So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest fourscore years.
After the division of Canaan a considerable part of each tribe's inheritance still remained in Canaanite possession, and the subduing of Moab with the eighty years of rest stands in that record. It is a deliverance belonging to the wider pattern of Israel's backsliding, oppression, return to God, forgiveness, and deliverance. The Lord left the Canaanites in the land to prove the generation of Israelites who were too young to fight in the days of Joshua. God could easily have removed all the Canaanites, but Israel's development depended on its own effort to drive them out, and without that experience certain essential traits would have been lacking in the character of the younger Israelites. The account thus exemplifies the thorough and effective manner of God's teaching, by which He exalts by His power and none teaches like Him.
After the division of Canaan a considerable part of each tribe's inheritance still remained in Canaanite possession, and the subduing of Moab with the eighty years of rest stands in that record. It is a deliverance belonging to the wider pattern of Israel's backsliding, oppression, return to God, forgiveness, and deliverance. The Lord left the Canaanites in the land to prove the generation of Israelites who were too young to fight in the days of Joshua. God could easily have removed all the Canaanites, but Israel's development depended on its own effort to drive them out, and without that experience certain essential traits would have been lacking in the character of the younger Israelites. The account thus exemplifies the thorough and effective manner of God's teaching, by which He exalts by His power and none teaches like Him.