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Selected Verse: Exodus 23:20 - King James
Verse |
Translation |
Text |
Ex 23:20 |
King James |
Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way--The communication of these laws, made to Moses and by him rehearsed to the people, was concluded by the addition of many animating promises, intermingled with several solemn warnings that lapses into sin and idolatry would not be tolerated or passed with impunity. |
Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
An Angel - See Exo 3:2, Exo 3:8; Jos 5:13; Isa 63:9. |
The Scofield Bible Commentary, by Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, [1917] |
Angel
(See Scofield) - (Heb 1:4). |
Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
Relation of Jehovah to Israel. - The declaration of the rights conferred by Jehovah upon His people is closed by promises, through which, on the one hand, God insured to the nation the gifts and benefits involved in their rights, and, on the other hand, sought to promote that willingness and love which were indispensable to the fulfilment of the duties incumbent upon every individual in consequence of the rights conferred upon them. These promises secured to the people not only the protection and help of God during their journey through the desert, and in the conquest of Canaan, but also preservation and prosperity when they had taken possession of the land.
Exo 23:20-27
Jehovah would send an angel before them, who should guard them on the way from injury and destruction, and bring them to the place prepared for them, i.e., to Canaan. The name of Jehovah was in this angel (Exo 23:21), that is to say, Jehovah revealed Himself in him; and hence he is called in Exo 33:15-16, the face of Jehovah, because the essential nature of Jehovah was manifested in him. This angel was not a created spirit, therefore, but the manifestation of Jehovah Himself, who went before them in the pillar of cloud and fire, to guide and to defend them (Exo 13:21). But because it was Jehovah who was guiding His people in the person of the angel, He demanded unconditional obedience (Exo 23:21), and if they provoked Him (תּמּר for תּמר, see Exo 13:18) by disobedience, He would not pardon their transgression; but if they followed Him and hearkened to His voice, He would be an enemy to their enemies, and an adversary to their adversaries (Exo 23:22). And when the angel of the Lord had brought them to the Canaanites and exterminated the latter, Israel was still to yield the same obedience, by not serving the gods of the Canaanites, or doing after their works, i.e., by not making any idolatrous images, but destroying them (these works), and smiting to pieces the pillars of their idolatrous worship (מצבת does not mean statues erected as idols, but memorial stones or columns dedicated to idols: see my Comm. on Kg1 14:23), and serving Jehovah alone. Then would He bless them in the land with bountiful provision, health, fruitfulness, and length of life (Exo 23:23-26). "Bread and water" are named, as being the provisions which are indispensable to the maintenance of life, as in Isa 3:1; Isa 30:20; Isa 33:16. The taking away of "sickness" (cf. Exo 15:26) implied the removal of everything that could endanger life. The absence of anything that miscarried, or was barren, insured the continuance and increase of the nation; and the promise that their days should be fulfilled, i.e., that they should not be liable to a premature death (cf. Isa 65:20), was a pledge of their well-being.
Exo 23:27
But the most important thing of all for Israel was the previous conquest of the promised land. And in this God gave it a special promise of His almighty aid. "I will send My fear before thee." This fear was to be the result of the terrible acts of God performed on behalf of Israel, the rumour of which would spread before them and fill their enemies with fear and trembling (cf. Exo 15:14.; Deu 2:26; and Jos 2:11, where the beginning of the fulfilment is described), throwing into confusion and putting to flight every people against whom (בּהם - אשׁר) Israel came. ערף את־איב נתן to give the enemy to the neck, i.e., to cause him to turn his back, or flee (cf. Psa 18:41; Psa 21:13; Jos 7:8, Jos 7:12). אליך: in the direction towards thee.
