What Does Exodus 23:28 Mean?
And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before you.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.THE KEY
The way opens for the addressed “you” because what is sent ahead drives other peoples out of their place.
THE MEANING
Your path in this verse opens through a force sent ahead, and the text says plainly that the Hivite, Canaanite, and Hittite are driven out from before you. Its movement is not only protection for the addressed “you”; it is the forced removal of other peoples from their place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that every opening is harmless to those already in its way. Here, movement for one “you” entails displacement for others.
THE ROOT
וְגֵרְשָׁה
vegereshah
GROWS FROM
ג־ר־ש
drive out, expel
“drive out” in this verse is vegereshah. This root carries expulsion: it describes people being made to leave, not merely resistance being softened. It appears when Adam is driven out from Eden and in a word for a woman sent away from a marriage; the common thread is separation from a place or bond.
ALSO GROWS
vayegaresh: and he drove out
וַיְגָרֶשׁ
Genesis 3:24 uses the same verb for the expulsion from Eden, showing that this root names a person being removed from a place.
gerushah: a divorced woman; one sent away from a marriage
גְּרוּשָׁה
The same root can name a person sent away from a bond, echoing here the severing of a people’s place in the land.
וְשָׁלַחְתִּי
veshalachti
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ח
send, send forth, release, let go, stretch out the hand
The verse’s “I will send” is an active dispatch: the hornet is sent ahead to act before the “you.” This root can name both a messenger sent out and release, so the wording links the dispatch with the expulsion described by garash.
ALSO GROWS
shaliach: messenger; sent agent
שָׁלִיחַ
The hornets act as agents sent ahead to affect what the addressed person encounters.
Shiloach: Shiloah; a name connected with sending forth
שִׁלֹחַ
John 9:7 explains Siloam as “Sent”; here a sent force produces displacement, showing that the root names the sending while its effect depends on what is sent.
THE PATTERN
A force sent ahead can prepare the way for an arriving person by changing what remains before them.
Look, I send a messenger before you to guard you in the way and to bring you to the place I have established.Moreover the LORD your God will send the hornet among them, until those who are left, and those who hide themselves from you, perish.For this is he, of whom it is written, Look, I send my messenger before your face, who will build your road before you.THE THREAD
Look, I send a messenger before you to guard you in the way and to bring you to the place I have established.This verse uses the same shalach root for sending something before the “you.” In 23:20 the sent messenger is tied to keeping and bringing you into a prepared place; in 23:28 the same movement ahead of you takes the form of hornets that drive people out.
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