The Angel, The Hornets, and The Slow Conquest Text: Exodus 23:20-33
Introduction: Covenantal Warfare
We come now to a passage that is dense with theology, rich with promises, and sharp with warnings. It is a passage about conquest, about obedience, and about the absolute necessity of holiness. Modern Christians, particularly those of the sentimental variety, tend to get squeamish around passages like this. They speak of holy war, of annihilation, of driving out entire populations. And so, we are tempted to either skip over them or to allegorize them into a soft, internal battle against our "personal demons." But to do so is to miss the point entirely. God is not a celestial guidance counselor; He is the Lord of Hosts.
This section of Exodus is part of the Book of the Covenant, the specific laws and statutes given to Israel at Sinai. Having laid out the principles of justice and righteousness, God now turns to the practical matter of possessing the land He has promised them. And He makes it abundantly clear that this will not be a secular real estate transaction. It will be a divine conquest. The land is not empty; it is filled with nations steeped in idolatry, sexual perversion, and child sacrifice. Their iniquity is full, and God is using Israel as His instrument of judgment.
But Israel is not to think for a moment that they can accomplish this on their own. Their victory is entirely contingent on their obedience to the covenant and their reliance on the divine agent God sends before them. This passage is a paradigm for all of God's dealings with His people. He promises victory, He provides the means for that victory, and He demands absolute loyalty. There can be no compromise, no syncretism, no friendly treaties with the enemies of God. The choice is stark: obedience and blessing, or rebellion and ruin. This is not just a history lesson about ancient Israel. This is the pattern for the Church's conquest of the world through the gospel. The tactics have changed, but the Commander, the conditions, and the ultimate goal have not.
The Text
"Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to keep you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Keep watch of yourself before him and listen to his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him. But if you truly listen to his voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I will annihilate them. You shall not worship their gods, you shall not serve them, and you shall not do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly pull them down and shatter their sacred pillars in pieces. But you shall serve Yahweh your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst. There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. I will send My terror ahead of you and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. And I will send hornets ahead of you so that they will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. I will not drive them out before you in a single year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take the land as an inheritance. And I will set your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River; for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out from before you. You shall cut no covenant with them or with their gods. They shall not live in your land, lest they make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you."
(Exodus 23:20-33 LSB)
The Divine Messenger (vv. 20-23)
The promise of conquest begins with the promise of a divine guide and protector.
"Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to keep you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared... Keep watch of yourself before him and listen to his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him." (Exodus 23:20-21)
Who is this angel? The text gives us several crucial clues. This is no ordinary, created angel. First, Israel is commanded to "listen to his voice." Second, they are warned not to rebel against him, because he has the authority to pardon transgressions, or not to. This is a divine prerogative. No created angel has the authority to forgive sin. Third, and most decisively, God says, "My name is in him." The name of God, Yahweh, represents His character, His authority, His very being. To say the name of God is "in" this angel is to say that this angel is a full manifestation of God Himself.
This is the Angel of Yahweh, a figure who appears numerous times in the Old Testament, speaking and acting as God. This is a Christophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of the second person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who will lead them, guard them, and bring them into their inheritance. The entire success of their mission depends on their relationship to Him. They must listen to His voice, which is the voice of God. To disobey the Angel is to disobey Yahweh.
The conditionality is stark. "But if you truly listen to his voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries" (v. 22). Notice the shift: listen to "his" voice, and do all that "I" speak. The voice of the Angel is the voice of God. Their obedience is the trigger for God's enmity against their enemies. God does not promise to fight for a rebellious people. He promises to fight for a people who are faithfully following His Son. And the result of this obedience is total victory. "For My angel will go before you... and I will annihilate them" (v. 23). The Angel leads, and Yahweh annihilates. They are one in purpose and power.
The Demand for Absolute Loyalty (vv. 24-26)
The military conquest is inextricably linked to a spiritual and cultural conquest. God demands total separation from the corrupting influences of the Canaanites.
"You shall not worship their gods, you shall not serve them, and you shall not do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly pull them down and shatter their sacred pillars in pieces." (Exodus 23:24 LSB)
This is a command for iconoclasm. There is to be no religious syncretism. Israel is not to simply add Yahweh to the local pantheon. They are to eradicate every trace of pagan worship. The "sacred pillars" were stone monuments, often phallic symbols, central to Canaanite fertility cults. These were not neutral cultural artifacts; they were leprous with idolatry and sexual depravity. God commands a total demolition. You cannot build a holy nation on a foundation of pagan rubble. You must clear the ground completely.
