Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Numbers 33:55
But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you--No associations were to be formed with the inhabitants; otherwise, "if ye let remain, they will be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides"--that is, they would prove troublesome and dangerous neighbors, enticing to idolatry, and consequently depriving you of the divine favor and blessing. The neglect of the counsel against union with the idolatrous inhabitants became fatal to them. This earnest admonition given to the Israelites in their peculiar circumstances conveys a salutary lesson to us to allow no lurking habits of sin to remain in us. That spiritual enemy must be eradicated from our nature; otherwise it w…
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Moreover, it shall come to pass,.... This being the case, they suffering the Canaanites to dwell among them, and they mingling with them, learning their works, and serving their gods: that
I shall do unto you as I thought I should do unto them; deliver them up into the hands of their enemies, who should carry them captive into other lands.
John Calvin on Numbers 33:52–end
Numbers 33:52
52. ... destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:
52. Destruite omnes statues earum, et omnes imagines confiatiles destruite, et omnes aras eorum dissipate.
Keil & Delitzsch on Numbers 33:50–end
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 unin…
