We will be concluding Chapter 23 today and are in a section of Scripture dealing with some of the promises the Lord made to Israel and with some of the things Israel must do to receive these blessings.
"Worship the Lord your God, and His blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span." (Exodus 23:25-26) If the people will place God first in their hearts, and if they make Him their only God, He will bless every aspect of their lives. He repeats this promise in more detail in Deuteronomy 28:1-6, saying, "If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all His commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock---the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out."
In order to move the Israelites into the promised land, the Lord has to drive the current inhabitants out, so He says to the people, "I will send My terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way." (Exodus 23:27-28) Whether the use of the word "hornets" is literal or symbolic we do not know. I consulted several commentaries and didn't glean much from them except one reference to Joshua 24 in which the Lord said to Israel, "Then you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The citizens of Jericho fought against you, as did also the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites, but I gave them into your hands. I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you---also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant." (Joshua 24:11-13) The Israelites did literally fight many battles but the Lord is saying that without His help they would not have been victorious. It wasn't their own might that gained them the land; it was the Lord's might. If He had not fought on their side they would have been unable to overpower the fierce tribes of the land. So whether or not any tribes of the promised land were put on the move and thrown into confusion by actual swarms of hornets we cannot say, but either way the Lord is reminding the Israelites that without Him they could not have taken over the land.
The tribes in the promised land are idolatrous pagans. They have been given hundreds of years to repent of turning away from the Lord and they have not. Their religious rites involve all sorts of sin and uncleanness. Some of these people even worship the false god Molech, to whom at times they would sacrifice children. The Lord, in His wisdom and righteousness has decided these people's time in the promised land is up. He's had enough of their wickedness and He's going to uproot them and plant the Israelites in their place. The Lord has the right to judge wickedness, to pass judgment on sin, to take the promised land from those He deems unworthy of its blessings, and to bestow the blessings of the land upon whomever He pleases. If He felt it was the right thing to do to drive the heathens from the promised land and put Israel in their place, then it was the right thing to do.
But the Lord won't uproot the pagan tribes all at once or else the fields and vineyards and groves will become overgrown quickly and the wild animals will take over the villages and cities. Then He could not say, as He will in the book of Joshua, "I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant." The Israelites need to conquer the land a little at a time so that the unconquered portions will continue to be cultivated by the current inhabitants until the Lord puts more and more territory into Israelite hands. "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. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land." (Exodus 23:29-30) The Lord has promised them a land flowing with milk and honey and that's exactly what He's going to give them, but giving all of it to them too fast would end up being a curse rather than a blessing. It would be too much for them. They are not yet large enough in number to inhabit the entire promised land and keep it cultivated. But while He's driving out the current occupants of the promised land little by little, He'll be fulfilling verse 26 of our study today in which He promises that none of their people and none of their animals will miscarry or be barren. He will be increasing their numbers daily---their human numbers and their animal numbers---so they can fill the entire land when the time comes.
"I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give into your hands the people that live in the land, and you will drive them out before you." (Exodus 23:31) In Deuteronomy 23:7 He describes the driving out like this: "The Lord will grant that the enemies that rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven." This is because, as He promised in verse 27 of today's passage, He will "send My terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter". The image of having an army coming, as one group, toward Israel from one direction but fleeing from Israel in seven directions is an image of terror and confusion. It means the enemy army broke ranks and fled in a panic. It means the enemy soldiers can't think clearly enough to even stay together but instead each of them is filled with so much dread that he says, "It's every man for himself!"
But the promises of today's passage depend on Israel remaining faithful to the Lord and to His commandments and laws. The promises depend on the people not falling into idolatry. The Lord warns them they must drive the tribes from the promised land completely. They are not to live side by side with them. They are not to intermarry with them. They are not to socialize with them or make them their friends or business partners. If they do these things they will be drawn into their sinful lifestyles and idolatrous religions. "Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods. Do not let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against Me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you." (Exodus 23:32,33) When reiterating the many promises and requirements of today's chapter, the Lord will say in Deuteronomy 23:13-14, "The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them."
If we give first place in our hearts to anyone or anything but the Lord, we are going to miss out on some of the blessings that could have been ours as the children of God. Like any good father, the Lord wants to bless us abundantly. He wants us to possess and enjoy everything that's available to the sons and daughters of the living God, but to bless sin and disobedience would be to encourage wrong behavior. And like any good and responsible father, He can't encourage wrong behavior. He's not promising us we'll never have difficulties in life if we'll do a better job of obeying Him, but it's a fact that we reap what we sow. (Galatians 6:7) If we sow sin and irresponsible living into the soil of our lives, we're going to reap the unpleasant natural consequences of our actions and we'll reap God's correction if we don't repent and get back on the right path. Living in disobedience to the Lord is never going to produce blessings. Sin may be enjoyable for a season (Hebrews 11:25) and sin may even be financially profitable for a time in this fallen world, but living on the wrong side of God will never produce anything good in the long run.
As long as we live on this earth we are going to encounter hardships from time to time. But I'd far rather deal with hardships while living smack dab in the middle of God's will than to deal with the hardships of this world along with hardships of my own making. The Lord is presenting Israel with a choice in today's passage. They can remain faithful to Him and deal with the hardships of life with Him on their side. Or they can stray from Him and deal with the hardships of this life, and the hardships of their own making, alone.
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