do not describe what was past, but that future events were foreseen in spirit, and are represented by the use of perfects as being quite as certain as if they had already happened. The singer mentions not only Edom and Moab, but Philistia also, and the inhabitants of Canaan, as enemies who are so paralyzed with terror, as to offer no resistance to the passage of Israel through their territory; whereas the history shows that Edom did oppose their passing through its land, and they were obliged to go round in consequence (Num 20:18.; Deu 2:3, Deu 2:8), whilst Moab attempted to destroy them through the power of Balaam's curse (Num 22:2.); and what the inhabitants of Philistia and Canaan had to fear, was not their passing through, but their conquest of the land.[1]
We learn, however, from Jos 2:9-10 and Jos 9:9, that the report of Israel's miraculous passage through the Red Sea had reached to Canaan, and filled its inhabitants with terror.
verses 17-18
“Thou wilt bring and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance, the place which Thou hast made for Thy dwelling-place, Jehovah, for the sanctuary, Lord, which Thy hands prepared.” On the dagesh dirim. in מקּדשׁ, see Exo 2:3. The futures are not to be taken as expressive of wishes, but as simple predictions, and are not to be twisted into preterites, as they have been by Knobel. The “mountain of Jehovah's inheritance” was not the hill country of Canaan (Deu 3:25), but the mountain which Jehovah had prepared for a sanctuary (Psa 78:54), and chosen as a dwelling-place through the sacrifice of Isaac. The planting of Israel upon this mountain does not signify the introduction of the Israelites into the promised land, but the planting of the people of God in the house of the Lord (Psa 92:14), in the future sanctuary, where Jehovah would perfect His fellowship with His people, and where the people would show themselves by their sacrifices to be the “people of possession,” and would
- ↑ The fact that the inhabitants of Philistia and Canaan are described in the same terms as Edom and Moab, is an unquestionable proof that this song was composed at a time when the command to exterminate the Canaanites had not yet been given, and the boundary of the territory to be captured by the Israelites was not yet fixed; in other words, that it was sung by Moses and the Israelites after the passage through the Red Sea. In the words יעבר עד in Exo 15:16, there is by no means the allusion to, or play upon, the passage through the Jordan, which Knobel introduces.
