Exodus 23:26

Exo 23:26 There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.

Ver. 26. The number of thy days.] Thou shalt die, as Abraham did, with a good hoary head; be satur dierum, as Job; fall as a full ripe apple into the hands of God, the gatherer.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

23:26 Pagan rites were carried out in an attempt to manipulate the forces of fertility and reproduction. God promised to give these gifts freely if the people would faithfully carry out the terms of their covenant with him.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 26. There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren] Hence there must be a very great increase both of men and cattle.

The number of thy days I will fulfil.] Ye shall all live to a good old age, and none die before his time. This is the blessing of the righteous, for wicked men live not out half their days; Ps 55:23.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(26) There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren.—Abortions, untimely births, and barrenness, when they exceeded a certain average amount, were always reckoned in the ancient world among the signs of God’s disfavour, and special expiatory rites were devised for checking them. Conversely, when such misfortunes fell short of the ordinary average, God’s favour was presumed. The promises here made confirm man’s instinctive feeling.

The number of thy days I will fulfil.—Comp. Exo_20:12. Long life is always regarded in Scripture as a blessing. (Comp. Psa_55:23; Psa_90:10; Job_5:26; Job_42:16-17; 1Ki_3:11; Isa_65:20; Eph_6:3, &c.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And I will send hornets before thee,.... Which may be interpreted either figuratively, and so may signify the same as fear before which should fall on the Canaanites upon hearing the Israelites were coming; the stings of their consciences for their sins, terrors of mind, dreading the wrath of the God of Israel, of whom they had heard, and terrible apprehensions of ruin and destruction from the Israelites: Aben Ezra interprets it of some disease of the body, which weakens it, as the leprosy, from the signification of the word, which has some affinity with that used for the leprosy; and so the Arabic version understands it of a disease: or rather, the words are to be taken literally, for hornets, which are a sort of wasps, whose stings are very penetrating and venomous; nor is it any strange or unheard of thing for people to be drove out of their countries by small animals, as mice, flies, bees, &c. and particularly Aelianus (q) relates, that the Phaselites were drove out of their country by wasps: and Bochart (r) has shown that those people were of a Phoenician original, and inhabited the mountains of Solymi; and that this happened to them about the times of Joshua, and so may probably be the very Canaanites here mentioned, as follow: the wasps, in Aristophanes's comedy which bears that name, are introduced speaking of themselves, and say, no creature when provoked is more angry and troublesome than we are (s):

which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee; which three are mentioned instead of the rest, or because they were more especially infested and distressed with the hornets, and drove out of their land by means of them.

(q) Hist. Animal. l. 11. c. 28. (r) Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 4. c. 13. col. 541. (s) Aristoph. Vespae, p. 510.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Fruitless. Hebrew may also be, "miscarrying." --- Days. An untimely death was a judgment of God on the wicked, though sometimes he chooses to draw his elect quickly out of this dangerous world, Wisdom iv. 11.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Here was a double mercy. God gave them strength both to conceive, and to retain the conception till the natural and proper time of bringing forth came.

The number of thy days I will fulfil; I will preserve thee so as thou shalt live as long as the course of nature and temper of thy body will permit, when evil men shall not live out half their days, Psa 55:23.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

There shall nothing out their young, nor be barren in thy land. This blessing could not have followed upon godly living in the way of natural sequence, but only by Divine favor and providential care. It would have rendered them rich in flocks and herds beyond any other nation. The number of thy days I will fulfil. There shall be no premature deaths. All, both men and women, shall reach the term allotted to man, and die in a good old age, having fulfilled their time. Godly living, persisted in for several generations, might, perhaps, produce this result.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The number of thy days I will fulfill - And they shall not be cut off in the midst by untimely deaths. Thus hath godliness the promise of the life that now is.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

General Information:

Yahweh continues telling Moses his laws for the people of Israel.

No woman will be barren or will miscarry her young in your land

This can be stated in positive form. AT: "Every woman will be able to become pregnant and give birth to healthy babies" (See: Double Negatives)

miscarry

to have a pregnancy end early and unexpectedly

hornets

a flying insect that can sting people and cause pain

or the land would become abandoned

"because no one would be living in the land"

translationWords

barren

fear

people group

Hivite

Canaan

Hittite

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

לא תהיה משכלה THERE SHALL NOTHING BE BEREAVED OF YOUNG, if you will act according to My will.

משכלה BEREAVED OF YOUNG — A woman who miscarries or who buries her children at a very early age is called משכלה.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.