28. And I will send hornets. Although that secret terror, of which He had made mention, would be sufficient to put their enemies to flight, He states that there would also be other ready means, to rout them without any danger, or much difficulty to His people. Yet He does not threaten to send great and powerful warriors, but only insects and hornets; as much as to say, that God would be so entirely propitious to His people that He would prepare and arm even the smallest animals to destroy their enemies. (270) Thus is the easiness of their victory shewn; because, without the use of the sword, hornets alone would suffice to rout and exterminate their enemies. He adds, however, an exception, lest the Israelites should complain, if the land should not immediately lie open to them empty and cleared of its old inhabitants; and He reminds them that it would be advantageous to them that He should consume their enemies by degrees. Although, therefore, God might at first sight seem to perform less than He had promised, and thus to retract or diminish somewhat from His grace; yet Moses shews that in this respect also He was considering their welfare, lest the wild beasts should rush in upon the bare and desert land, and prove more troublesome than the enemies themselves. It came to pass indeed, through the people’s slackness, that they were long mixed with their enemies, because they executed with too little energy the vengeance of God; yea, His menace against them by the mouth of Joshua was then fulfilled,
“if ye cleave unto the remnant of these nations, know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land, which the Lord your God hath given you.” (Joshua 23:12.)
The fact, therefore, that it was later and at the end of David’s reign that these wicked and heathen nations were exterminated so as to deliver up to the people the quiet possession of the land, must be attributed to their own fault, since unbelief and ingratitude rendered them inactive, and disposed to indulge their ease. But, if no such inactivity had delayed the fulfillment of the promise, they would have found that the final destruction of the nations by God would have been delayed no longer than was good for them.
(270) Few historical conjectures can be more striking than that of Dr. Hales, quoted in the Illustrated Commentary on Joshua 24:12, who supposes the “arma Jovis,” by which Virgil represents Saturn as having been driven to Italy, to have been the hornets here spoken of, and identifies the fugitive monarch with one of the Amorite kings, expelled before the armies of Joshua.