Numbers 33:55

55 "But if you don't drive out the native population, everyone you let stay there will become a cinder in your eye and a splinter in your foot. They'll give you endless trouble right in your own backyards.

Numbers 33:55 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 33:55

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 their ill examples, and so bring the displeasure of God upon them, and punishment for their evil doings.

Numbers 33:55 In-Context

53 so that you take over the land and make yourself at home in it; I've given it to you. It's yours.

54 "Divide up the land by lot according to the size of your clans: Large clans will get large tracts of land, small clans will get smaller tracts of land. However the lot falls, that's it. Divide it up according to your ancestral tribes.

55 "But if you don't drive out the native population, everyone you let stay there will become a cinder in your eye and a splinter in your foot. They'll give you endless trouble right in your own backyards.

56 And I'll start treating you the way I planned to treat them."