Exodus 23:31

23:31 I will set ¹  your boundaries from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River, ²  for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.

Exodus 34:24

34:24 For I will drive out ³  the nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one will covet ⁴  your land when you go up ⁵  to appear before the Lord your God three times ⁶  in the year.

[23:31]  ¹ tn The form is a perfect tense with vav consecutive.

[23:31]  ² 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.

[34:24]  ³ tn The verb is a Hiphil imperfect of יָרַשׁ (yarash), which means “to possess.” In the causative stem it can mean “dispossess” or “drive out.”

[34:24]  ⁴ sn The verb “covet” means more than desire; it means that some action will be taken to try to acquire the land that is being coveted. It is one thing to envy someone for their land; it is another to be consumed by the desire that stops at nothing to get it (it, not something like it).

[34:24]  ⁵ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct with a preposition and a suffixed subject to form the temporal clause.

[34:24]  ⁶ tn The expression “three times” is an adverbial accusative of time.