus remained so long in many parts of the land was because the Israelites had not the military resources enabling them to cope with them (cf. Jdg_1:19); but the fact nevertheless remained one which many religiously-minded Israelites found it difficult to reconcile with their sense of Jehovah’s sovereignty; and different moral, or religious, theories were framed to account for it. Here it is explained as due to Jehovah’s care that unoccupied spots should not be left in the land, on which wild beasts might multiply and become a danger to the Israelites (2Ki_17:25 f.; cf. Lev_26:22, Eze_14:15; Eze_14:21): for other theories, see Jdg_2:20 to Jdg_3:4 (comp. LOT.8 p. 165 f.).
31a. Israel’s territory will reach, beyond Canaan itself, from the Red Sea to the ‘sea of the Philistines’ (i.e. the SE. coast of the Medit. Sea including the Philistine territory itself), and from ‘the wilderness (i.e. the wilderness on the S. of Palestine) to the Euphrates. An ideal description of the extent of Isr. territory, once, at least according to tradition, realised in history, under Solomon (1Ki_4:21). For similar promises, see Gen_15:18, Deu_11:24 (whence Jos_1:4); and cf. (in the picture of the restored Israel of the future) Isa_27:12.
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the River] i.e. the River, κατʼ ἐξοχήν, to the Hebrews, the Euphrates. The word, when the Euphrates is intended, is always in RV. printed with a capital R: see e.g. Isa_7:20; Isa_27:12, Psa_72:8; Psa_80:11.
31b–33. Regarded by We., Di., Bä. and most critics as another expansion of the original text, similar to vv. 23–25a, partly because reverts to the subject of Israel’s attitude towards the gods of Canaan, already dealt with in v. 24, but chiefly because, whereas in vv. 27—Jehovah promises that He will Himself drive out the Canaanites before Israel, here their expulsion is laid as a duty upon Israel.
32, 33. No treaty of friendship or alliance to be entered into with the Canaanites, lest Israel be seduced by them into idolatry. The same warning (with the consequences of such alliance more fully developed), Exo_34:12-16, Deu_7:2-5; cf. Jos_23:12-13 (D2[197]), Jdg_2:2-3 (compiler).
[197] Deuteronomic passages in Josh., Jud., Kings.
33. for thou wilt serve their gods, for it will become a snare unto thee. So the Heb. literally. There must be some fault in the text; but the general sense of the passage is no doubt correctly given. ‘And thou shalt not serve,’ &c. (LXX., Pesh.; cf. Deu_7:16 b) would be the simplest change; but it is not easy palaeographically (ולא for כי).
a snare] i.e.—not, an enticement to sin, but—a lure to destruction. Cf. on Exo_10:7; and see esp. 1Sa_18:21. Of the gods of Canaan, as here, Exo_34:12, and in the reminiscences, Deu_7:16, Jdg_2:3; and of the Canaanites themselves, Jos_23:13 (D2[198]). Warnings against holding intercourse with the Canaanites, and commands to overthrow their altars, &c. (vv. 23–25a, and 31b–33), are also characteristic of Deuteronomy: see e.g. Deu_7:2-5; Deu_12:2-3; Deu_12:29-31.
[198] Deuteronomic passages in Josh., Jud., Kings.
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 (29) The beast of the field.—Comp. 2Ki_17:25-26, where we…
(29) The beast of the field.—Comp. 2Ki_17:25-26, where we find that this result followed the deportation of the Samaritans by the Assyrians.
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 I will not drive them out from before thee…
I will not drive them out from before thee in one year. The Divine action is for the most part "slack, as men count slackness it is not hasty, spasmodic, precipitate, as human action is too often. Men are impatient; God is strangely, wonderfully patient. He would not drive out the Canaanitish nations all at once
1. Lest the land should become desolate, there being an insufficient population to keep down the weeds and maintain the tillage; and
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2. Lest the beast of the field should multiply so as to become a danger to the new-comers. It is related that when the kingdom of Samaria was depopulated by the removal of the Ten Tribes, there was a great increase of lions, which preyed upon the scanty remnant left. (2Ki_17:25) Even in France, after the Franco-German war, it was found that in many districts wolves increased. A third reason why the nations were not subdued all at once, not mentioned here, is touched in Jud 2:21-23 Lord left those nations, without driving them out hastily, thatthrough them he might prove Israel, whether they would keep the way of the Lord to walk therein, or not."
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 23:29-31 I will: God, not Israel, would take the…
23:29-31 I will: God, not Israel, would take the land. The land would be a gift from their Covenant Lord. Israel was being granted possession of it as long as they faithfully fulfilled the covenant.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.