Numbers 33:55

_BUT IF YE WILL NOT DRIVE OUT THE INHABITANTS OF THE LAND FROM BEFORE YOU; THEN IT SHALL COME TO PASS, THAT THOSE WHICH YE LET REMAIN OF THEM SHALL BE PRICKS IN YOUR EYES, AND THORNS IN YOUR SIDES, AND SHALL VEX YOU IN THE LAND WHEREIN YE DWELL._ But if ye will not drive. No associations were to be formed with the inhabitants; otherwise, if "let remain," they "will be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides" - i:e., they would prove troublesome and dangerous neighbours, enticing to idolatry, and consequently depriving you of the divine favour and blessing. The neglect of this counsel against union with the idolatrous inhabitants became fatal to them. The earnest admonition given to the Israelites in their special 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 wil...

55_But if ye will not drive out. _We have elsewhere seen why God’s wrath was so greatly aroused against those nations, that He desired them to be exterminated. Even in Abraham’s time gross indulgence of sin had begun to prevail there, as we gather from God’s word, when He said that “their iniquity was not yet full.” After they had abused the forbearance of God Himself for 400 years, who will deny that their destruction was the just and reasonable reward of their long obstinacy? Still, in cutting them off, God had regard to His elect people, in order that they might be separated from the heathen, and never turn aside to foreign superstitions. But the punishment which is here threatened the Israelites deserved twice over by their remissness, for they neither performed their duty in executing God’s vengeance, and, as far as in them lay, they detracted from His grace. He had conferred upon t...

50-56 Now that they were to pass over Jordan, they were entering again into temptation to follow idols; and they are threatened that, if they spared either the idols or the idolaters, their sin would certainly be their punishment. They would foster vipers in their own bosoms. The remnant of the Canaanites, if they made any peace with them, though but for a time, would be pricks in their eyes, and thorns in their sides. We must expect trouble and affliction from whatever sin we indulge; that which we are willing should tempt us, will vex us. It was intended that the Canaanites should be put out of the land; but if the Israelites learned their wicked ways, they also would be put out. Let us hear this and fear. If we do not drive out sin, sin will drive us out. If we are not the death of our lusts, our lusts will be the death of our souls....

Verse Numbers 33:55. SHALL BE _PRICKS IN YOUR EYES_] Under these metaphors, the continual mischief that should be done to them, both in soul and body, by these idolaters, is set forth in a very expressive manner. What can be more vexatious than a continual goading of each side, so that the attempt to avoid the one throws the body more forcibly on the other? And what can be more distressing than a continual pricking in the eye, harassing the mind, tormenting the body, and _extinguishing the sight_? 1. IT has been usual among pious men to consider these Canaanites _remaining_ in the land, as emblems of _indwelling sin_; and it must be granted that what those remaining Canaanites were to the people of Israel, who were disobedient to God, _such_ is _indwelling sin_ to all those who will not have the blood of the covenant to cleanse them

The expulsion of the Canaanites and the destruction of their monuments of idolatry had been already enjoined (see the marginal references); and Numbers 33:54 is substantially a repetition from Exo. 26:53-55. But the solemn warning of Numbers 33:55 is new. A call for it had been furnished by their past transgressions in the matter of Baal-peor, and by their imperfect fulfillment, at the first, of Moses’ orders in the Midianite war....

BUT IF YE WILL NOT DRIVE OUT THE INHABITANTS OF THE LAND BEFORE YOU,.... Should be remiss and careless about it, and indifferent to it, and not make use of the proper means to get rid of them, but, on the contrary, make covenants with them, and intermarry among them; or, however, become friendly to them, and suffer them to dwell among them: THEN IT SHALL COME TO PASS, THAT THOSE WHICH YE LET REMAIN OF THEM; sparing their lives, and permitting them to dwell among them: SHALL BE PRICKS IN YOUR EYES, AND THORNS IN YOUR SIDES; which figurative expressions show that they should be very troublesome and distressing to them, even in their most tender and nearest concerns, and dearest relations, and which are explained and more properly expressed as follows: AND SHALL VEX YOU IN THE LAND WHEREIN YE DWELL; among other things by their wicked conversation, and by drawing them into sin through the...

10. INSTRUCTIONS CONCERNING THE CONQUEST AND THE BOUNDARIES OF THE LAND Chapter S 33:50-34 _ 1. Command to drive out the inhabitants of the land (Numbers 33:50)_ 2. The division of the land (Numbers 34:1) 3. The names of the men who shall divide the land (Numbers 34:16) The extermination of the Canaanites is first of all demanded. Everything of idolatry was to be destroyed. The land was to belong to a holy people who belong to Jehovah, therefore the Canaanite with his abominations had to be driven out of the land. “If ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, those that ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides and shal

A COMMAND TO DESTROY THE OBJECTS OF CANAANITE WORSHIP. The substance of this is given also in Exodus 23:24; Exodus 34:13; Deuteronomy 12:2 f. With Numbers 33:55 _cf._ Joshua 23:13; Judges 2:3. NUMBERS 33:52. FIGURED STONES: stones covered with idolatrous emblems HIGH PLACES: since these could be demolished, the expression must here mean not natural heights ...

NOT DRIVE OUT. Alas! they did not. Compare Joshua 13:13; Joshua 15:63; Joshua 16:10; Judges 1:19; Judges 1:21; Judges 1:28; Judges 1:29; Judges 1:30; Judges 2:1. See App-25. PRICKS. Compare...

_Commands with regard to the settlement in Canaan_. With the exception of Numbers 33:54 the passage is derived from D. In it is enjoined the destruction of the Canaanite objects of worship, a command which is peculiarly characteristic of Deuteronomic portions of the Pentateuch; cf. Exodus 23:24; Exodus 23:31-33; Exodus 34:11-16; Deuteronomy 7:1-6; Deuteronomy 12:2 f. On the other hand...