Exodus 23 "I'll send my terror"

seekeroftruth

Well-Known Member
Exodus 23:27 “I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. 28 I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. 29 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. 30 Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.​

This is the comment from easy English this morning.

The news that the Israelites were coming would frighten the local people (Joshua 2:11). The fierce insects can give painful stings. And sometimes they can cause death when they sting people. This is probably a description of a powerful army. The fierce insects may be like the Egyptians. Their attacks were making the nations in the country called Canaan very weak. So they would be preparing the way. Then the Israelites would be able to defeat those nations completely.

Verses 29-30 give the reason why the Israelites advanced slowly into the country called Canaan. If the country became empty with no people there, then wild animals would live there. This happened hundreds of years later when King Nebuchadnezzar’s army defeated the Israelites. They took the Israelites to another country. Then the people called Samaritans came to live in the Israelite’s country. They found lions there (2 Kings 17:25). In Judges 2:20 – 3:4 we read about another reason. If the Israelites did not obey God’s instructions, then they would not win battles. Also, if the Israelites advanced slowly, it would teach them how to fight.

I read that some thought the Super Hornet Jet Fighter [Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet] deployed over the Persian Gulf was a sign of the end times.

The GodVine commentary has something to add on the matter.

I will send hornets before thee - הצרעה hatstsirah. The root is not found in Hebrew, but it may be the same with the Arabic saraa, to lay prostrate, to strike down; the hornet, probably so called from the destruction occasioned by the violence of its sting. The hornet, in natural history, belongs to the species crabro, of the genus vespa or wasp; it is a most voracious insect, and is exceedingly strong for its size, which is generally an inch in length, though I have seen some an inch and a half long, and so strong that, having caught one in a small pair of forceps, it repeatedly escaped by using violent contortions, so that at last I was obliged to abandon all hopes of securing it alive, which I wished to have done. How distressing and destructive a multitude of these might be, any person may conjecture; even the bees of one hive would be sufficient to sting a thousand men to madness, but how much worse must wasps and hornets be! No armor, no weapons, could avail against these. A few thousands of them would be quite sufficient to throw the best disciplined army into confusion and rout. From Joshua 24:12, we find that two kings of the Amorites were actually driven out of the land by these hornets, so that the Israelites were not obliged to use either sword or bow in the conquest.​

On my back deck in Maryland, there were a couple of bee hives. They liked the flowers at my house. I had dogwood and holly. They also hid in the bushes around my deck where I use to smoke. They would buzz me once in a while. I admit, at first I was afraid of them but we got use to each other.

Likewise, I lived in Virginia Beach, VA near Oceana Naval Air Station. We moved there first when I was a teen. The Navy was just beginning to break the sound barrier. That was before the Navy agreed to go out over the ocean to break the sound barrier. Still the jets were very loud to the newbi from New London, Conn. The noise from those fighter jets was deafening at first. Then I learned what it was and rarely heard it.

:coffee:
 
Last edited:
Top