This is a principle that the modern church has forgotten to its shame. We live in an age that prizes tolerance and pluralism above all else. We are told that we must find common ground with unbelief, that we must be winsome by being accommodating. But God commands the opposite. We are to make no peace with idolatry. We are to tear down the strongholds of false worship, not with swords, but with the sledgehammer of the gospel. We are to expose the deeds of darkness and shatter the sacred pillars of our own age: abortion, sexual revolution, materialism, and the worship of the autonomous self.
The contrast is between serving false gods and serving the true God. And the results could not be more different. "But you shall serve Yahweh your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst" (v. 25). Obedience brings covenant blessings. God is concerned with the totality of life, not just the "spiritual" parts. He promises to bless their food, their health, their families. "There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days" (v. 26). These are tangible, earthly blessings that flow from covenant faithfulness. When a nation serves God, He blesses them from the soil up. When a nation rebels, He curses them in the same way.
The Strategy of Gradual Conquest (vv. 27-31)
God then outlines His battle plan. It is a supernatural strategy, but it is also a patient one.
"I will send My terror ahead of you and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come... And I will send hornets ahead of you so that they will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you." (Exodus 23:27-28 LSB)
God promises to do the heavy lifting. He will send His "terror," a supernatural panic, to demoralize the enemy before Israel even arrives. He will send "hornets," which could be literal insects, or it could be a metaphor for a series of small, harassing calamities that weaken the enemy's resolve. Whatever the precise meaning, the point is that the victory belongs to the Lord. He fights for His people.
But this victory will not be instantaneous. "I will not drive them out before you in a single year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take the land as an inheritance" (vv. 29-30). This is a profoundly important principle. God's victories are often gradual. He gives us what we can handle. An immediate, total victory would have left Israel with a vast, empty land they were not yet numerous enough to cultivate and secure. It would have become a wilderness overrun by wild animals.
This is a picture of our own sanctification. God does not make us perfectly holy the moment we are converted. He drives out our sins "little by little," as we grow in grace and become fruitful. It is also a picture of the advance of the kingdom of God in history. This is quintessential postmillennialism. The kingdom advances like leaven in a lump of dough, or a mustard seed growing into a great tree. It is a gradual, organic, but inexorable conquest. We take ground, we build, we become fruitful, and then we take more ground. Three steps forward, two steps back. It is a slow, patient, centuries-long project of driving out the enemy until the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.
God then defines the boundaries of their inheritance, from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, from the desert to the Euphrates River (v. 31). This is the land grant promised to Abraham, a vast territory that Israel, even at the height of its power under Solomon, never fully possessed, because they never fully obeyed.
The Prohibition of Compromise (vv. 32-33)
The passage concludes with a final, absolute prohibition against any form of covenantal compromise.
"You shall cut no covenant with them or with their gods. They shall not live in your land, lest they make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you." (Exodus 23:32-33 LSB)
There can be no treaties, no alliances, no peaceful coexistence. Why? Because shared land leads to shared gods. Fellowship with idolaters leads to idolatry. The Canaanites were not to be allowed to remain in the land as a fifth column, a constant source of temptation. Their very presence would be a "snare." A snare is a trap. It looks harmless, but it is deadly. The allure of pagan worship, with its sexual license and lack of moral absolutes, would be a constant temptation to the fleshly hearts of the Israelites.
The history of Israel is the sad commentary on their failure to heed this warning. They did not drive them out completely. They did make covenants with them. And just as God predicted, it became a snare to them, leading them into centuries of apostasy, judgment, and eventual exile. They wanted to be friends with the world, and they ended up becoming enemies of God.
Conclusion: The Angel and the Snare
This passage sets before us the same choice that was set before Israel. We too have an Angel who goes before us, the Lord Jesus Christ. He has prepared a place for us, a glorious inheritance in a new heavens and a new earth. He has promised to be an enemy to our enemies. He has commanded us to disciple the nations, to tear down the idols of our age, and to establish His righteous rule.
And He has given us the same warning. Do not cut a covenant with the world. Do not make peace with its gods. Do not adopt its practices. The spirit of our age is a Canaanite spirit. It is seductive, it is pervasive, and it is a snare. If we allow it to live in our land, in our homes, in our churches, in our hearts, it will make us sin against God.
The choice is between the Angel and the snare. Will we listen to His voice and obey all that He commands? Will we engage in the slow, patient, generational work of conquest, driving out unbelief little by little, until we are fruitful and possess our inheritance? Or will we grow weary of the fight, make a truce with the enemy, and fall into the trap?
The promise of God is that if we are faithful, He will bless our bread and water. He will grant us fruitfulness. He will give us the victory. The Angel of the Lord is with us. Therefore, let us go forward in His name, without compromise and without fear, until all His enemies are made His footstool.