Numbers 33:51

Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan;

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

33:50-56 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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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 Exodus 26:53-55. But the solemn warning of Numbers 33:55-56 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.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

50-53. ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you—not, however, by expulsion, but extermination (De 7:1).

and destroy all their pictures—obelisks for idolatrous worship (see on [106]Le 26:1).

and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places—by metonymy for all their groves and altars, and materials of worship on the tops of hills.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,.... What was to be said, being what concerned the whole body of the people:

when ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; near to which they now were, and Moses was about to leave them; and therefore it was the more necessary to give them some instructions and directions what they should do, when they were come into it.

Geneva Study Bible

Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan;

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 51. - When ye are passed over Jordan. Previous legislation had anticipated the time when they should have come into their own land (cf. Numbers 15:2; Leviticus 23:10), but now the crossing of the river is spoken of as the last step on their journey home. Numbers 33:51

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

When the Israelites passed through the Jordan into the land of Canaan, they were to exterminate all the inhabitants of the land, and to destroy all the memorials of their idolatry; to take possession of the land and well therein, for Jehovah had given it to them for a possession. הורישׁ, to take possession of (Numbers 33:53, etc.), then to drive out of their possession, to exterminate (Numbers 33:52; cf. Numbers 14:12, etc.). On Numbers 33:52, see Exodus 34:13. משׂכּית, an idol of stone (cf. Leviticus 26:1). מסּכת צלמי, idols cast from brass. Massecah, see at Exodus 32:4. Bamoth, altars of the Canaanites upon high places (see Leviticus 26:30).