III. He divided the land of Canaan to his people Israel, and expelled the heathen from before them (v. 6): He stood, and measured the earth, measured that land, to assign it for an inheritance to Israel his people, Deut. xxxii. 8, 9. He beheld, and drove asunder the nations that were in possession of it; though they combined together against Israel, God dispersed and discomfited them before Israel. Or he exerted such a mighty power as was enough to shake in pieces all the nations of the earth. Then the everlasting mountains were scattered, and the perpetual hills did bow; the mighty princes and potentates of Canaan, that seemed as high, as strong, and as firmly fixed, as the mountains and hills, were broken to pieces; they and their kingdoms were totally subdued. Or the power of God was so exerted as to shake the mountains and hills; nay, and Sinai did tremble, and the adjacent hills; see Ps. lxviii. 7, 8. To this he adds, His ways are everlasting, that is, all the motions of his providence are according to his eternal counsels; and he is the same for ever, that which he was yesterday and to-day. His covenant is unchangeable, and his mercy endures for ever. When he drove asunder the nations of Canaan one might have seen the tents of Cushan in affliction, the curtains of the land of Midian trembling, and all the inhabitants of the neighbouring countries taking the alarm; and though they were not in the commission given to Israel to destroy, nor their land within the warrant given to Israel to possess, yet they thought their own house in danger when their neighbour's house was on fire, and therefore they were in a great fright, v. 7. Balak the king of Moab was so, Num. xxii. 3, 4. Some make the tents of Cushan to be in affliction when, in the days of judge Othniel, God delivered Cushan-rishathaim into his hand (Judg. iii. 8), and the curtains of the land of Midian to tremble when, in the days of judge Gideon, a barley cake, in a dream, overthrew the tent of Midian, Judg. vii. 13.
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