Exodus 23:28 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Hornets, properly so called, as may be gathered from Joshua 24:12 Deuteronomy 7:20. Hornets are of themselves very troublesome and mischievous; but these it is very probable were like those Egyptian flies, Exodus 8:21, of an extraordinary bigness and perniciousness. Nor is it strange that such creatures did drive many of these people from their habitations; for many heathen writers give us instances of some people driven from their seats by frogs, others by mice, others by bees and wasps; of which see Herodotus, Diodorus, Pliny, Elian, Justin, &c. He names these three people, either for all the rest, because they were the most potent about the time of Israel's first entrance into Canaan, and gave them most trouble; or because these three were more infested with hornets than the other nations, as being more numerous and dangerous.