Numbers 33:53

And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it.

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

And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein,.... Turn them out of their cities, towns, and houses, and inhabit them:

for I have given you the land to possess it; who had a right to dispose of it, and a better title they needed not desire than the Lord could and did make them.

Geneva Study Bible

And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 53. - I have given you the land. "The earth is the Lord's," and no one, therefore, can dispute his right in the abstract to evict any of his tenants and to put others in possession. But while the whole earth was the Lord's, it is clear that he assumed a special relation towards the land of Canaan, as to which he chose to exercise directly the rights and duties of landlord (see on Deuteronomy 22:8 for a small but striking instance). The first duty of a landlord is to see that the occupancy of his property is not abused for illegal or immoral ends; and this duty excuses, because it necessitates, eviction under certain circumstances. It is not, therefore, necessary to argue that the Canaanites were more infamous than many others; it is enough to remember that God had assumed towards the land which they occupied (apparently by conquest) a relation which did not allow him to overlook their enormities, as he might those of other nations (see on Exodus 23:23-33; 34:11-17, and cf. Acts 14:16; Acts 17:30). It was (if we like to put it so) the misfortune of the Canaanites that they alone of "all nations" could not be suffered to "walk in their own ways," because they had settled in a land which the Lord had chosen to administer directly as his own earthly kingdom. Numbers 33:53

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).