I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you.
Three gracious promises are here made to Israel, to engage them to their duty and encourage them in it; and each of the promises has some needful precepts and cautions joined to it. I. It is here promised that they should be guided and kept in their way through the wilderness to the land of promise: Behold, I send an angel before thee (Exo 23:20)...
Commenting on Exodus 23:20-33
And I will set thy bounds,.... The bounds of the land of Canaan, which in process of time it should reach unto, though not at once, not until the times of David and Solomon, Sa2 8:1 which bounds were as follow: from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines: the Red sea was the boundary eastward, as the sea of the Philistines...
I will not drive . . . out . . . in one year; lest the land become desolate--Many reasons recommend a gradual extirpation of the former inhabitants of Canaan. But only one is here specified--the danger lest, in the unoccupied grounds, wild beasts should inconveniently multiply; a clear proof that the promised land was more than sufficient to contain the actual population of the Israelites. Next: Exodus Chapter 24