Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 8. And I am come down to deliver them] This is the very purpose for which I am now come down upon this mountain, and for which I manifest myself to thee.
Large-land] Canaan, when compared with the small tract of Goshen, in which they were now situated, and where, we learn, from chap. i. 7, they were straitened for room, might be well called a large land. See a fine description of this land Deut. viii. 7.
A land flowing with milk and honey] Excellent for pasturage, because abounding in the most wholesome herbage and flowers; and from the latter an abundance of wild honey was collected by the bees. Though cultivation is now almost entirely neglected in this land, because of the badness of the government and the scantiness of the inhabitants, yet it is still good for pasturage, and yields an abundance of honey. The terms used in the text to express the fertility of this land, are commonly used by ancient authors on similar subjects. It is a metaphor taken from a breast producing copious streams of milk. Homer calls Argos ouqar arourhv, the breast of the country, as affording streams of milk and honey, Il. ix., ver. 141. So Virgil: Prima tulit tellus, eadem vos ubere laeto Accipiet.AEn., lib. iii., ver. 95.
"The land that first produced you shall receive you again into its joyous bosom." The poets feign that Bacchus, the fable of whom they have taken from the history of Moses, produced rivers of milk and honey, of water and wine: - Æpei de galakti pedon, Æpei dÆ oinw, pei de melissan nektari.EURIP. Bacch., epod., ver. 8.
"The land flows with milk; it flows also with wine; it flows also with the nectar of bees, (honey.)" This seems to be a mere poetical copy from the Pentateuch, where the sameness of the metaphor and the correspondence of the descriptions are obvious.Place of the Canaanites, &c.] See Gen. xv. 18, &c.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 7-10 - God notices the afflictions of Israel. Their sorrows; even the secre sorrows of God's people are known to him. Their cry; God hears the cries of his afflicted people. The oppression they endured; the highes and greatest of their oppressors are not above him. God promises speed deliverance by methods out of the common ways of providence. Those who God, by his grace, delivers out of a spiritual Egypt, he will bring to a heavenly Canaan. (Ex 3:11-15)
Original Hebrew וארד3381 להצילו5337 מיד3027 מצרים4713 ולהעלתו5927 מן4480 הארץ776 ההוא1931 אל413 ארץ776 טובה2896 ורחבה7342 אל413 ארץ776 זבת2100 חלב2461 ודבשׁ1706 אל413 מקום4725 הכנעני3669 והחתי2850 והאמרי567 והפרזי6522 והחוי2340 והיבוסי׃2983