Exo 23:28
In addition to the fear of God, hornets (הצּרעה construed as a generic word with the collective article), a very large species of wasp, that was greatly dreaded both by man and beast on account of the acuteness of its sting, should come and drive out the Canaanites, of whom three tribes are mentioned instar omnium, from before the Israelites. Although it is true that Aelian (hist. anim. 11, 28) relates that the Phaselians, who dwelt near the Solymites, and therefore probably belonged to the Canaanites, were driven out of their country by wasps, and Bochart (Hieroz. iii. pp. 409ff.) has collected together accounts of different tribes that have been frightened away from their possessions by frogs, mice, and other vermin, "the sending of hornets before the Israelites" is hardly to be taken literally, not only because there is not a word in the book of Joshua about the Canaanites being overcome and exterminated in any such way, but chiefly on account of Jos 24:12, where Joshua says that God sent the hornet before them, and drove out the two kings of the Amorites, referring thereby to their defeat and destruction by the Israelites through the miraculous interposition of God, and thus placing the figurative use of the term hornet beyond the possibility of doubt. These hornets, however, which are very aptly described in Wis. 12:8, on the basis of this passage, as προδρόμους, the pioneers of the army of Jehovah, do not denote merely varii generis mala, as Rosenmller supposes, but acerrimos timoris aculeos, quibus quodammodo volantibus rumoribus pungebantur, ut fugerent (Augustine, quaest. 27 in Jos.). If the fear of God which fell upon the Canaanites threw them into such confusion and helpless despair, that they could not stand before Israel, but turned their backs towards them, the stings of alarm which followed this fear would completely drive them away. Nevertheless God would not drive them away at once, "in one year," lest the land should become a desert for want of men to cultivate it, and the wild beasts should multiply against Israel; in other words, lest the beasts of prey should gain the upper hand and endanger the lives of man and beast (Lev 26:22; Eze 14:15, Eze 14:21), which actually was the case after the carrying away of the ten tribes (Kg2 17:25-26). He would drive them out by degrees (מעט מעט, only used here and in Deu 7:22), until Israel was sufficiently increased to take possession of the land, i.e., to occupy the whole of the country. This promise was so far fulfilled, according to the books of Joshua and Judges, that after the subjugation of the Canaanites in the south and north of the land, when all the kings who fought against Israel had been smitten and slain and their cities captured, the entire land was divided among the tribes of Israel, in order that they might exterminate the remaining Canaanites, and take possession of those portions of the land that had not yet been conquered (Jos 13:1-7). But the different tribes soon became weary of the task of exterminating the Canaanites, and began to enter into alliance with them, and were led astray by them to the worship of idols; whereupon God punished them by withdrawing His assistance, and they were oppressed and humiliated by the Canaanites because of their apostasy from the Lord (Judg 1 and 2).
Exo 23:31-33
The divine promise closes with a general indication of the boundaries of the land, whose inhabitants Jehovah would give up to the Israelites to drive them out, and with a warning against forming alliances with them and their gods, lest they should lead Israel astray to sin, and thus become a snare to it. On the basis of the promise in Gen 15:18, certain grand and prominent points are mentioned, as constituting the boundaries towards both the east and west. On the west the boundary extended from the Red Sea (see Exo 13:18) to the sea of the Philistines, or Mediterranean Sea, the south-eastern shore of which was inhabited by the Philistines; and on the east from the desert, i.e., according to Deu 11:24, the desert of Arabia, to the river (Euphrates). The poetic suffix מו affixed to גּרשׁתּ answers to the elevated oratorical style. Making a covenant with them and their gods would imply the recognition and toleration of them, and, with the sinful tendencies of Israel, would be inevitably followed by the worship of idols. The first כּי in Exo 23:33 signifies if; the second, imo, verily, and serves as an energetic introduction to the apodosis. מוקשׁ, a snare (vid., Exo 10:7); here a clause of destruction, inasmuch as apostasy from God is invariably followed by punishment (Jdg 2:3). |
Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
Behold, I send an angel before thee - The angel of the covenant: Accordingly the Israelites in the wilderness are said to tempt Christ. It is promised that this blessed anger should keep them in the way, though it lay through a wilderness first, and afterwards through their enemies country; and thus Christ has prepared a place for his followers. |
Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
Behold, I send an Angel before thee - Some have thought that this was Moses, others Joshua, because the word מלאך malach signifies an angel or messenger; but as it is said, Exo 23:21, My name is in him, (בקרבו bekirbo, intimately, essentially in him), it is more likely that the great Angel of the Covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ, is meant, in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. We have had already much reason to believe that this glorious personage often appeared in a human form to the patriarchs, etc.; and of him Joshua was a very expressive type, the names Joshua and Jesus, in Hebrew and Greek, being of exactly the same signification, because radically the same, from ישע yasha, he saved, delivered, preserved, or kept safe. Nor does it appear that the description given of the Angel in the text can belong to any other person.
