Nevertheless even those thou sparedst as men, and didst send wasps, forerunners of thine host, to destroy them by little and little.
Read Chapter 12
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
"I will send hornets ahead of you, and they will drive out from your presence the Hivites, the Canaanites and the Hittites." We ask ourselves what these hornets might mean. God in fact makes this promise, and the book of Wisdom affirms that it occurred, saying, "And he sent them wasps as the vanguard of his army." But we do not find it written that this took place, neither in the time of Moses, nor under Joshua, nor under the judges nor under the kings. But perhaps these wasps indicate the sting of the fear of understanding that prodded the peoples mentioned so that they would leave their land to the children of Israel. God in fact speaks, and if something is said figuratively in his words that did not take place in the proper sense, this does not preclude putting faith in the account, from which one perceives the truth of the narration. Likewise, neither does the Gospel account lose its historicity if something is said there about Christ in a figurative sense. - "Questions on the Heptateuch 2.93"
