Ye shall - destroy all their pictures - משכיתם maskiyotham, from שחה sachah, to be like, or resemble, either pictures, carved work, or embroidery, as far as these things were employed to exhibit the abominations of idolatry. Molten images צלמי מסכתם tsalmey massechotham, metallic talismanical figures, made under certain constellations, and supposed in consequence to be possessed of some extraordinary influences and virtues.

Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you,.... Not at once, but gradually; and the sense is, that they should use their utmost endeavours wholly to extirpate them:

and destroy all their pictures; their idolatrous ones; the pictures of their gods, or the statues and figured stones of them: the Targum of Jonathan interprets it,"all the temples of their worship;''and the Jerusalem Targum,"all their idols;''so called, as Jarchi notes, because they covered the floor with a pavement of marble stones, to worship upon them by the stretching out of their hands and feet, according to Leviticus 26:1,

and destroy all their molten images; of gold, silver, &c.

and quite pluck down all their high places; their temples, groves, and altars built upon them.

Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their {e} pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:

(e) Which were set up in their high places to worship.

33:52 Drive out - Not by banishing, but by destroying them. Pictures - Which seem to have been stones curiously engraven, and set up for worship. High Places - Chapels, altars, groves, or other means of worship there set up.

33:50-56 Now that they were to pass over Jordan, they were entering again into temptation to follow idols; and they are threatened that, if they spared either the idols or the idolaters, their sin would certainly be their punishment. They would foster vipers in their own bosoms. The remnant of the Canaanites, if they made any peace with them, though but for a time, would be pricks in their eyes, and thorns in their sides. We must expect trouble and affliction from whatever sin we indulge; that which we are willing should tempt us, will vex us. It was intended that the Canaanites should be put out of the land; but if the Israelites learned their wicked ways, they also would be put out. Let us hear this and fear. If we do not drive out sin, sin will drive us out. If we are not the death of our lusts, our lusts will be the death of our souls.