Exodus 23:30-33

23:30 Little by little ¹  I will drive them out before you, until you become fruitful and inherit the land. 23:31 I will set ²  your boundaries from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River, ³  for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.

23:32 “You must make no covenant with them or with their gods. 23:33 They must not live in your land, lest they make you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare ⁴  to you.”

[23:30]  ¹ tn The repetition expresses an exceptional or super-fine quality (see GKC 396 §123.e).

[23:31]  ² tn The form is a perfect tense with vav consecutive.

[23:31]  ³ 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.

[23:33]  ⁴ tn The idea of the “snare” is to lure them to judgment; God is apparently warning about contact with the Canaanites, either in worship or in business. They were very syncretistic, and so it would be dangerous to settle among them.