Exodus 23:28

28 I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way.

Exodus 23:28 in Other Translations

28 And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.

28 And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you.

28 I will send terror ahead of you to drive out the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites.

28 "And I'll send Despair on ahead of you. It will push the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites out of your way.

28 I will send the hornet in front of you, and it will drive the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites away from you.

Exodus 23:28 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 23:28

And I will send hornets before thee
Which may be interpreted either figuratively, and so may signify the same as fear before which should fall on the Canaanites upon hearing the Israelites were coming; the stings of their consciences for their sins, terrors of mind, dreading the wrath of the God of Israel, of whom they had heard, and terrible apprehensions of ruin and destruction from the Israelites: Aben Ezra interprets it of some disease of the body, which weakens it, as the leprosy, from the signification of the word, which has some affinity with that used for the leprosy; and so the Arabic version understands it of a disease: or rather, the words are to be taken literally, for hornets, which are a sort of wasps, whose stings are very penetrating and venomous; nor is it any strange or unheard of thing for people to be drove out of their countries by small animals, as mice, flies, bees and particularly Aelianus ^F17 relates, that the Phaselites were drove out of their country by wasps: and Bochart

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FOOTNOTES:

F18 has shown that those people were of a Phoenician original, and inhabited the mountains of Solymi; and that this happened to them about the times of Joshua, and so may probably be the very Canaanites here mentioned, as follow: the wasps, in Aristophanes's comedy which bears that name, are introduced speaking of themselves, and say, no creature when provoked is more angry and troublesome than we are ^F19:

which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from
before thee;
which three are mentioned instead of the rest, or because they were more especially infested and distressed with the hornets, and drove out of their land by means of them.

F17 Hist. Animal. l. 11. c. 28.
F18 Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 4. c. 13. col. 541.
F19 Aristoph. Vespae, p. 510.

Exodus 23:28 In-Context

26 and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.

27 “I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run.

28 I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way.

29 But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you.

30 Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.

Cross References

• 1. Deuteronomy 7:20; Joshua 24:12
• 2. Exodus 33:2; Exodus 34:11,24; Numbers 13:29; Deuteronomy 4:38; Deuteronomy 11:23; Deuteronomy 18:12; Joshua 3:10; Joshua 24:11; Psalms 78:55