Calmet has referred to a very wonderful comment on these words given by Philo Judaeus De Agricultura, which I shall produce here at full length as it stands in Dr. Mangey's edition, vol. 1., p. 308: Ὡς ποιμην και βασιλευς ὁ Θεος αγει κατα δικην και νομον, προστησαμενος τον ορθον αυτου λογον πρωτογονον υἱον, ὁς την επιμελειαν της ἱερας ταυτης αγελης, οἱα τις μεγαλου βασιλεως ὑπαρχος, διαδεξεται. Και γαρ ειρηται που· Ιδου εγω ειμι, αποστελω αγγελον μον εις προσωπον σου, του φυλαξαι σε εν τῃ ὁδῳ "God, as the Shepherd and King, conducts all things according to law and righteousness, having established over them his right Word, his Only-Begotten Son, who, as the Viceroy of the Great King, takes care of and ministers to this sacred flock. For it is somewhere said, (Exo 23:20), Behold, I Am, and I will send my Angel before thy face, to keep thee in the way."
This is a testimony liable to no suspicion, coming from a person who cannot be supposed to be even friendly to Christianity, nor at all acquainted with that particular doctrine to which his words seem so pointedly to refer. |
9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.
13 And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?
8 And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
2 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
4 Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
3 Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you.
7 And Pharaoh's servants said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God: knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?
33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.
24 Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be.
18 But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea: and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt.
18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:
31 And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.
32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.
1 Now Joshua was old and stricken in years; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.
2 This is the land that yet remaineth: all the borders of the Philistines, and all Geshuri,
3 From Sihor, which is before Egypt, even unto the borders of Ekron northward, which is counted to the Canaanite: five lords of the Philistines; the Gazathites, and the Ashdothites, the Eshkalonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites; also the Avites:
4 From the south, all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that is beside the Sidonians, unto Aphek, to the borders of the Amorites:
5 And the land of the Giblites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrising, from Baalgad under mount Hermon unto the entering into Hamath.
6 All the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephothmaim, and all the Sidonians, them will I drive out from before the children of Israel: only divide thou it by lot unto the Israelites for an inheritance, as I have commanded thee.
7 Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance unto the nine tribes, and the half tribe of Manasseh,
22 And the LORD thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.
25 And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which slew some of them.
26 Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou hast removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God of the land: therefore he hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the God of the land.
21 For thus saith the Lord GOD; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?
15 If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts:
22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.
12 And I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow.
28 And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
12 Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed: neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you.
8 O Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies!
13 Be thou exalted, LORD, in thine own strength: so will we sing and praise thy power.
41 They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.
11 And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.
26 And I sent messengers out of the wilderness of Kedemoth unto Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying,
14 The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina.
27 I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.
20 There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.
26 And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.
16 He shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure.
20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers:
1 For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,
23 For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.
24 Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.
25 And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.
26 There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.
23 For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.
22 But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.
18 But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea: and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt.
21 Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.
21 And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night:
15 And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.
16 For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.
21 Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.
20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
21 Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.
22 But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.
23 For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.
24 Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.
25 And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.
26 There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.
27 I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.
20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
21 Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.