Numbers 33 · a question people ask
Did the warning at the end of the chapter come true?
Judges and Kings tell what followed. Judges lists tribes that didn't drive out the land's people: "The children of Benjamin didn’t drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem" (Judges 1:21), and Israel "put the Canaanites to forced labor, and didn’t utterly drive them out" (Judges 1:28). Then the LORD's angel says, "they shall be in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you" (Judges 2:3). Kings says Israel "built high places for themselves in all their cities" (2 Kings 17:9), "and there they burned incense in all the high places, as the nations whom the LORD carried away before them did" (2 Kings 17:11). Kings doesn't cite Numbers 33, but it ends that account, "So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day" (2 Kings 17:23); set it beside "as I thought to do to them, so I will do to you" (33:56). Leviticus had given the same warning with another picture: "that the land not vomit you out also, when you defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you" (Leviticus 18:28).
The verses
““But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those you let remain of them will be like pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will harass you in the land in which you dwell. It shall happen that as I thought to do to them, so I will do to you.””
“The children of Benjamin didn’t drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem, but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.”
“Manasseh didn’t drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shean and its towns, nor Taanach and its towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and its towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and its towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and its towns; but the Canaanites would dwell in that land. When Israel had grown strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, and didn’t utterly drive them out.”
“The LORD’s angel came up from Gilgal to Bochim. He said, “I brought you out of Egypt, and have brought you to the land which I swore to give your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you. You shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall break down their altars.’ But you have not listened to my voice. Why have you done this? Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.’””