Numbers 33:55, commentary and pictures

The warning is that if Israel failed to drive out the inhabitants of the land, those allowed to remain would stay among them as a persistent source of affliction and vexation where Israel lived, like pricks in the eyes and thorns in the sides, whose idolatrous influence would estrange Israel from God. The command carried a promise that the warfare was the Lord's, and that obedience to His commandments would bring victory and ever larger territory, so that wherever they built houses and cultivated the land businesses would be established, they would lend and not borrow from neighbors, they would grow into a great and powerful people, the knowledge of God would be made known, and the abominable practices of the heathen would be banished. Israel failed through partial obedience, choosing ease and self-indulgence, letting slip its opportunities to complete the conquest, and stopping halfway.

The people worked half by the Lord's plan and half by their own convenience, pleading that it was more advantageous and cheaper to remain a consolidated company for defense against attack. The warning was fulfilled when for many generations the remnant of the idolatrous peoples harassed, afflicted, and oppressed Israel. Leaving the peoples in place led to mingling among the heathen, learning their works, and intermarrying with them, so that idolatry spread even to child sacrifice and kindled the Lord's wrath, with Israel following the same course that had brought judgment on Canaan. Association with the heathen also led to indulgence of appetite and passion that lessened physical strength and enfeebled mental and moral powers, separating Israel from God, removing His strength, and bringing them into subjection to the very nations they might through God have subdued.

The same command means God's work today must not remain concentrated with means and advantages spent in only a few places, but must be more equally distributed with provision for many unworked portions of the vineyard, lest it bear little and continually less fruit and disappoint Christ who gave His life for the world. Leaving unsuitable people close when they should be kept at a distance brings continual irritation, vexation, and weakened moral strength to God's workers, as shown in settling families beside the school at Cooranbong. Families located right on the ground near the school, near its water, boats, carts, wagons, and horses, cause severe difficulty by breaking and injuring property the school must pay to repair, showing a grasping and exacting spirit that expects favors without mutual obligation, creating constant friction and mutual complaint between families and children, and going away to talk and fill the churches with suspicion and distrust when they are not favored.

It therefore requires reserving a large space of land without settlement near the school, locating families at some distance on the school land but not in its shadow, and bringing in only good families who add moral strength to the workers.