Conquest of Canaan Promised (Exodus 23:20-33)

[This section reminds the Israelites who they are and where they are going in the midst of receiving the stipulations of their covenant with God.]

20 “Behold, I send an angel [The Angel of the Lord/the angel who is Yahweh] before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. [God isn’t merely making Israel his people; he is giving them a place—his kingdom.] 21 Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him. [Who is this angel? No rebellion against God will be tolerated. In the New Covenant the name of God is ultimately borne by his people. See Revelation 3:12 and 22:4.]

22 “But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. [The angel and Yahweh are one in the same. Only by total obedience would God do their fighting for them according to the expectations of biblical holy war. Yet human imperfection is not difficult to predict, and in effect there is a need for divine grace created implicitly by such demands, a grace that allows for complete forgiveness and God’s presence among them.]

23 “When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out [God is willing to exterminate the various Canaanite groups whose doom was announced in Gen. 15:16], 24 you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. [Two demands are made: first, do not worship the gods you will encounter; and second, the people must destroy both idols and sacred stones completely.] 25 You shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you. 26 None shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. [Proper worship will result in an abundance of food and rain, good health, fertility, and long life. How many of us associate these blessings today with worship?] 27 I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. 28 And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. [God guarantees military victory.] 29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land. [God has a plan that makes sense.] 31 And I will set your border from the Red Sea [the Gulf of Aqaba at its extreme northern shore] to the Sea of the Philistines [the Mediterranean], and from the wilderness [the Negev] to the Euphrates [also known as the River], for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. 32 You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. 33 They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.” [Both the people of Canaan and their religion must be exterminated. Eliminating one while keeping the other would not be tolerated by God because it would lead his people into sin. The land will be Israel’s, not its former occupants. The landlord is throwing them out!]