Exodus 23:28, commentary and pictures

The verse belongs to the instruction given to Moses on the mount in Exodus 19-24, written in a book, and connected with the promise that God's Angel would lead Israel into Canaan. It was given by Christ Himself, the same Teacher who gave the directions on Mount Sinai and who has spoken in human flesh. God promises to send hornets ahead of Israel to drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before them. This promise belonged to God's covenant blessings and was conditional on Israel's obedience, serving Him alone and rejecting idolatry.

The hornets are part of God's broader assurance that He would go ahead of Israel, aid them in subduing their enemies, make their enemies flee, defeat them, deliver the land's inhabitants into their hands, and make entry into Canaan easier. The nations would not be driven out all at once, but gradually, so the land would not become desolate and wild animals multiply before Israel had grown numerous enough to inherit it. The driving out would proceed in keeping with their obedience. The expulsion was God's judgment on idolatrous nations whose worship had led them into wickedness.

Israel was not to make a covenant with those peoples or their gods, because their presence and worship would become a snare and lead Israel to sin, and was to destroy their idols rather than preserve or revere them. At first the nations were not widely alarmed and had made little preparation to resist, but Israel's delayed advance meant facing alert enemies and large, well-trained armies. The passage does not specifically explain the hornets. The instruction is to be studied and presented before the people in detail and is needed now just as verily as by the children of Israel in the days of Moses. As law guarding against injustice and guiding dealings with one another, it calls for all contention to cease and for loving as brethren with softened and subdued hearts.