(24) But I have said unto you.--That is, promised to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and also to you, that he would expel the Canaanites, and give the land to the Israelites as an inheritance.
Verses 24-26. - The Israelites are to avoid all defilement, moral and ceremonial, because they are God's own possession, separated from other people, and holy unto him.
20:10-27 These verses repeat what had been said before, but it was needful there should be line upon line. What praises we owe to God that he has taught the evil of sin, and the sure way of deliverance from it! May we have grace to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things; may we have no fellowship with unfruitful works of darkness, but reprove them.
But I have said unto you, ye shall inherit the land,.... Promised it unto them, as he had to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and also to them; or he had said the above things unto them, that they, observing them, might possess the land of Canaan, and continue therein, which is the sense of the Targum of Jonathan: the Jews say, that the right of inheritance belonged to them, from Shem the son of Noah, whose portion it was, and which they gather from Melchizedek being king of Salem, whom they take to be Shem; and they say, the Canaanites only dwelt in it to make it better, till they should come and inherit it:
and I will give it unto you to possess it; in whose gift it was, and who had a right to dispose of it; and could give them a good title to it, and secure them in the possession of it:
a land that floweth with milk and honey; abounding with all good things, with all the comforts of life, with everything both for necessity and delight; see Exodus 3:8,
I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people; had chosen them above all people, to be a special and peculiar people to him; had distinguished them by his favours, and had given them particular laws and ordinances, to observe and walk according to them, different from all other nations, which it became them carefully to regard.
and I will give it unto you to possess it; in whose gift it was, and who had a right to dispose of it; and could give them a good title to it, and secure them in the possession of it:
a land that floweth with milk and honey; abounding with all good things, with all the comforts of life, with everything both for necessity and delight; see Exodus 3:8,
I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people; had chosen them above all people, to be a special and peculiar people to him; had distinguished them by his favours, and had given them particular laws and ordinances, to observe and walk according to them, different from all other nations, which it became them carefully to regard.