Exodus 23:28-31

23:28 I will send ¹  hornets before you that will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite before you. 23:29 I will not drive them out before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild animals ²  multiply against you. 23:30 Little by little ³  I will drive them out before you, until you become fruitful and inherit the land. 23:31 I will set ⁴  your boundaries from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River, ⁵  for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.

¹ tn Heb “and I will send.”

² tn Heb “the beast of the field.”

³ tn The repetition expresses an exceptional or super-fine quality (see GKC 396 §123.e).

⁴ tn The form is a perfect tense with vav consecutive.

⁵ tn In the Hebrew Bible “the River” usually refers to the Euphrates (cf. NASB, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT). There is some thought that it refers to a river Nahr el Kebir between Lebanon and Syria. See further W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:447; and G. W. Buchanan, The Consequences of the Covenant (NovTSup), 91-100.