17 and I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey."'
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
And I have said. By this expression God reminds us that he in his secret counsel determines what he will do, and therefore that we must put a restraint on our desires, which otherwise press forward too fast, and let him freely and voluntarily appoint what he knows to be best to be done; not because he has need of taking time to deliberate, but that we may learn to depend on his providence. By this decree the children of Israel were assured that the end of their woes was near, because there is nothing which can prevent God from performing his work. But he speaks briefly, as of a thing well known; because what had been handed down through the patriarchs, as to their future deliverance, was not entirely forgotten. He enumerates several nations whose lands He would give them, that he might thus the more attract them to come forth. With the same object he affirms that the whole country flows "with milk and honey," lest its barrenness should alarm them, because famine had driven their fathers out from thence. But although the land of Canaan was naturally fertile, there is no doubt but that its fruitfulness chiefly arose from the blessing of God. The conclusion is, that a spacious dwelling-place is prepared for them, since for their sake God will drive out many nations, that they may possess the habitations of them all; and that, finally, they need not fear want, because God will abundantly supply them with food, as if the whole of that land were filled with rivers of milk and honey.
And I have said,.... Within himself, resolved in his own mind, and had declared it to Moses:
I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt: with which they were afflicted in Egypt, and by the Egyptians; this he both purposed and promised to bring them out of: unto the land of the Canaanites, &c. then in the possession of the Canaanites, and others after named; See Gill on Exodus 3:8.
*More commentary available at chapter level.