Deuteronomy 7:22

cast out See on Deuteronomy 7:1.

little and little So, with the same reason attached, E, Exodus 23:29-30, on which see the note. This is a good instance of D's redaction, and more fluent expression, of earlier statements. That D should repeat the fact is strange. Though in harmony with and explanatory of the actual delay in Israel's extermination of the peoples of the land, as recorded in the older documents (Joshua 13:13; Joshua 15:63; Joshua 16:10; Joshua 17:11-18; Judges 1:19; Judges 1:21 ff., Judges 2:20 to Judges 3:4; most probably all J), it is against the conception conveyed by the deuteronomic sections of Joshua, that Israel's conquest of the peoples was rapid and complete (Joshua 10:28-43; Joshua 11:16-23; Joshua 21:43-45, etc.). This, however, is no reason for supposing the verse to be an intrusion as Steuern. does; in any case it is deuteronomic.

lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee Field, here in its earlier sense of uncultivated territory; beasts of the fieldare therefore wild beasts. That this danger was real and great in partly depopulated lands is illustrated in 2 Kings 17:24 f. How constant the war of man against wild animals was in ancient Palestine may be felt from the promise of their being tamed as one of the elements of the Messianic age, Isaiah 11:6-9. See the present writer's Isaiahi. xxxix. 189 f.