Numbers 33:52

52 you must drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you, destroy all their stone images^[a] and cast images,^[b] and demolish all their high places.

Numbers 33:52 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 33:52

Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from
before you
Not at once, but gradually; and the sense is, that they should use their utmost endeavours wholly to extirpate them:

and destroy all their pictures;
their idolatrous ones; the pictures of their gods, or the statues and figured stones of them: the Targum of Jonathan interprets it,

``all the temples of their worship;''

and the Jerusalem Targum,

``all their idols;''

so called, as Jarchi notes, because they covered the floor with a pavement of marble stones, to worship upon them by the stretching out of their hands and feet, according to ( Leviticus 26:1 ) ,

and destroy all their molten images;
of gold, silver

and quite pluck down all their high places;
their temples, groves, and altars built upon them.

Numbers 33:52 In-Context

50 The Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan [across from] Jericho,

51 "Tell the Israelites: When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan,

52 you must drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you, destroy all their stone images and cast images, and demolish all their high places.

53 You are to take possession of the land and settle in it because I have given you the land to possess.

54 You are to receive the land as an inheritance by lot according to your clans. Increase the inheritance for a large clan and decrease it for a small one. Whatever place the lot indicates for someone will be his. You will receive an inheritance according to your ancestral tribes.

Footnotes

• [a]. Lv 26:1; Ezk 8:12
• [b]. Ex 32:4,8; 34:17; Lv 19:4; Dt 27:15