Exodus 34:11

11 Observe what I command thee this day: behold, I will drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

Exodus 34:11 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 34:11

Observe thou that which I command thee this day
Which words are either said to Moses personally, as Aben Ezra thinks, as a direction to him to observe what had been said to him, and declare them to the children of Israel; or rather to the children of Israel, and respect the commands which are afterwards delivered out to be observed by them in the following verses; and what is expressed in the next clause is such as was not done by the ministry of Moses, nor in his time:

behold, I drive out before thee;
not before Moses, but the people of Israel,

the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the
Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite;
six nations are only mentioned, though there were seven, the Girgashites being omitted, because either they left the land before, as some think, or because they at once submitted; they are added in the Septuagint version.

Exodus 34:11 In-Context

9 and said, If indeed I have found grace in thine eyes, Lord, let the Lord, I pray thee, go in our midst; for it is a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for an inheritance!

10 And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels that have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people in the midst of which thou [art] shall see the work of Jehovah; for a terrible thing it shall be that I will do with thee.

11 Observe what I command thee this day: behold, I will drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

12 Take heed to thyself, that thou make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which thou shalt come, lest it be a snare in the midst of thee;

13 but ye shall demolish their altars, shatter their statues, and hew down their Asherahs.