50 God spoke to Moses on the Plains of Moab at Jordan-Jericho: 51 "Tell the People of Israel, When you cross the Jordan into the country of Canaan, 52 drive out the native population before you, destroy their carved idols, destroy their cast images, level their worship-mounds 53 so that you take over the land and make yourself at home in it; I've given it to you. It's yours. 54 "Divide up the land by lot according to the size of your clans: Large clans will get large tracts of land, small clans will get smaller tracts of land. However the lot falls, that's it. Divide it up according to your ancestral tribes. 55 "But if you don't drive out the native population, everyone you let stay there will become a cinder in your eye and a splinter in your foot. They'll give you endless trouble right in your own backyards. 56 And I'll start treating you the way I planned to treat them."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Numbers 33:50-56
Commentary on Numbers 33:50-56
(Read Numbers 33:50-56)
Now that they were to pass over Jordan, they were entering again into temptation to follow idols; and they are threatened that, if they spared either the idols or the idolaters, their sin would certainly be their punishment. They would foster vipers in their own bosoms. The remnant of the Canaanites, if they made any peace with them, though but for a time, would be pricks in their eyes, and thorns in their sides. We must expect trouble and affliction from whatever sin we indulge; that which we are willing should tempt us, will vex us. It was intended that the Canaanites should be put out of the land; but if the Israelites learned their wicked ways, they also would be put out. Let us hear this and fear. If we do not drive out sin, sin will drive us out. If we are not the death of our lusts, our lusts will be the death of our souls.