And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And I am come down to deliver them - This is the very purpose for which I am now come down upon this mountain, and for which I manifest myself to thee.
Large - land - Canaan, when compared with the small tract of Goshen, in which they were now situated, and where, we learn, from Exodus 1:7, they were straitened for room, might be well called a large land. See a fine description of this land Deuteronomy 8:7.
A land flowing with milk and honey - Excellent for pasturage, because abounding in the most wholesome herbage and flowers; and from the latter an abundance of wild honey was collected by the bees. Though cultivation is now almost entirely neglected in this land, because of the badness of the government and the scantiness of the inhabitants, yet it is still good for pasturage, and yields an abundance of honey. The terms used in the text to express the fertility of this land, are commonly used by ancient authors on similar subjects. It is a metaphor taken from a breast producing copious streams of milk. Homer calls Argos ουθαρ αρουρης, the breast of the country, as affording streams of milk and honey, Il. ix., ver. 141. So Virgil:
Prima tulit tellus, eadem vos ubere laeto Accipiet.
Aen., lib. iii., ver. 95.
"The land that first produced you shall receive you again into its joyous bosom." The poets feign that Bacchus, the fable of whom they have taken from the history of Moses, produced rivers of milk and honey, of water and wine: -
Ῥει δε γαλακτι πεδον,
Ῥει δ' οινῳ, ῥει δε μελισσαν
Νεκταρι.
Eurip. Bacch., Εποδ., ver. 8.
"The land flows with milk; it flows also with wine; it flows also with the nectar of bees, (honey)." This seems to be a mere poetical copy from the Pentateuch, where the sameness of the metaphor and the correspondence of the descriptions are obvious.
Place of the Canaanites, etc. - See Genesis 15:18, etc.