Exodus Chapter 23 verse 29 Holy Bible
I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against thee.
read chapter 23 in ASV
I will not send them all out in one year, for fear that their land may become waste, and the beasts of the field be increased overmuch against you.
read chapter 23 in BBE
I will not drive them out from before thee in one year: lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.
read chapter 23 in DARBY
I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.
read chapter 23 in KJV
I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land should become desolate, and the beast of the field should multiply against thee.
read chapter 23 in WBT
I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you.
read chapter 23 in WEB
I cast them not out from before thee in one year, lest the land be a desolation, and the beast of the field hath multiplied against thee;
read chapter 23 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 29. - I will not drive them out from before thee in one year. The Divine action is for the most part "slack, as men count slackness" - it is not hasty, spasmodic, precipitate, as human action is too often. Men are impatient; God is strangely, wonderfully patient. He would not drive out the Canaanitish nations all at once - 1. Lest the land should become desolate, there being an insufficient population to keep down the weeds and maintain the tillage; and 2. Lest the beast of the field should multiply so as to become a danger to the new-comers. It is related that when the kingdom of Samaria was depopulated by the removal of the Ten Tribes, there was a great increase of lions, which preyed upon the scanty remnant left (2 Kings 17:25). Even in France, after the Franco-German war, it was found that in many districts wolves increased. A third reason why the nations were not subdued all at once, not mentioned here, is touched in Judges 2:21-23 - "The Lord left those nations, without driving them out hastily, that through them he might prove Israel, whether they would keep the way of the Lord to walk therein, or not."
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(29) The beast of the field.--Comp. 2Kings 17:25-26, where we find that this result followed the deportation of the Samaritans by the Assyrians.
