When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, and casts out many nations before you—the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite—seven nations greater and mightier than you;
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 1. Destroyed. So the Vulgate often expresses the Hebrew term, which signifies, “to cast out.”—Seven. Ten are mentioned, Genesis 15:9.; but some of the less powerful nations were either mixed with the others, or were exterminated. The Hevites are omitted in the passage of Genesis, and sometimes no notice is taken of the Gergezite or the Pherezite. The latter had been already conquered by Moses, as well as the Raphaim and Amorrhites, over whom Og and Sehon ruled. Calmet. 3:5. Calmet.—It seems, however, that some of the same nations, on the other side of the Jordan, remained to be subdued, and that any one of them was naturally too strong for the Hebrews, verse 7. Hence the latter might be convinced, that their victories were to be attributed to God.