Exodus 34:11

11 `Observe for thyself that which I am commanding thee to-day: lo, I am casting out from 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 saith, `If, I pray Thee, I have found grace in Thine eyes, O my Lord, let my Lord, I pray Thee, go in our midst (for it [is] a stiff-necked people), and thou hast forgiven our iniquity and our sin, and hast inherited us.'

10 And He saith, `Lo, I am making a covenant: before all thy people I do wonders, which have not been done in all the earth, or in any nation, and all the people in whose midst thou [art] have seen the work of Jehovah, for it [is] fearful that which I am doing with thee.

11 `Observe for thyself that which I am commanding thee to-day: lo, I am casting out from before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite;

12 take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitant of the land into which thou art going, lest it become a snare in thy midst;

13 for their altars ye break down, and their standing pillars ye shiver, and its shrines ye cut down;