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It is assumed here that Israel will conquer the Canaanites; probably by this time the people had grown to somewhat of confidence, by reason of their recent successes over Sihon, Og, and Midian. But it was a thing of the first importance, when the victory was gained, to follow it up in the right way. Victories have been gained, and then worse than lost by want of wisdom to use them aright. Here we have a plain, strict, and severe command concerning the very first thing to be done upon the defeat of the Canaanites. They themselves were to be driven from the land, and all the instruments of idolatry utterly destroyed. The need of this command will be clearly seen if we consider -

I. THE GREAT OBJECT WHICH WAS BEFORE THE MIND OF GOD IN GIVING THE COMMAND. This is alluded to in verse 54. Canaan was ever under the eye of God as being the destined inheritance of Israel; it had been counted as such even from the time of Abraham. The sadness of the threat against Israel in the day of its apostasy lay in this, that it was a threat of disinheriting (Numbers 14:12). And that which had been so long preparing for Israel, which even while the Canaanites were dwelling in it had been under the peculiar supervision of God, was become at last an inheritance of great value. It was to be cultivated to the full, and would then richly repay for all the cultivation. Such interest did God show in giving this land to the Israelites in all its fullness, that he was about to portion it by lot. Each tribe in particular was to feel that the place of its habitation had been chosen by God. Hence the need of leaving no precaution unemployed to make this favoured land secure. It must be guarded from every kind of danger, however remote, improbable, and practically innocuous it may seem. If Israel lost this inheritance, there was no other place for it, no other possession on which it could advance with the certainty of conquest and, what was even more important, with the consciousness of being engaged in a righteous cause. In Canaan, as long as it kept its allegiance to God, Israel was the rightful possessor; but everywhere else it was a lawless, unblessed invader. That which is of inestimable value, and which once gone cannot be replaced, must first of all be founded in security and surrounded with the same. "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:3). The security of the people was threatened by all that threatened the honour of God. And it was a distinct dishonour to his name to allow idolaters to remain in the land openly to practice their vicious and degrading rites. Moreover, there was every chance that the people themselves would be subtly and gradually drawn to idolatry. Recollect all these perils, and then you will see good reason why God made a stringent demand for such a sweeping treatment of the Canaanites. The cause of a world's redemption was bound up with the safety of Israel's inheritance. And we also have an inheritance (Matthew 19:29; Matthew 25:34; Acts 20:32; Acts 26:18; Romans 8:17: Galatians 3:29; Ephesians 1:11, 14; Ephesians 3:6; 1 Peter 1:4) far transcending that Canaan which was so much in the eyes of the Israelites. If it is worth anything at all, it is worth everything; worth all the self-denial, perseverance, complete submission to God, and patient waiting which are necessary for the attaining of it. We must not leave unexpelled from our life or undestroyed from our circumstances anything that may imperil the inheritance. Walk with no companion, engage in no business, cultivate no taste or recreation, if there be in them the slightest chance of peril to the inheritance. It is a glorious thing to conquer temptation in actual conflict, but it is better still so to watch and pray as not to enter into temptation at all.

II. THE GREAT TEMPTATION ON THE PART OF ISRAEL TO REST SATISFIED WITH AN IMPERFECT CONQUEST. Not of course that Israel thought it imperfect. Israel was anxious in its own way to have the conquest and possession complete. But God alone had the requisite wisdom and foresight to direct the people into real security. There were many temptations to what he knew was a premature cessation of hostilities. The Canaanites would in due time make attempts at compromises and partial surrenders, even as Pharaoh had made like attempts when his people were smitten by the plagues. There was the temptation that came from the weariness of long waiting. A complete expulsion involved much delay. We are tempted even in the affairs of this life to premature conclusions through sheer impatience. We want to pluck the fruit long before it is ripe. Moreover, the Israelites, many of them at least, would wish to make slaves of the Canaanites. They were not entering Canaan with the steward-feeling in their hearts. The promise was sufficiently fulfilled in their estimate when they got the land to do as they liked with it. The tribes crossing Jordan had the same carnal views concerning their possession as Reuben and Gad concerning the land which they had chosen. There was the temptation coming from self-confidence; that of supposing an enemy enfeebled to be practically the same as an enemy destroyed. There might be the temptation also to show a human, ignorant, undiscerning pity, as contrasted with a Divinely wise severity. Such utter expulsion as God demanded could easily be made to look unreasonable, and indeed nothing better than sheer tyranny. It takes much patient inquiry to discover that what may be kind on the surface is cruel underneath; kind at the present, cruel in the future; kind to the few, cruel to the many; kind for time, utterly ruinous for eternity. There was no reasonable pity in leaving those who were utterly corrupt to become the plentiful sources of idolatrous infection to the people of Jehovah. There was also the temptation that came from a very imperfect sympathy with the purposes of God. During their wanderings the Israelites had shown again and again their lack of apprehension and appreciation with respect to Jehovah. What then of hearty aversion from idolatry could be expected when its subtle perils came upon them? Only those who were filled with an abiding sense of the holiness and majesty of God could estimate the dangers of idolatry and take the precautions needful to guard against them.

III. THE EARNEST WARNING IN WHICH GOD SPECIFIES THE RESULTS OF NEGLIGENCE.

1. The earlier result (verse 55). These Canaanites, however fairly they speak, and with whatever leniency they be treated, will turn out pricks and thorns in the end. "Those which ye let remain of them." One, even though he be a child, and seem easily moulded to other ends, may be the cause of measureless mischief. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Behold how great a mass of matter a tiny flame will kindle. A Canaanite, a real Canaanite, worshipping his idols, must be a bad man. Just as a true, believing connection with God leads into all purity and virtue, so a groveling before idols makes a man vicious; and not only vicious, but the viciousness is upon a sort of principle and rule. Those who change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things, change at the same time much besides. It is one of the unspeakable miseries of idolatry that it changes vices into virtues, and idolaters do the most wicked things for conscience' sake. Hence the Canaanite could not but hurt the Israelite; it was his very nature so to do. He might undertake allegiance and amity, but by the very necessity of the case he must prove in the end a prick in the eye and a thorn in the side. Therefore let Israel uproot with a timely and unsparing severity all that would end in pricks and thorns. Study the nature of things in their germs. Stop evil if you can at the very beginning. Consider, in connection with this expulsion of the Canaanites and the dangers of idolatry, the whole of the first chapter of Romans.

2. The later result (verse 56). Leave the Canaanites unexpelled, and the end will be the expulsion of Israel. "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin" (James 4:17). In the light of this threatening, how clearly it is seen that what made the Canaanites so offensive in the sight of God was their idolatry! For centuries they had been pursuing their hideous practices in that very land where a holy and righteous God had revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And if the Israelites by a disobedient leniency fell into idolatry, their state would be even sadder and more dishonourable than that of Canaan, because the fall would be from such privileges. Note that God placed this expulsion of the Canaanites as a work of obedience for the people to perform. If they failed in obedience he would not by some miracle expel the Canaanites himself. "As I thought to do unto them." The land in itself was no more than any other land on the face of the earth. It was the people - the holy people of God - who sanctified the land, and not the land the people. And if they disobeyed God in the presence of all these idols, with their associated abominations, then the holy became unholy, and the Canaanites might as well stay there as remove anywhere else (Proverbs 8:20, 21; Proverbs 20:21; Ecclesiastes 7:11; Revelation 21:7). - Y.

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KJV: And the LORD spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying,

WEB: Yahweh spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying,